Katie Named Dodge Ball Legend for J-Term

Katie participated in a J-term PE course called Dodge Ball.  And, she's now the undisputed LEGEND of the class, and has the tee shirt to prove it!  The teams were split several times each class, and the winners got awarded points.  At the end of the class, the person with the most points, thus the most team wins, was awarded the Dodge Ball Legend tee shirt.  This is a coveted tee shirt, or at least, the opportunity to get your own entry in the Team Blog was coveted by Kei$sha, who was also in the class. 

Katie and Kathryn had said how much fun the class was, and invited me to join them, but I kept putting it off.  After confirming with Pete (the instructor) that they often had "guests" in class, I joined in on the last class myself to experience the fun firsthand.  And, FUN it was.  I hadn't played Dodge Ball since middle school, I don't think.  I hadn't laughed and had that much fun in ages!  Thanks for prodding me, guys, and congrats to Katie, the new "Dodge Ball Legend!"

Team Hosts 4v4 Tournament to Honor NESCAC Rival

This J-term, our team hosted a co-ed, 4v4 tournament. The idea was for it to be a lot of fun, but also provide somewhat serious competition, and we decided to do it as a fundraiser, with all entry money going toward an organization of our choice. The team got together, and came up with an MS Organization to honor a NESCAC rival now living with the disease.

We have many different rivalries, but there's been one particular rival that's fueled our fires, so to speak, over the past several years.  This year, that rivalry started out like any other, but at the end of the season, we discovered something about a key leader for this opponent that really hit home for our team.  Suddenly, this competitor became much more than simply a rival, but a comrade in the arms of life.  What we share is so similar, it's just our uniforms that differ.

To Sophia, we are all supporting you from afar!  We'll continue to strive to beat your alma mater, as they will undoubtedly be striving to beat us along with the rest of NESCAC.  Meanwhile, you will be striving to beat this new rival of yours.  MS doesn't know what kind of fierce competitor it's up against in you!  Go get 'em!! 

As for our tournament, we had 11 teams enter, so we raised over $200 for a to-be named MS Organization and the money will be donated on behalf of Sophia.  There was a lot of fun had by all during this day of volleyball, back in January.  In the end, the championship came down to Allie's Angels, and Had 4 Humanity.  Well fought, right to the end, but Allie's Angels pulled it out for the victory...and the free tee shirts!!  Congrats to all that participated in this worthy fundraiser.   We're hoping it can become an annual J-term competition!

Winners in the top picture with their "cool" 1st place tee shirts!!  Hannah's team to the right, in second place.   Everyone on the team chipped in in one way or another, either playing, being the up ref, keeping score, supporting, or even commentating for the finals.  Let's face it, the next best thing to being in the finals, is getting control of the microphone to commentate during the finals! Everyone was there to help out, and Amy was the one senior to participate--and her team made it to the semi-finals! (I think?!)

Next year we may have other fun awards, for things like most spirit, best outfits, best team name, or things like that, but we had a lot of team spirit by all groups, and some great team names, too.  In addition to our top two teams, Christophe had a skier group  ("Snowboard Club") which had my vote for best team outfits; Olivia got some crew members to form a team called "Boat Haus"; and of course, Kathryn's team was called, "Ke$ha's Army!"  In addition, we had "Peary and Co," "Team CALAMITY," "Sets on the Beach," "The Black Panthers," "Ladiez and the Tramp", and finally, "Jogreglottouf;" I think!? These are just some shots of the FUN day!

Happy Birthday, Lizzy!!

We seem to have several birthdays during the season, which is always fun, and then I usually know about them.  Out of the season, I tend to be a little more out of the loop, and I don't always know what happens with other birthdays.  However, not long ago, most of the team got together to celebrate Lizzy's birthday with her, which was a lot of fun!  The team cleans up well.  And, someone (Jordan?!) made this great poster and hung it in her dorm!  :)  Happy Birthday, Lizzy!!

Team Involvement with Special Olympics Has Big Impact on All!

All season, and now into the off-season, several members of our team have been involved with Special Olympics in one way or another.  They've mentored athletes, coached them, and just hung out with them. 

In turn, a couple of the athletes were special fans of ours this season, which was awesome!  Here are a few pictures.  Above we have the "gang" all together.  To the left are our SUPER FANS at one of our games sporting MCVB official jerseys, and below that we have Kathryn with them again on Senior Night.

 Also,  we have pictures and (hopefully) video of Amy playing basketball with the Special Olympic athletes and other MIDD athletes.  It's been a win-win for all involved! 

Making Christmas Cookies!!!

