December 12, 2009
RMS XXIII
Last weekend, Rocky Mountain Semester XXIII went into town for the last time. We all bought last minute Leadville merchandise like Melanzana sweatshirts, Sawatch Mountaineering stickers, touristy clothing, and memorabilia. Rachel hosted a knitting activity this week, and so the people who had signed up for that all busied the yarn store and bought all the essentials to knit their very own hats. Another group of kids went to Doc Holliday's, an old saloon remodeled into a nice grille. They stuffed themselves with burgers, fries, and milkshakes. After an hour and a half everyone was just about ready to get out of the cold and return to HMI, but it was sad leaving knowing that this was the last time we would be in Leadville together.
After getting back in the groove of classes after Thanksgiving break and our last visit to town, we were all ready to do something fun on Saturday night. Since the coffee house we had back in September was so fun, we decided to have a final one before the end of the semester. Everyone was excited, and there were many acts including a song from cabin 2 and cabin 4, and a clever rap from cabin 3. The a
pprentices also performed a song, spun off of the big hit Big Rock Candy Mountain; however, its lyrics all related to the Rocky Mountain Semester. It was awesome. A couple of other big hits were the Barnes' boys (Molly and Christopher's sons), Jack and Porter. Jack (or "Rabbit" as he's known around here) sang a song about fall leaves and took the stage with the confidence of an experienced performer. Meanwhile, Porter performed a series of knock-knock jokes leaving everyone in stitches. Everyone enjoyed singing along and watching the crazy dances and raps; this coffee house will definitely go down in RMS XXIII's memory!
The semester is winding down so classes this past week were a bit hectic. We had projects and tests in almost all of them! In science class on Friday afternoon, we presented our final projects on diff
erent sustainability options, including everything from bio-fuels to local farming. On Thursday, we turned in our English portfolios in which each of us compiled our revised work from this semester's class. Additionally, many of us wrote papers for US history and the AP U.S. history students had a test on Friday. The advanced French class gave a final presentation about the environment, and the intermediate Spanish students shared their observations about "latinidad" (latin influence) in the U.S. Now, the P&P exam is today! As our classes come to a close, there is both a drive to finish all this work and to savor the remaining time we have to
gether as RMS XXIII.
Don't worry though. As always, we made time to have fun this week. Activities offered respite from the challenging workload. Students took part in numerous offerings from making gingerbread houses to knitting to Nordic skiing. Nordic skiing novices donned skis to enjoy the freshly fallen snow, skiing fro
m campus to the nearby golf course where we horsed around in a winter wonderland. Rachel led a knitting activity, which was a big hit. After the activity, students could be found in all locations, from the library to cabins, working on their masterpieces. Now many are sporting sweet new wool hats that they made! In Gingerbread house making, we made elaborate designs out of cardboard first, and then covered them with graham crackers and frosting and candy. The designs ranged from that of a normal house, to one resembling Stonehenge. Towards the end of the gingerbread house making it got pretty crazy, ending with an insane frosting fight that left Alex "Traut" Trautman getting a spatula of frosting to the face. All in all, this was a great last week of activities.
Today we have the P&P exam and the Fun Run (it was cancelled last week due to cold temperatures)! Wish us luck!
By: Cassie Ali, Ian Johnston, Alex "Traut" Trautman, & Chris Chang