Sleeping In and Barrow Prom

Today we got a lovely chance to sleep in to make up for all of the late nights and early mornings we have been putting in to student teaching. And sleep is getting to be a difficult thing…especially if you don’t have an eye mask like I have. Mr. Koser and Shoe (Gustavus supervisors that are local high school teachers) tried to wake up to see the Northern Lights early this morning, but even at 2:30 am, it was too light out. The sun goes down for a few hours yet, but the time when it is down seems more like dusk or twilight. Apparently, we’re losing 10 minutes of darkness every day now.

This evening Michele (another Gustavus supervisor) arrived, so we met her at the airport before heading off to prom. The gym had been transformed from the last time we had seen it—they used tulle, shiny plastic, balloons, a fake chandelier, a DJ and loads of glitter to create the mood. They served chips, pop, sandwiches, fruit, and later cake and pizza—all very tasty. Compared to MN proms, students here did no grand march, and many came late and without obvious dates. As with any prom, there were questionable outfits…especially some short skirts and low tops…which inspired a discussion about what we all would (and wouldn’t) allow our children to wear out of the house or to prom someday. Wow, that makes us sound old!

Our chaperoning role turned out to be checking in students at the door and handing out gift bags, as well as monitoring the dancing and PDA inside the gym. I think Justin had to try really hard to keep from running out onto the dance floor full of strangers, because he and Molly both were really working dance moves near the side of the gym. Travis and Justin had the big role of duct taping the coolers full of punch so that students wouldn’t be able to spike the punch—which has been a big issue in past years. Chances are the other chaperones will have to call them back later tonight when they realize how well and in how many directions the boys wrapped those coolers. Otherwise, Alyssa, Molly and I had a nice time chatting and collecting tickets. By the end of the night, we were able to see a spectacular arctic sunset over the ocean and all went home with water bottles from the Barrow Prom.

-Rachel