When are the next Olympic Try-outs?

I went snowboarding today. A bunch of my classmates were going, and as this bunch excluded Maria, I was able to borrow her board. Except that's Savi's car sorta blew up and began emitting copious amounts of smoke leading to its towing, the day was great. I am a snowboard fiend.

Holiday Sweater Party

So last night was our holiday sweater party. It was everything we could hope for. We were graced with some homemade decorations from Dee's mother, which were awesome. These included authentic bubble lights and a glowing santa. Dee is looking fabulous in her red turtleneck and silk holiday vest, although no one could top Renee's sweater (well done). We also played "Christmas Carol Charades". I was amazed at how competitive my classmates could get. More accurately, I was amazed at how competitive Julie got - I always knew Renee had it in her. We also enjoyed some tasty apple cider. Because Elise and I don't have a real Christmas tree, Dee made us one out of construction paper. We had everyone help decorate it by drawing on an ornaments with crayons. We completed the night by taking a "family" picture in front of our fake christmas tree.

Substitute Weekend

My good friend Dee happened to be present when I was getting the unfortunate news that my parents would not be coming for the weekend. She took pity on me, and invited me to journey to Colorado Springs to spend the weekend with her and her family. It was amazing. The entire weekend was spent doing exactly what you see here. We watched movies (had an entire Harry Potter marathon), played games (we played four different versions of Scene It, some more than once), and ate. Fabulous. Also affected by the weather, we ended up having to spend another night (no tears were shed). Her family was so nice and caring! I am so grateful for the surrogate family time.

Many Many Tears

Alas, due to the incredibly poor weather, my beloved parents were unable to visit me this weekend as planned. I am so bummed! Better safe than sorry, but I still wish they could have made it out. My only consolation is being able to go home for Christmas in a couple of weeks. They definitely still owe me a trip!

I am a Rock Star

If there is ice in Denver, I will find it. I was recently in a 5 person pile-up, only this time, I didn't total my car. Instead, I just sacrificed all of the skin on my knee. Unfortunately, this skin was slightly below and slightly to the left of every other scar I have on my knee. I think in about two years my knee will be entirely scar tissue.

But anyway - here's what happened. I was at work when a back-up was called. For those of you who don't know, the response to this announcement is for as many staff as possible to come running (and I mean running at full speed) to the location of the back-up, which required traveling outside between buildings. Being a good staff, I immediately took off running when I heard this announcement, as did 5 other staff from my area. This being the first time inclement weather had been present while at work, I was completely oblivious to any thought of ice or how it might effect me. I think you can see where this is going. One after another, four of us completely wiped out on this huge patch of ice. Where was a video camera when you need one? I can only imagine how this looked. And had it been under other circumstances, I probably would have been laughing so hard I would have been crying. I didn't even notice that I had completely ripped my jeans and acquired this awesome souvenir until I got back to my cottage and the back-up was over. This will be scar 2 from this job. Is that normal?

I'd like to think I learned my lesson, but we all know better. I must have quit my adult ballet class one week early. Seriously, it seems like only three posts ago I was telling a similar story.

Thanksgiving

Ah, Thanksgiving. What a great holiday. Here is a small journey into my Thanksgiving experience this year. Start and end with an 8 hour drive. Play "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows" on cd while you stare at this picture for 8 hours at a time and you will have completely captured this experience. However, arriving at your destination makes the drive seem like a distant memory, until you have to turn around and do it again.

I started my holiday in Kansas, where I got to spend time with some of my mod mates. We did some wedding planning, dress shopping, and cake tasting. Good times.

Then my sister and I ditched my brother-in-law and drove to Nebraska. Along with 30 other Bartels, I spent the time eating, sleeping, and playing games.

The cousins made their traditional trek to Lincoln for a movie. This year we saw Enchanted. There are no words for it.

Overall, it was good times. Oh yeah - and I'm done.

Can I Just Be Done?

Although I am done with classes for the next 7 weeks, I still have two papers to finish. . . or make that two papers to begin. I just want to be done!

I had a very interesting week at my field placement. On Tuesday I was able to tour a detention center for immigration law violations. I was only able to gain access to this facility as a guest of RMIAN - the Rocky Mountain Immigration Advocacy Network. They do amazing work with the residents of the detention center, mostly surrounding legal issues. The politics of the detention center and immigration law are too convoluted and charged to get into in a blog, but it was very enlightening to see the facility, the detainees, and learn some of the dynamics surrounding their situation.

Tonight I and some friends are going to a benefit for Prax(us), a not-for profit organizations that serves victims of human trafficking. As far as I know, the night holds live music and some spoken word performances. Should be interesting as well.