Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Here are a few pictures of our annual Thanksgiving celebration:

The annual Pratt Family Christmas picture!

My family with my grandparents

As always, we had my whole family over to my house for Thanksgiving dinner this year. Even though the food and company is the same every year, as we all grow up, things definitely feel different. Instead of laughing as my grandpa fell asleep, I found myself sleeping on the floor while watching Elf with the non-football crowd. Instead of talking about elementary school with my cousins, we chatted about college. Instead of rattling off a list of classes to my aunts and uncles, I was telling them about my job.

My life has changed drastically since last year, and I am really thankful for all of the opportunities and challenges. Best wishes for a happy, healthy holiday season!

rooooomies!

My SMC roommates are some of the best people alive. I spent three years living with them in either a suite or townhouse, and we became more like family than just roommates.

Thankfully, all of my roommates are still in the Burlington area, which is amazing. Last Sunday we met up for breakfast at our personal favorite spot, IHOP. You might remember that my roommate Mandi and my adopted roommate Stew, got married right before we graduated, so we got caught up on married life with the two of them. My two other roommates, Gil and Kendra, are still roommates in an apartment in Essex, which I'm jealous about, and it was also great to catch up with the two of them. On a sad note, one of Mandi and Stew's rats, Charlie, and Gil's rat, Algernon, both passed away since we graduated, which was unfortunate. I'm not much of a rat person and I never got anywhere near Charlie or Algy (despite being chased a few times...), but I still feel bad.

I can't believe that its been six months since we graduated...but when we get back together its like we haven't been apart for a day. Kendra had drawn this picture of our family a while back, and it still makes me laugh every time I see it.

As you know, I'm extremely close with my best friend from high school, Kristin, but the relationships that I have with my roommates from St. Mike's are different - not that one is better than the other, but spending such an intense period of time with your college roommates 24 hours a day really creates incredible bonds with those people. I am so lucky to have them!

November?!

Indeed, it's November. I'm having a hard time believing this to be true, mostly because I am not experiencing a school semester like I have for the past 16 years. Even though I work with students everyday and hear all about their semesters, it's very different not experiencing it for myself. November has seemingly crept up on me - I was watching some TV last night and the number of Christmas commercials was a little startling!

Work continues to go well; I am currently working on planning a first-year service trip for students during J-Term (also known as "winter term" or the month-long term at Middlebury between first and second semester. Instead of having several weeks off at Christmas, Middlebury students have the holidays off, but come right back after New Years for a month-long term where they take one class and are able to take other fun workshops, go skiing and enjoy a slightly more relaxed pace. They then have a week off at the very beginning of February and return for second semester then), which has taken up quite a bit of time. I've been searching for potential sites for out students to go to, which has been surprisingly hard.

The recession has definitely negatively impacted the service world - staff cuts and pay decreases make it more difficult for organizations to accept volunteers, which seems counter intuitive. Because the trip will be over a weekend, most organizations would have to make special arrangements to have staffing at their site, and most of them simply don't have the energy or funding to do this additional work during this economic climate. I did make some great progress today and found a few organizations that have worthy projects for these students to spend their weekend with.

I'm also in the midst of planning the Martin Luther King Day of Service, advising student organizations, planning Thanksgiving Basket donations to the local food shelf and getting ready for "Giving Trees," the annual holiday gift donation project. I'm keeping busy for sure!