Beauty & Brawn

This past weekend was packed with activity!
On Saturday afternoon from about 1-5:30 we all primped and prepared ourselves for the evening's banquet. Yes, that's right--it took four and a half hours for all of us to get ready! We had 5 people doing hair, a couple of people painting nails...and I ironed dresses because I don't know how to either of the other two things. Then we all headed down to the school for the annual Christmas Banquet which consists of a sit-down dinner and a series of performances by the students. It was a great time!


This is the auditorium at school decorated for the dinner.


A few of the girls all ready for the banquet! (finally!)

Me, Bonnie and Jessica .

Football????

Wittlingen is another girls dorm, and for some reason there is an ongoing rivalry between our two dorms. So naturally, we let out this pent-up aggression through a flag-football game! In order to help you understand the potential complexity of this, let me set up a scene for you:

It's three days before our game and I sit down with a group of the girls in my dorm to talk about the rules of the game because they're different than regular football. Before I have a chance to begin, one of them (who shall remain nameless) pipes up and says, "So, what is the end goal of this game anyways? Flag footbal? Do we throw around flags or something?!?"

Growing up in Europe (and other places) these kids don't really know much about American football at all! So, we started from scratch with some of them and were able to have a couple of practices before our big game on Sunday afternoon. Luckily, our dorm dad, Luke, loves football and was even able to teach them a few offensive plays.

This is Luke coaching from the sidelines.

Our team has the blue flags on and Hannah is the quarterback, ready to launch a rocket!

At the beginning of the semester Maugenhard (the guys dorm upstairs) played in a rugby game against the other guys dorms, and we all dressed up in red and black and cheered for them. So our game was their chance to return the favor and cheer for us! They all dressed up and put face paint on (to match all of us) and yelled their little hearts out!

This is me and Dahee. Yes, we have red hand prints on our faces and yes, she is wearing a bumble bee suite. Dorm spirit!

Here's a shot of a play in action--Hannah (far left) is looking for someone to pass to while Kjersti (far right) runs to get open.
The game was pretty evenly matched and turned into a defensive battle. We scored during the first half and they came close a couple of times. But in the end...


WE WON!!!! The Maugenhard guys rushed the field and celebrated our victory with the girls. It was great!

I am glad that we had such a busy and eventful weekend because it's getting close to the end of the semester and everyone is weary and ready to go home for Christmas. Just three weeks left! This coming weekend will be busy again because it's our first home basketball game! It will be especially fun for me because this year I am the JV girls assistant coach! I'll be sure to take pictures and let you know how our first game goes!

Old and New Traditions

BFA is a school that changes a lot every year; but ironically, BFA is also a school with a lot of traditions that have been passed down for years. One of these traditions is the annual trip to Herbstmesse.

Essentially, Herbstmesse is a Fall carnival held in Basel, Switzerland. Every year at the end of October, we load all the dorm students (approx. 150 students) into charter buses and then turn them loose to enjoy carnival food, rides and games.

The bumper cars are always a big hit! In the middle of the picture is Rachel and Kara (in the white hat) in hot pursuit of Krista and Luke! (left corner)

Giant ferris wheel.

In the spirit of being a carnival, Herbstmesse has some weird booths and decorations! Above you see Mrs. Mais, ready to serve you a hot corn on the cob!


At this booth you can find "mega coole preise."

This is the overhead display at a food booth. It's hard to see, but Batman has a sausage for a thumb (a very effective thumbs up), and to the right of that is the hand of the Statue of Liberty holding a sausage...I don't know how to interpret that.

1st Annual 3-3 Basketball Tournament

The day after Herbstmesse (a Friday) is always a day off of school and this year there was a 3-on-3 basketball tournament! There was a pretty good turn out, 9 teams, comprised of students and staff. I hope this becomes a new tradition because it was really fun! My team, the Jetz, played hard for 2 games but then, sadly, we had to sit the bench...it was double elimination.


This is me trying to find an open teammate.


Here I am again, squaring up for a 3-pointer to tie the game...ha ha ha, yeah right!

This is a picture of Rachel just after shooting the ball.


This is Joy, sitting poised and ready to sub-in.

I am proud to say that the star of the winning team was Jessica! (pictured above) Her team was the only undefeated team and she averaged about 12 points per game. She scored over 20 against my team...but I let her because a good RA doesn't make her students look bad on the court, right?!?!?

Palmgarten/Maugenhard Open House

Everyone in the community has been asking for tours of the new building (with Maugenhard dorm being added on top) and so we decided to have a joint open house. The seniors of both dorms came up with the theme and planned the snack menu; all we did was buy and help prepare the food! It was great! Throughout the evening all of the BFA community traipsed through our two dorms and made themselves at home.

The theme was evolution of music and each floor of the building represented a genre of music. The basement floor was Classical, the first floor was Jazz, the third floor was Rock and the fourth floor was Electronica. The cool sign pictured above was made by Anna.

These are the dorm parents of Maugenhard with their two daughters. They were dressed up as Rock and Electronica.


These are the dorm parents of Palmgarten! They dressed up as Sonny and Cher.

Rachel, Jessica, Bonnie and Steph sporting their creative costumes.

Here are some Palmgarten girls dressed up as flappers--I'm still not really sure where they got the fake guns from...I should probably check on that, I think it's against the rules.

Here's me, Sanna and Krista. We had so much fun!