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There's no easy way to say it or write about it, but many people suffered a terrible loss last Thursday. Kristin (with two i's, like your face) Spangler, a brilliant theatre professor, wonderful mentor, and amazing friend passed away after a two and a half year fight against breast cancer. Anyone who knew her is absolutely crushed. K-Spang taught many people more about theatre and about themselves than they could have imagined possible. I am not alone in the feeling that I am a better person for having known her.

I feel really weird about writing in a blog right now, but I'm trying to get back to normal. On Thursday morning, my team went shopping for snow pants to keep us warm in the mountainy wilderness. I didn't buy any because I'm not entirely sure I'll need them, but I did get a fleece jacket for $20, marked down from $70. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur because the end of the shopping trip is when I was informed that K-Spang was in the hospital in extremely critical condition, but I'll do my best to tell you about it.

In the afternoon, we had a community meeting (which means the entire corps plus all staff) to present our projects, telling everyone where we're going and what we're doing. Exactly zero teams just stood up there and gave a little speech about it. Everyone did some sort of song or skit about their project. My team took some inspiration from the Lumberjack Song from Monty Python and changed some of the words. If you're not familiar with the song, it can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zey8567bcg . Since the song has a main guy and then some backup lumberjacks, we chose Rob to be our main lumberjack since he looks the most lumberjackish. We also had Jordan, an extremely petite girl, be a main lumberjack with him. Our lyrics:

(Rob and Jordan)
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok,
I sleep all night and I work all day

(the rest of us)
We are lumberjacks and we're ok,
We sleep all night and we work all day

(R & J)
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavat'ry,
In Boulder I go shopping, for all my groceries

(rest of us)
We cut down trees, we eat our lunch, we go to the lavat'ry,
In Boulder we go shopping, for all our groceries

(R & J)
I build a trail, I dig a ditch, I put up a fence or two
(rest of us)
Up at Calwood we get things done, because we're the Sun 4 crew!

(Calwood is the name of our project site, "Getting Things Done" is the NCCC motto, and my team is Sun 4.) I'm not sure everyone got the reference to Monty Python, but at least we were more original than some teams. In case you were wondering, for this round of projects, there will be 4 teams in Colorado, 1 team in Missouri, 3 teams in Arkansas, 2 teams in Arizona, 2 teams in Texas, and 8 teams in Louisiana. And that's only the teams from this campus. (There are four other NCCC campuses.)

Friday morning, we had to take an all corps photo. This was a bit of an ordeal with 250 or so people, but it was fine. After that we had our induction ceremony. This signifies that CTI (Corps Training Institute, which is this month of training we just finished) is officially over, and we are real Corps Members now. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There were some interesting speakers, including Barbara the Regional Director (who is awesome), someone who was a Corps Member here in Denver 16 years ago in the first year NCCC existed, and the National Director of NCCC. Kevin, the Earth Unit Leader, sang an original song, a Team Leader performed an original poem, and a girl from my unit sang the national anthem. After the ceremony, there was a much fancier lunch than usual in the cafeteria. There were tablecloths and everything.

Yesterday, Saturday, was the departure of most teams who are traveling far away. Which is most of the Corps. There was a big send off where Barbara the Regional Director gave a little speech and everyone hugged goodbye and everything. It was pretty anticlimactic for those of us who haven't left yet to watch them all go, then go back into our dorm. At least I wasn't just sitting around all day thinking about things. I had an ISP at the Children's Museum again (I volunteered there on Halloween also) all day with 5 other people. Our main job was to keep the art room clean. They have a room set up with stations for kids to paint, and also a bunch of construction paper, crayons, glue sticks, etc. I think it's the most popular room, and it gets absolutely trashed if someone isn't there to constantly clean up. There were also a few birthday parties there that day that they needed help with, and some other random things to do. The staff was really glad we were there because they said they were understaffed that day, and the museum was really busy. It was pretty cold and snowy yesterday, and they said that whenever the weather is bad the museum is always really crazy.

Last night, no one wanted to go anywhere since the weather was so bad, so my team got together with Sun 1 (the team that will be at the AmeriMansion in Boulder) and played Cranium, Sun 4 vs. Sun 1. Since we're planning on having Thanksgiving with them in their house, the two Team Leaders decided that the winning team wouldn't have to do dishes on Thanksgiving. We won, and the other team started arguing about how it should be best two out of three, with other games, including a sport of some kind on Thanksgiving day. I don't know what the final verdict was, but I really hope my team doesn't have to do dishes.

Yesterday and today have been pretty weird with so few people here. We (Suns 1 and 4) are getting excited about leaving tomorrow and finally doing something. Blog updates might become even less often than they are now, because I think the internet up in our project site is supposed to be really slow, but I'll do the best I can. We also may or may not have cell phone service up there.

Also, I think some people may not be aware that anyone can comment on this blog, not just people with Blogspot accounts. At the bottom of the post, click where it says 0 Comments (or however comments there happen to be). Write the comment in the comment box. Where is says to choose an identity, choose Anonymous (but put your name in the comment so I know who you are). My mom (love you!) is pretty much the only person who ever comments, so I have very little idea of who is actually reading this thing.

So, the next time I talk to anyone, I'll pretty much be a lumberjack. Wish me luck!