Graduation

Today was LCC's 17th graduation. Three of my RAs walked today, and it was fun to celebrate with them. We had a Senior Leadership Awards ceremony last night, where each of the student leader supervisors read letters they had written to their senior leaders. It was a fun and special way to publicly affirm their hard work. Today was Baccalaureate and the graduation ceremonies. I only got a few pictures during the ceremony (and they're not very good since I was far away), but I did get some pictures from afterwards. It is a tradition to give a flower to each student who you've come to congratulate. The students each get a rose from LCC and then their hands fill up with bunches of flowers after the ceremony. By the time they leave, many of them have a huge bouquet!

me, Bethany and Kristen waiting to cheer the graduates into the ceremony

Ana receiving her diploma from President Marlene Wall

me and Iuna

me and Ana

graduates throwing their hats in celebration

New RAs

I finally have a picture to show you of my new RAs for next year! We went to the beach and grilled out tonight to spend one more time all together before the summer. We ate, took some pictures, and talked about zombies among other things! :) I'm sorry that my picture skills are not very good, but at least I got something...

 trying to take a jumping picture

 crazy faces

Ira, Alex, Natallia, me, and Ausrius

Also, after I got home from our gathering, many of the girls from my 2nd West floor came down and gave me cookies and individual notes from them to thank me for being their RD! It was so sweet of them!!!

some of the notes (very nicely done) and cookies in the background

bowling

Tonight I went bowling for the first time since I've been in Lithuania. I took the worship team members (some of these guys/gals):

It was my small way of saying thank you for their help this semester.

our shoes

last RA meeting

Tonight we had our last RA meeting. I wanted to do something special to thank them for all the hard work they've done. So, we went to the BEACH and we grilled hot dogs and had "s'mores" (with cookies instead of graham crackers). Even though we left an hour late because two of my RAs were finishing their last exam, we had a lot of fun laughing, talking, taking pictures, and eating of course. And, the evening was so warm and beautiful! We got there right as the sun was setting, and it was perfect! I will miss these girls very much - it feels weird to be done with the first year already! Some of our favorite things from this year were: horseback riding, eating tacos and pizza, going to the sauna, our apple crisp and blind date events, the retreat in my apartment, and much more. 

 "stupid" faces

 jumping

 the fire

 pretending to be "hot"

 Melisa's butt is on fire!!!! :)

COOKIES

I made around 20 dozen cookies the other night for my West side residents. It took me about 4 hours just to make them (and two hours to hand them out), but I enjoyed talking to a friend on Skype and watching a movie while baking. The cookies had chocolate chips, pretzels and oatmeal. However, we don't have chocolate chips here, so I chopped up chocolate bars. And the pretzels were not very salty (they had poppyseeds on the outside instead of salt), so I put a little sprinkle of salt on each cookie. But even with the alterations, the students were very happy to receive them while studying for finals.

getting ready to hand out the first batch

Sunday's activities #2

This evening, ResLife sponsored pancakes for Neumann dorm to give students a study break for the upcoming finals week. My RAs and I cooked lots and lots of pancakes - with chocolate! :) We used 4 kilos of flour, 8 liters of milk, 22 eggs, 4 bars of chocolate and a little bit of salt, sugar, oil and baking powder. We had a fun time cooking and laughing together, and then serving pancakes to students and eating some ourselves along the way. 

 Iuna and Melisa cooking in frying pans

Anya cooking on the griddle

Ira making sure everything tasted ok

students EXCITED to get pancakes!

Sunday's activities

Today was another busy day....

This afternoon, I learned how to make potato pancakes Lithuanian-style. We grated lots of potatoes, added eggs, flour, salt, pepper and dill, and fried them up. Serve with sour cream, kefyras (buttermilk drink) and extra salt if needed. Yummy!

 grating potatoes

learning how to crack an egg the "American" way - on the side of the bowl

(most students here use a knife and tap the egg open)

 frying

ready to EAT!

SUSHI

I have a new love: sushi! We invited the RAs over to Susie's house on Thursday night for a party to thank them for all the work they've done during the year. We made sushi together and had ice cream cake. It was quite chaotic to make sushi with 18 people in one small apartment, but everyone who liked sushi got plenty to eat, and we all loved the ice cream cake! (Thanks to Susie for these pictures!)

three of my RAs!!! getting the salad appetizer

Ira, Melisa, and Anya (with Levi in the background)

Merunas (background) and Levi

Business Plans

Today two of my RAs presented their business plans, along with many other senior students. Iuna presented on a youth center in her city in Ukraine (which may actually be put into action by members of her church), and Anya presented on "Sweet Land", a kiosk in the capital of Moldova that will sell Belgian waffles and other food items.

Iuna

Anya

I also took some pictures of Iuna and others in her presentation group during the break. It was a BEAUTIFUL spring day outside today!!!

Ivan, Iuna, Olga (all students from Neumann West) and Tom (professor)

"glamour" shot with flowers they received as congratulations

Closing Assembly and BBQ

We've had so many events this week - one for almost every night of the week! Here is just one of the things I've been up to....

One is the Closing Assembly for students and faculty/staff. Student Life is in charge of the event, so we planned part of the program and the BBQ afterwards. I didn't get to go to the program because I was helping grill 600 hot dogs, but I still had fun! We started in the afternoon by having to peel the hot dogs and slice the buns, and slice the cucumbers. (Here at LCC we put marinated onions, cucumbers, ketchup and mustard on hot dogs).

