March 6, 2010
Last weekend was busy, but a lot of fun. On Saturday night, we all dressed up in crazy outfits and went bowling. We received some confused looks from people in town, but it was definitely worth it. We bowled many gutter balls, some spares, and a few strikes. Some of us may not have been the best bowlers, but th
e whole night was a great time for all of us. The next day, the Leadville Loppett, a local cross-country ski race, took place. We ran an aid station for the skiers, so we all got to see Karl passing everyone on the track, Molly and Porter skiing the 10k together, and Matt, Hannah, and Carrie speeding
through the race. We all enjoyed passing out drinks and snacks and cheering on the skiers as they passed.
Speaking of skiing, this week was Ski Week (not Nordic skiing, but telemark skiing). For those of us who never skied before, it was quite an experience. You might think you know how to move on your own two feet, but strap on a pair of skis and it becomes a lot 
more difficult for some of us. We spent this week sharpening our skills all around. Some of us had to learn how to use the "pizza" and "french fry" while others were mastering their tele turns. The best part of our semester is our ability to be silly. Thursday was dress up day, with guys wearing tights and girls sporting bright colors. Best of all, our instructors came out in chic '80s gear. We all had so much fun from the wipe outs
to hot chocolate to cramped vans that this week was something to remember.
Don't be fooled though - we did not spend last week JUST skiing. Rather, we maintained a full class schedule. In science, we had a very eventful lab involving all of us running through campus scavenging for candy. In the end, it was all very relevant though, as evident in our winter animal adaptation presentations later on in the week. For English class, we just finished up a paper culminating our first unit on Thoreau. The advanced Spanish students even had a chance to visit with a local Latina women's 
empowerment group and practice their knowledge by having conversations with some native speakers. In our P&P classes we took a break from philosophy to focus on our Backcountry Ski Book in preparation for our winter expedition. All in all, we've been keeping very busy academically here at the Rocky Mountain Semester.
Yet, even with all the craziness of ski week and classes, we still had our beloved activity periods. On Monday w
e had two activities. The girls did some special "mystery" activity that they won't tell anyone about. All the guys went outside in two feet of snow and played capture the flag. It was epic. We split the teams up into the right and left sides of the cabins. It ended up being a lot more fun than regular capture the flag because it was so hard to navigate through the snow, and because we made it tackle capture the flag instead of tag capture the flag. Everyone ended up exhausted by the end. Wednesday we there was yoga with Carrie, and dog walking with Sam, where kids went to the local shelter. On Friday, we made some cool duct tape wallets or had an extra study hall to keep up with the classwork!
With the winter expedition fast approaching, we are getting so excited. Today we'll head into Leadville to buy some frozen appetizers (yup, we can bring frozen things on the winter trip J ) and to see some of Leadville's crazy Crystal Carnival complete with dog sledding and skijoring.
By: Ariana King, Colin Lillis, Sydney Blattman, & Clark Sulloway