beyond the green

Hoo-rah and ga-la are intended to rhyme, in case you were wondering.

With the schedule one week earlier this year, Gala ended up being held on the only Friday night between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break. This early schedule meant the people who see Gala as the prom of Bethel and hold it in very high regard were preparing before Thanksgiving. I didn’t exactly have the time or energy to devote to that kind of preparation, so I ended up wearing the same dress as last year and having 4 dates. The 5 of us had a great time not having to deal with usual date stuff.

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There’s nothing quite like the community formed during your college years. Our mod is blessed to have an awesome guy’s mod right across the deck.  (And no, I’m not just saying that because of the 3 guys from the mod who are in relationships with 3 of our ladies).  They are just great guys.  For Gala their mod came over to ours to travel en mass to Memorial Hall, talking, laughing, and teasing each other all the way.  In the last week we’ve gone to Applebee’s for half-price appetizers, gone to Eric’s house for snacks (his mom provided a feast of snack items), and just plan had fun despite the stress of the last week of classes and finals looming on the horizon.

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“Miriam, go put on a dress!”  (To the modmate standing in the hallway of the mod singing while everyone else was rushing around getting ready)

“Can someone bobypin my hair?”

“Who has the eye shadow?”

“This necklace or the choker?”

“I’m wearing my long underwear under my dress.”

“I ate so much my dress isn’t falling down anymore!” (After the delicious pork loin with orange dressing)

“Good evening, my Dear Fellow.” (From the occupants of one carriage to the other as they passed each other )

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Kicked off last Thursday night with the Tacky Sweater Party, the Christmas season has officially hit Bethel.  Hosted by the Student Activities Committee, the party featured a decorate-your-own-cookie bar, eggnog and milk, student-led classic Christmas tunes and a bad sweater contest.  I arrived at 9:30 and swiped a couple of cookies before they disappeared, then started snapping pictures of all the kitschy-sweater-wearing students that walked in the door.  While students mingled and enjoyed their cookies and drinks, juniors Aaron Rudeen and Renee Reimer entertained with guitar and vocals, complete with interpretative motions.  Once, during the line in “Dashing Through the Snow,” that goes “dashing through the snow/on a one-horse open sleigh/o’er the fields we go/laughing all the way/hahahahahahaha…” they started laughing and couldn’t stop! Eventually the entire room was laughing along with them!  It was a pretty memorable moment.

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My hands felt damp as I smoothed down the brown skirt of my new dress and stepped a foot closer to the stage as another name was read.  I looked around the crowded banquet hall and nervously smiled.  I heard Bethel College announced and Dorothy’s name called.  I’m next, I thought as I took a deep breath and stepped onto the stage, smiling as I accepted my certificate and shook the Kansas commissioner of education’s hand.

This year, Dorothy Voth and I were named Bethel’s two “Teachers of Promise”.  Every year each college in Kansas with an accredited teacher education program gets to name two of their pre-service teachers with this distinction.  We spent a day in Wichita and had a wonderful time.  We attended a workshop for several hours in the morning with the 2011 Teacher of Year Team (this was the 2011 Teacher of the Year as well as the 7 other finalists).  They lead an active workshop on the importance of creativity in the classroom with lots of fun and engaging ideas I hope to try out in the spring as I student teach, and someday in my own classroom.

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