 Susie, me and Grazina with (only half) of the hot dogs

Then a little before the program started, we fired up the grills (with a little bit of work) and started cooking!

working hard to fan the grills into flame (with a bit of help from lighter fluid)

Vaidas (faculty member), Susie, Margarita and Bethany

Bethany and I

And the line of students waiting to get their hot dogs after the ceremony

The 2011-2012 Community Life team during clean-up
me, Levi, Olena, Susie and Alex

Chapel band

This past Wednesday was our farewell Chapel. Here's a picture of some of the band members from this semester. It's been such a blessing to have so many talented students to work with!

 Laura (US), Ina (Albania), Alex (Ukraine), Maddi (US), Erick (US), me, 

Aliya (Russia) and Angelina (Ukraine)

 praying before Chapel started - someone else took this picture, but I just like it :)

Mug n' Muffin

On Monday night a few of us staff ladies organized a bi-annual event called Mug n' Muffin. Several ladies from the LCC community come to speak on a particular topic: this time it was on loving and knowing yourself. We also have LOTS of homemade muffins, coffee, and a special drink. Female students can come and enjoy the food and the sharing, and then ask questions of the speakers. This event is a great way to start conversation and encourage female students to think about themselves or the world around them in a deeper way.

picking out delicious looking muffins

getting coffee and hot apple cider

listening to the speakers

a busy weekend!

This weekend was full of events - one was that I went to listen to thesis defenses by this year's seniors. One was done by my RA, and many others by students I knew. I couldn't understand most of the business presentations, but the psychology one was a bit easier to comprehend. Still very interesting and a good way to celebrate the work the students have done!

 The five economics thesis presenters

Ana, Nastya, Eric (their professor and advisor), Ira (my RA!), Denis and Vaiva

The other thing I did yesterday was go to a music festival in a town called Taurage, which is about an hour away. There is a band that I play with sometimes, and we went to play a few songs at this festival. We were quite out of place because most of the other performers were choirs or classical soloists, but we still had a good time. (We are a rock worship band). It was fun to hang out with them, to laugh, talk, and play together.

Here's our band! :) 

(I'm in the back on the bass)

apple crisp party

Tonight my RAs and I organized an event for all the West side residents. We made TEN pans of apple crisp served with ice cream! We were hosted in a faculty apartment and we opened the door and had loud music and chairs outside! It almost felt like spring! I was hoping that students would come to get food and at least stay while they were eating instead of just being served and going right back to their rooms. And they stayed - I got to have conversations with many different students. A lot of students also came to me and said thank you - I felt like we did a great job of executing a big event all by ourselves!

Thanks to my awesome RAs for their help and to Bethany (a fellow staff member and good friend) for hosting us in her luxurious apartment!

Ira, Iuna and I serving apple crisp and ice cream

finished product

I finished all the folding, addressing and stamping of the invitations from yesterday's picture! The invitations are for an event on April 16 called "Mug n' Muffin", which involves homemade muffins, a special coffee drink, and women from the LCC community sharing their stories or speaking on a specific topic. This time the event is entitled "Who Am I: Knowing and Loving Yourself". Mug n' Muffin is usually well-attended and always very encouraging and thought-provoking. This weekend I had the task of finishing all the invitations so we could hand them out on Tuesday. I watched 4 movies while working on them, and my finger was black from so much stamping! I think they turned out well....

(Inside there are details about the event)

my weekend plans

Here's what I've been working on for over 3 hours already this weekend! Later I will tell you what their purpose is....

I've had a really busy week working on housing for Fall 2012, and getting ready for the long weekend - we have a day off on Monday. I have lots of plans, including:

- An on campus movie festival organized by StuCo to show student made short films

- A "girl's party" at Susie's apartment

- Going to see an Easter muge (craft fair) at the shopping center close to campus

- Lunch with a visiting drama team (called Covenant Players) who did drama at our Good Friday Chapel yesterday

- Worship team practice in preparation for another worship night

- Making tortillas from scratch

- Helping a colleague iron and sort her kid's clothes to give away (they are leaving after this year)

- Shopping in preparation for a Neumann West event on Tuesday

- Having the future Neumann West RAs over for dinner and games

It's going to be a busy weekend! I'm on duty, so I get to stay here and make sure everything is going ok as well. I can be off campus, but not for long periods of time, and not overnight. So, I will be celebrating Easter in a non-traditional way this year. Have a great weekend everyone!

Another week gone by...

One more week closer to returning to the States! The last week has been full of events, but I apologize, because I have not done a good job of taking pictures. Last Friday, there was a major annual event called Parade of Stars. Different countries represented at LCC make a presentation about some aspect about their country. This year the theme was "celebration" and there were different skits about how a wedding or baptism would be or other stories. The evening was very entertaining!

 Participating countries holding their flags to being the event

(L-R) Lithuania, Albania, Russia, US, Moldova, Latvia, Ukraine and Belarus

On Saturday evening, I went to a concert! For being in Student Life, we get one free ticket to a concert of our choice. I picked one with the Lithuanian National Orchestra and a piano soloist playing three of Tchaikovsky's piano concertos. The piano player especially was very good and the evening made me want to be in orchestra again!

AND, tonight I had my new RAs over for the first time! I was a little nervous, but the evening turned out really well. We ate tacos, talked and played charades - and they stayed for THREE hours!!!! (Not what I expected, but still awesome!) It's very different having guys on the team, but I think I will like it! :) We laughed a lot, and I think already have set a good foundation for friendship and conversation. Hopefully we will be effective workers too!