Dorm Dinner 2009!

Photo credit for group photo: Jen Quest-Stern (thank you!)

Every year, we get together for a family style meal at a local restaurant. This year, we decided to go to Friendly's, so we were able to get delicious desserts as well. We were sad that not everyone could make it, but *almost* everyone was able to make it for our group picture at least. It was really nice to spend the time all together as one whole group, just being silly and having fun. We'll try not to think about the fact that 9 of our Barnies are graduating in just a few short weeks...

Blen's Capstone Presentation

For Blen's capstone, she taught herself Amharic, which seems (at least to me) like a VERY difficult language to learn, with are 33 basic characters, each of which has seven forms depending on which vowel is to be pronounced in the syllable. Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia. It is the second most spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic. Suffice it to say we were all very impressed that Blen had the initiative and perseverance to teacher herself Amharic! I wish I had gotten there earlier to see more of her presentation (and take more pictures!)

Another thing I learned at Blen's capstone was that we've all been pronouncing her name incorrectly all this time! It's meant to be pronounced like BLAINE. How beautiful. I can't believe she didn't tell us earlier!

Hyeon Jin's Capstone Presentation

Hyeon Jin learned how to make natural soap for her capstone (and all the chemistry and research that goes along with that process.) She presented what she learned today (to a full room of about 20 students and faculty), and she also showed us how to make chocolate soap. She even gave us samples of the soap she made, which everyone was really excited about! I hope to make it to the capstone presentations of most of the graduating Barnies, or at least the ones that aren't shy and secretive about it! Stay tuned...

Cheyenne Presenting at Faculty Meeting

Cheyenne, along with classmates Jesse and Anneke, presented at the faculty meeting today. They talked about their experience in CSW's revolutionary (really!) ABLE class. For the uninitiated, ABLE stands for Alliance-Building LEadership course, and the students have spent the year building a safe community to explore and challenge issues and perceptions around race, class, and other identity characterstics. They're at the forefront of amazing, really difficult work, and they were very articulate in presenting it to the faculty. We were all really impressed. (And I was really proud of Cheyenne!)

Good luck!

Good luck to Jane and Rada, who are currently taking an AP Calculus BC exam! (Not that you guys need it, you smarty-pantses, you!)

Mod Break in the Barn

Some of the girls are off enjoying the 4-day mod break with friends and family, but plenty of them remain on campus. Several of the girls in our dorm took the SAT's on Satuday (what a fun way to spend the morning!) and we know they did REALLY WELL! Oh--and we got a new, hexagonal picnic table outside the dorm this past week, and had a nice BBQ last night with Jen and Kevin (former Barn dorm parents and current neighbors). The weather has been AMAZING! It's hard to believe that tomorrow signifies the first day of the last mod of the year.

We have a lot of end-of-year traditions in the Barn, and the first one this year will be our annual dorm dinner. We've voted and have decided to head out to Friendly's for dinner and ice cream on Tuesday, May 12. We'll be saying good-bye to our seniors, which will be really sad, but we'll try to focus on the fun and ice cream. We still have 5 weeks left, after all.

Tweeting!

As if this blog wasn't enough (and I don't see how that's possible)...you can now get up-to-the-minute (okay, up-to-the-hour) updates from CSW by following us on Twitter. I'm tweeting for the admissions office (@CSW_Admissions) if you want to join in. Don't know what Twitter is? (or tweeting?) Learn here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

CSW Merit Badges

I'm not sure anyone in the Barn was in this class, but our Soft Sculpture class made "CSW Merit Badges" which I thought was pretty awesome. Can you guess what each one represents?? How many have you earned?

(I've got the composting toilet one!!)

End-Of-Mod Art Show!

This is Rada's work from the Assemblage class.















































This is Emily's photo (very Zen)













Sorry this isn't zoomed in more...Helen's photo of Jofia's beading materials.













Blen's digital photo looks like a painting.













Da Won's awesome digital collage.

Congrats to the Barn's 2009-2010 Dorm Leaders!

We love all of the girls in the dorm, and, as is typical at CSW, they all have passion and voice and leadership qualities. Next year will be the 3rd year of the dorm leader program at CSW and it grows bigger and better and more competitive each year. This year's leaders, Rada and Jin, have accomplished so much and we're really going to miss them! We had an amazing group of applicants for next year's dorm leader role, and it was a really, REALLY hard choice. The candidates all completed an application, wrote an essay, interviewed with their peers, and then interviewed with the dorm parents. This was a serious search, and we found serious talent and strengths. Ultimately, the position was awarded to two rising seniors. Helen is from MA, and Jane calls Taiwan home (when she's not calling the Barn home, of course.) They both have big plans for bringing even greater unity to our dorm community, and lots of passion and love for the Barn. We think they're going to make an excellent team, and we congratulate them heartily!

"Anything Goes": CSW Spring Musical Opening Night

Tonight was opening night of CSW's spring musical, "Anything Goes," starring Juliana. Cheyenne designed the poster and did stage crew and Da Won and Hyun Soo's stagecraft class had a hand in the production as well. Tonight's production was signed in ASL for hearing impaired members of the audience. Congrats to everyone in the show!

Dorm Leaders!

Rada and Jin are (perhaps reluctantly) preparing to hand over the dorm leader torch (so to speak...we don't allow flames in the dorm). We have four strong contenders for next year: Cheyenne, Helen, Jane, and Juliana (in alphabetical order).  They've all submitted applications and essays, and met with a peer selection committee. They will still go through interviews with dorm parents before we announce the new leaders--hopefully at next week's dorm meeting.  They all bring great characteristics to the table, and it will be one of those times when we wish we had more than two dorm leader spots! Good luck to all of you!

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Happy Birthday, Briana!