We decided that getting together to make Christmas cookies would be a great study break during Finals Week.  Meg and MJ came out in the morning to help make the cookies, and wave two came in the afternoon to decorate them.  We played Christmas music, had the fire going, and just had a relaxing time rolling out the dough, selecting the cutters, and then baking and decorating the cookies.  And, of course, eating them at every stage along the way.  I always loved eating the raw dough, so I always let my kids (big or small) eat the dough, so we had to taste it along the way in all of it's different stages.

It was also fun seeing them decorate the cookies, and how their choices about that say a lot about who they are.  Meg wanted them to be decorated as they would naturally occur in the world (trees should be green, and candy canes should be red and white), but MJ had more of a "liberal" decoration scheme.  Also, I learned that MJ had never rolled out the dough, or made icing.  So, we let her do it all--everyone should know how to make cookies!!  :)

Then, in the afternoon, the second wave came and we decorated the rest of the batch of cookies, and had fun taking pictures of the creations.  Gabi and Kathryn won the Holiday Spirit with their festive sweaters, but fun was had by all!  And, sugared up and armed with a few cookies to take back with them, they headed back to the college to keep plugging away at the work still left for them.

And, Gabi and Kathryn definitely had the most Holiday spirit with their awesome sweaters!!  Nicely done, ladies!

Poster Presentations by Lizzy, Katie and Kathryn

It is great fun to see players on the team in their academic setting.  I love going on campus and taking part in anything else that the team is up to, whether it's watching them play another sport, performing in a singing concert, play, or musical concert, or listening to them present their thesis, or other academic presentation.  The other night I was invited to Bi-Hall to see what these three have been up to in one of their classes.

Lizzy, Kathryn, and Katie were all in a class that culminated in a Poster Presentation of their projects.  They had combined with another student on the projects, and so two different aspects of similar issues were presented in one poster, and combined to show a common thread, or focus moving forward.  It was fascinating, and all three did a fabulous job with the poster, and with their explanation about it.

Lizzy's dealt with gender roles and resource allocation in the Sudan.  Kathryn evaluated the environmental impacts of surfers, and Katie looked at deforestation and the affects on native peoples primarily in South America.   (I may not be doing them full justice, but I hope these are close summaries?)

They all did a great job with the visual presentation through the posters, and in the verbal explanation of their projects.  It was fun to see, hear, and to read about their projects.  And, those are HUGE posters to print, but very cool presentation.  I'd love to see the printers they use for projects of this size.  Nice job, guys!

Team Celebrates Season with Banquet at Swift House

Thanks to the generosity of some of our parents, we had a fabulous end-of-season banquet at the Swift House Inn.  It was such a lovely setting for our banquet, and the food was amazing.  What a very special environment in which to celebrate our season--THANK YOU!  It's always fun to get together one last time as a whole group because the off-season is often smaller groups, or most people, but not quite everyone.  Plus, Judd and Steve joined us as well, so we really had the whole team!

 All three Sophomores were Academic All-NESCAC, which is awesome!  Well done guys!  Then we took class pictures at the end, but Piper and Olivia had to leave early to take exams, so we didn't get a junior picture, but the other classes are below.

As usual for our group, the focus was on food, and togetherness, but we did have some nice gifts and recognitions to hand out.  We handed out Varsity letters to the freshmen, (yes, the old-fashioned block letter that can be sewn onto a blanket, or something), and several people were honored with a NESCAC certificate for various things including 1st and 2nd Team, All-Sportsmanship, and All-Academic, which is great.  The Team Awards, voted on by the players were the following:  Most Improved went to Gabi; MCVB Spirit went to Kathryn; On-court Contribution went to Lizzy; Off-court Contribution went to Meg.  Then, I always give the seniors a gift, and try to wrap up their careers by recognizing their amazing contributions, which is hard to do because they've given so much over the four years.  It's really a time to celebrate our group together, and to thank the seniors for all they've given all of us over the last four years.  We also recognize our Faculty Affiliate, Steve Oster, our team manager, Charlotte Wright, our trainer Judd Mackey, and Asst. Coach Brian Dunlop for all of their time, effort and dedication that makes the season happen.  Plus the team had some nice gifts to hand out to both the seniors and to the coaches/trainers/Steve, and it was just a fun evening. 

The last photo below was the seniors getting what could be their last FREE samples of cosmetic products from Brian!  You can see they were focused on looking through the goody basket one last time.  Thanks Brian!!

Now, we are starting finals, so everyone is busy studying and finishing up their work for the semester.  Piper took everything early so she could leave to have surgery, but most everyone else is still around this week taking finals and finishing papers and projects.

We wish all the players good luck on their finals, and we'll have more updates soon as lots of things are happening right now--it's a very busy time of the year.  We've had recruits accepted ED, poster presentations by players, and community service events, so stay tuned for more updates...