giving blood

Today I had the opportunity to give blood for the first time! We occasionally have a blood drive that comes to LCC, and I've tried to donate before, but have been turned away for various reasons. Thankfully, the experience was not as scary as I thought (even though I don't like needles), and I got a framed certificate, a movie ticket and a chocolate bar as a thank you. They also bandaged up my arm with lots of gauze!

Casino Night

My RAs and I have been planning a "Casino Night" event for half of this semester, and it finally happened last night! We made tons of decorations, food, props, and did lots of planning. There weren't as many students in attendance as I had hoped for, but those who were there really enjoyed themselves. Most came dressed up and ready to play poker and black jack, and had to get past the bouncer at the door using a fake ID (with international mafia pictures) we made for each of them. I was a waitress for the night, and enjoyed serving drinks and talking to people. The pictures are the only things that do it justice, so here you go... Thanks to Kristina and Ira for the pictures!

we made fake IDs for each person, and there were numbers written on the back and a chance to win prizes based on your number

we had LOTS of food, including "pigs in a blanket", and we made toothpicks topped with all the card suits - so much work, but really classy, I think!

MORE food!!!

we served Shirley Temple and Arnold Palmer as drinks

 students playing poker

(in the background is the life-size photo booth we made to look like playing cards)

 handing out the grand prize trophy to the student who had the
most chips at the end of the evening

 my RAs and I at the end of the evening - tired and all dressed up!

my favorite picture... the three "baristas" with masks

Croissants!

Last night I had the privilege of having 4 female students stay at my place overnight. (the reason is a whole separate story...) When they found out they were going to stay over, we thought it would be fun to try to make croissants together - we had been trying to find a time to do this project, and this was the perfect opportunity! I mixed up the dough before they came, and then we rolled it out several times in the evening before going to bed, and then even in the middle of the night! The result was DELICIOUS chocolate croissants!!! What a perfect Saturday morning!

Yulia holding the dough before rolling it out the first time

rolling, chilling and more rolling

before going into the oven...

And afterwards - YUM!!!

Creating Enns History

When I was in college, my RD made a video to commemorate the people who lived in his dorm that year. I love to watch this video and laugh at myself many years later... So, this year my RAs and I did a special project with the residents of our dorm. We had lots of fun making the video - hope you like it! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywJQgoT6dWo&feature=youtu.be

Thanks to my RAs: Ira Pompa, Natallia Shliazhka, Kirill Agapov and Ausrius Filipavicius, and a HUGE thank you to Dmitrii Vasiukov, our videographer!!!

LCC Late Night Show

Last week as a part of Spiritual Life week, I got to play in a band! The Spiritual Life team asked Josh, Alisha and I (all three RDs) to play together as the "backup" band for the LCC Late Night Show, where the topic of the night was about discovering your talents. We decided to call ourselves "Amanda and the Love Cannons". (Ask me about the story sometime...) Playing with Josh and Alisha was the highlight of my week! They were in a band together before they came to LCC, so I learned some songs they knew already. Here's a link to one of them, in which we also got to whistle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHEOF_rcND8

L-R: Mark, the host of the show, and "Amanda and the Love Cannons" (Josh, me & Alisha)

Parade of Stars

One big event that happened during the week my parents were here was called Parade of Stars, where countries represent themselves based on a certain theme. This year the theme was literature, so many of them told stories or fairy tales from their country. (Thanks to Ira for the pictures.)

Latvian team acting out a story from their newspaper about the

Latvia vs. USA volleyball match (Latvia was the winning team)

Belarus student proving he can entertain the gods

Moldovian buying a cow for himself (and becoming good friends with it!)

Ukrainian dragon tempting a prince coming to rescue his sister

the week after Amsterdam

After we visited Amsterdam, my parents came back to Klaipeda with me and got to experience a bit of Eastern Europe and LCC. They helped out with different things going on during the week, like making food for my RA meeting and setting up for a big event on campus. We also got to taste different Eastern European food and go to the sauna on the spit.

walking through the woods on the way to the Baltic sea

the sauna is right on the beach, so once you're warmed up, the idea is to run right into this freezing water, which we all did!

afterwards, we had pizza from a food truck nearby

i wasn't able to join them, but my parents got to experience the traditional Lithuanian dancing evening that i sometimes attend

we also went walking on the sea a different day, and it was really COLD