Yesterday was Briana's birthday, and we celebrated tonight with singing, ice cream, and brownies. We hope you had a great birthday, Briana!

Movie Night

Right now: the girls are watching

Baby Rainn

Baby Rainn is getting used to his new home before we bombard him with the little presents we got to welcome him to our dorm family. But we thought we'd put a little picture up here so you can all see just how cute he is!

In other news, Juliana found 32 eggs this weekend, while Da Won found 23. There was some seriously impressive scavenging going on, but I have to say...Michael and I had to round up a dozen eggs that remained hidden at the end of the hunt!

The Hunt is almost over...

This was one of our favorite spots. Look how scared that egg looks all squished in there! There's still plenty of eggs out in the last round of the egg hunt, and Da Won and Juliana are neck and neck for finding the most amount of eggs...

Expert Egg Hunters

Okay, I have to say I'm impressed. While there are about 7 of the original eggs still hiding around the dorm, the girls have found some that we thought were REALLY tricky! And it's so much fun to hear the laughter and shouts of joy as eggs are discovered. Who knew how hunting for chocolate could make a group of teenage girls so happy? ;)

On another joyful note, Yoon and Jerry (both CSW 2008 graduates) are visiting us on campus this weekend. It's such a nice mini-reunion. Yoon has said that the college dorms don't measure up to CSW, at least in terms of friendship and community, and watching the Barnies laughing together in the dorm, that's easy to imagine.

Yay for bonding over the pursuit of chocolate and giggles!

Egg Hunt Starts at 6:00 am Friday!

Candy-filled eggs abound in the Barn. Some, like this one, are easy to spot. But some are VERY, VERY tricky! (Michael and I have some serious sneaky skills).

Good luck!

The Egg Hunt is on! (well, almost)

Passover begins at sunset today, and Easter is this Sunday. While perhaps better known for spiritual practices, these holidays have something else in common--searching! Whether for Matzoh or colorful eggs, children (and some adults) will be keeping their eyes peeled, and the girls in the Barn won't be missing out just because they're at boarding school. Starting on Thursday night, Michael and I will hide candy-filled eggs all over the dorm...and we'll keep hiding them all weekend!

New Barnies for Next Year?

You might remember when your family came to Revisit Days at CSW, and many of you know that this week the week we welcomed about 115 newly accepted families to come to campus for the inside scoop on what it's like to be part of our community. Though we didn't have the best weather ever, we did have a lot of help from joyful and enthusiastic Barnies. Some of them hosted visiting students and took them to class with them, some of them gave presentations to a large assembly of students and parents, some had lunch with our (hopefully) future boarders, and some showed off their dancing skills. I was so proud of how the members of our community pulled together yet again and gave so freely of their time and energy. It was fun to watch and listen to them--they are all CSW experts, but also so articulate and passionate. They shine.

The admissions office accepted an outstanding group of boarders from all over the world (including China, Honduras, Hong Kong, South Korea,Malaysia, Mexico, Taiwan, and Vietnam), and all over the states (CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, MA, MD, MN, NC, NJ, NY, OR, PA, TX, and VT) and many of them were able to come to a Revisit Event to meet our current boarding students. There were a lot of great connections made, and the girls in the Barn have been eagerly asking if we've heard back from the boarders they hosted. It's an exciting time in a sense, thinking about the future of our dorm!

Surprise Party

Several of the Barnies got sneaky this past week to throw a surprise birthday party for Cheyenne and Rada on Saturday night in the student lounge. Impressively, they were both actually surprised--including Rada, who helped organize it! They had told her it was for Cheyenne, and she had no idea she was a guest of honor as well. We have some great event planners in the Barn this year!

Baby Rainn is Born!

Williamson Rainn Wanner was born yesterday morning (finally!). Isn't he a cutie? He hasn't come home yet, but we're very excited and are preparing a warm welcome for Alicia and Travis and baby Rainn! (But we promise to give them time and space before we all try to meet the new baby!) Yay!!

Happy Birthday, Rada and Cheyenne!

Today is Rada's 17th Birthday, and Cheyenne's Sweet Sixteen. We celebrated last night at the dorm meeting. Rada had requested tropical fruit, and Cheyenne's mom brought cupcakes for the dorm, and, of course, there was a bit of singing to mark the occasion. =)

A little art to introduce spring break...

Following this post, you'll find most of the Barnie art that was in the Mod 5 art show. Some artwork was in binders and hard to take pictures of, but I did the best I could. This mod had the wearable art fashion show too, and I wish I had been prepared to take video for you. I don't think any Barnie work was in the fashion show, but it was still really neat to see how innovative CSW students are! In any case, enjoy the art...and SPRING BREAK!

The Barn already misses it's lively inhabitants...

Melisa's Art

Hyeon Jin had a LOT of art in the art show this mod, and for one of her projects, she mailed art-making instructions to various people and then put the resulting art in the art show. She mailed me a card with a cityscape on the bottom, with instructions to make a collage and statement about the true meaning of life. (I'm pretty sure that's the hardest question possible, by the way). The best I could come up with was: "The meaning of life is to live a life full of meaning."

Juliana's Art

This is a picture of someone "reading" Juliana's collage book. It doesn't really do it justice because you can't read it for yourself. It was really cool though...certain words on each page were highlighted in such a way that they told their own story as you flipped through the pages of the book.

Hyeon Jin's Art

This is hard to explain, but it's Hyeon Jin's visual representation of her movements and experiences on the day that Robin died.

Da Hae's Practically Edible Art

It's licorice!

Hyeon Jin's Visitor Art

This is an artistic representation Hyeon Jin made of visitors to the Barn. How cool is it to make art out of visitor logs??

Hyeon Jin's Silhouette

You can totally tell it's Todd!

Kanae's Art

I think she made this with a snowball!

Jin's Art