Gilotsav Halloween! (+ Baseball...)

Being the outgoing and active volunteer that I am, I was successfully henpecked into organizing a Halloween party for my 6th grade students. We offered the party to the 10th and 11th graders first, but surprisingly the prospect of bobbing for apples and playing musical chairs didn't pique their interest in the least. What seventeen-year-old wouldn't want to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey? It's okay; the sixth grade is one of my favorite classes, partially due to their freakish intelligence, and partly due to their indulgence of me as their first English teacher last year, when they were fifth graders learning to read and I seemed to them an expert in my field, cooler than cool because I was from America. My eleventh graders harbor no such delusions.


As any of my college friends could tell you, there's never a dull moment at a party organized by Jennifer. While one student did ask me halfway through if they could please leave-- to which I said no and commanded him to have fun-- the rest had a great time, as shown by Salome and Ani in this picture, partying it up like it's 1999.

What do you think of when you think of a Halloween party? My counterpart asked me what I usually did at Halloween parties, and all I could think of was walking in the Greenwich Village parade... probably not the answer she was looking for. Fortunately, the last volunteer Nicole had held one of these things, so the precedent of various little activities made their way into canon and tradition:


Bobbing for apples. Notice the little wallflower against the back wall. This kid knows all the answers but never says a word in class without being singled out. Here he is LAUGHING. I'd say that made it all worthwhile, but maybe if the whole party had consisted of waiting for one kid to laugh, it would have sucked.


Biting apples on a string. The kids voted this one into existence because they saw it in a movie.


Toilet paper mummies. It seemed more appropriate than a "TP the Teachers' Houses" contest.


Musical chairs. Levan the Tiger seems to have neglected the empty chair behind him. Way to blow it. You've failed Halloween.


And lastly, a costume contest. Our helpful jury of parents and the director chose as the winner: everyone. Everyone's costume was great, so everyone's the winner. Everyone was happy with this result except for me, holding my pack of glitter pens for the nonexistent first prize winner. Fine. Nobody gets glitter pens.


Lest I neglect to mention it, the children also learned the song "The 12 Houses of Halloween," though we stopped them after 10 houses because the parents were shifting in their seats ("10 shiny pennies, 9 orange gumdrops, 8 peanut clusters, 7 popcorn balls..."). If I've been to Tbilisi by the time you read this, then I've uploaded the video. If not, then not.

All in all, an exhausting success. No pumpkins caught fire, no students had wardrobe malfunctions, and only 1/4 of the water was spilled from the bobbing-for-apples bowl. Did I mention I was dressed as a baseball player? Seems like a good way to end the post-- except I must also note that as I listened to a download of NPR's news report, the reporter said something about Boston coming home with a World Series trophy. Was I more surprised that the Red Sox won, or that the World Series had started and ended without my knowledge? Thus ends my second baseball season away from home. When I get back... Nationals 2008!