Mexican Indepedence Day!

Mexico's Independence Day was last Friday.  LCC celebrates the Independence Day of each country represented on our campus with a flag raising at noon and a presentation about the country in the evening.  I decided that even though we don't have any students from Mexico on campus, that I would invite some friends over to my place to celebrate Mexico's Independence Day!  (Really it was just a good excuse to have a party and eat Mexican food - I made Chicken enchiladas.)

I decorated my apartment with balloons in the colors of the Mexican flag.

Everyone had to wear the colors of the flag - here we are posing according to how the colors appear on the flag.  Kim is holding the pinata that I made for the evening - it has the emblem from the Mexican flag on it.

front row: me, Steve, Kim, Marlene, and Betsy

back row: John, Andrew, Rachel, Robin, and Jerry

Rachel taking a swing at the pinata!

Steve -our pacifist theology deptartment chair- made a couple HUGE dents in the pinata!

It looks like Kim's head is the pinata in this shot!

The spoils spilled on the floor!  :)

Silly Robin wore the pinata for a while!  :)

This was a really fun evening!  Full of good food, good friend, and good conversation!

Ugly Duckling Cup!

Each fall we have a competition where dorm residents and faculty/staff race homemade boats across the pond on campus.  Here are some photos from that event last week...

The West-side of Neumann and their boat - the only team that I actually took a photo of was the team that won!  How cool is that?!  :)

Amanda & Alex paddling the faculty/staff boat across the pond.

John & Andrew doing another lap across the pond on the faculty/staff boat.

Toms and Dariusz stand in the back as the Captain of the West-side team claims the trophey! 

Intercultural Olympics

Each year the Intercultrual Program puts on the "Intercultural Olympics" at the veledrome near campus.  It is a several hour event that has students competing in silly competitions (think water balloon toss, slip n slide, pillow fights, etc) in teams representing their home countries.  This year we had 8 teams -7 representing their home countries and one international team for those from countries without enough students to make a full team. 

I didn't get any photos of the actual events, but took a few of the opening/closing...

The opening includes a run around the track with a representative from each country carrying thier flag.  The procession is led by one of the Intercultural Team members carrying the torch!

Lithuanian boys showing this country pride with face paint!

The Ukranian team running with excitement upon hearing that they WON!

All the participants of the day! 

Ukranian Independence Day

Thursday we celebrated the Ukraine's Independence Day.  This is one of my favorit ethings that we do at LCC.  Each country that is represented in our student body has a day where we celebrate it's independence day.  Our second largest number of sudents come from the Ukraine, so their celebration is always top notch!  Here are some photos...

Most of our Ukranians!

A traditional Ukranian song being sung.

Zhenia leading a karaoke contest.  Jared (a study abroad student from the US) won the contest!

This was the karaoke screen.

I have no idea what the lyrics are saying.  :)

A short (amateur) video clip of the Ukranian dance!

Community Day

Wednesday was Community Day on campus.  It's an all campus event that Student Life organizes with games and a hot dog bbq.  It's a lot of work, but so much fun!  I didn't take many photos, but thought I'd share a couple that I took that turned out well...

Me with baby Greta.  Isn't she adorable?!

Like how I'm sportin' my Lithuanian pride on my cheek?! 

And some HOT DOG LAUGHS!  :)

 

Sunday fun in the kitchen with Amanda

Amanda came over on Sunday afternoon before church.  We made a thai pizza together.  It was a recipe by my favorite tv cook - Rachael Ray.  It had to be adapted a bit, as not everything was avaialble at the local Iki.  Despite (or maybe because of) the improvisation, it was wonderful!  :)

The finished product!

Amanda sprinkling pizza with peanuts.

Click on this to go to the recipe on foodnetwork.com!

September 1st

School officially starts in Lithuania (and most of Eastern Europe from what I hear) on September 1st.  There are celebrations all day long in all sort of venues.  I went to the downtown celebration at 8:00 AM.  It was a cool and cloudy day, but that didn't dampen the excitement of the children and their parents! 

Children in the center of the square - all dressed up and ready ot learn!

Children of all ages take flowers to their teachers.

Guys on stilts doing a dance with ribbons.

And what's a Lithuanian celebration without some basketball?!

Each school selects a students to carry their school flag in a little parade.

Balloons left off at the end of the celebration!

After the celebration was over, my team all came over to my place for brunch to celebrate the beginning of the year and to do our initial Community Life team meeting over brunch.  It was a fun way to start the year!