Small Town Life

Over the Hunger Games weekend Emily and Claire got a taste of "small town life." Or maybe not. There was a small disturbance in the house at the end of my block on Friday night. We were trying to have an easy day Friday after the crazy that was the party and the midnight premier and I think we did an excellent job of taking it easy most of the day. But at 10:30pm a police officer came to the door and told us we needed to leave. Um...what?! There was a situation down the street and the house was not a safe distance away, so we were being asked to evacuate. Claire and I were already in our PJs so it was a mad dash to find some clothes! We decided to get some gas in Em's car and go hang out at the Wal-Mart in Carroll. My neighbor lady, Janet, said she'd keep me up to date and let us know when it was safe to come back. Well, after walking around Wal-Mart for what felt like eternity we ended up finding a room at the Super 8 so we could get some sleep. Two sleepless nights in a row tend to make us cranky! Janet did text us around 7:30am, but we were too sleepy to really get it. The next morning we slept as long as we could, ate lunch, and decided to see Hunger Games again. The movies are cheap here, and we wanted to make sure we were good before heading back to Manning.

Turns out there was a man having some mental trouble while carrying a shot gun and/or a pistol around the house. The police tried to quietly get things back to normal but the man wasn't cooperating. Around 7:30am Saturday morning the police finally threw some tear gas into the man's house and he came out and gave up. Nobody was hurt, THANK GOD. The man was sent to the hospital for observation/treatment and was eventually charged with something. I can't remember what. But nobody really had any intention of hurting anyone else, it was just a bad situation so they had to evacuate people.

It was funny, driving back into town people were mowing their lawns. Kids were riding their bikes. It looked like every other normal day. On Monday when we went back to school only half the staff/students seemed to know anything had happened over the weekend. It was a weird weekend.

Hunger Games: The Movie!

Wow, first of all I loved it. The movie didn't feel rushed, if anything it pushed the limits on running time. I felt like the important events from the book were all present. I think Gale is too much of a hottie and giving Peeta a real fight for the title of "favorite boy."


I loved the actors. Considering there are a lot of children in this movie they did a great job of finding talented actors. I didn't feel like anyone was picked just for the look of the character, they also had to be able to act. I mean the girl playing Katniss has been nominated for an Academy Award! And let's face it...I LOVE Stanley Tucci!!!! I think Rue and Thresh were awesome as well. I could totally see that boy being upset about Rue.

The Games. Between the game makers and the action, I was pretty happy with how the actual game went. There were a couple changes but nothing I didn't understand. Meaning, I don't think some of the kids expected to watch this movie would have done too well after...if the Mutts at the end were as gruesome as they appear in the book. I am a bit disappointed about the missing scene from Katniss and Peeta as they are brought to the hover craft at the end of the games. But as I mentioned before, the movie was LONG I can see how that would be an easy transition to cut.

Really, my biggest problem was the relationships. The movie really didn't develop any of the complicated relationships between the characters very well. One minute Katniss doesn't want anything to do with Peeta as a teammate, and the next she's upset because he doesn't want anything to do with her as a teammate. You don't get anything from Gale. He's there, he's not there, and he's there again. Nothing. I also had trouble with Cinna and Kaniss. She seemed to trust him very quickly, but you don't see why or how that came about. A short conversation does not a true friend make. I understand this is a complicated movie to make, but considering how long they let the movie go on...I feel like we should have been able to get more out of these connections. I will say that Seneca Crane and President Snow talking about the Games in his garden was amazing. I feel like I got a better understanding of how President Snow ticks than I did of how Gale did. I hope to see some of these relationships develop more fully in the next movie.

Success!

Wow, this is late in getting posted. But I didn't have the energy to write it after the party and then I forgot about it during Spring Break... so here I am almost a month later talking about my very successful Hunger Games Premiere Party!

The party was amazing. We had around 40 kids with 5 official adult workers! Most of the staff dropped by at some point during the event just to check out the action and meet Emily. We decided to go "TWIN" for the party. :-)

Emy brought me a shirt so we could be twins with same, shirt different color, with our hair pulled back and similar pants. Oh boy did the kids AND the staff go crazy when they saw us! So, we had a lot of people around. By the end of the night the library was HOT, but it was totally worth it.

I started the evening with food. Students got to eat some Hunger Games Themed treats made by the Food II class, as well as pizza or walking tacos.

Once everyone was settled in eating and chatting we watched the movie trailer and the Taylor Swift video.

Then we watched a parody video that was pretty great. It was a nice way to start the action and it allowed people to trickle in and not miss anything.

Once we started the Training Stations thing really got into high gear.

The Archery Station, of course, was a big hit. Emy watched out to make sure our bow didn't break and that the line moved smoothly. I had Claire taking pictures, because she's great at it, but didn't have my camera batter properly charged. But Claire is awesome and was able to get a lot of great pictures before the "lights went out." I moved between the Camouflage Station and the Knot Tying Station for most of the event.

There were some HIGHLY motivated camouflage kids.

Not a lot of faces were painted, but most people left with water, tree, grass, or even fire inspired arms. A couple of students braved the Plant Life Station but only two forms were turned in. One was not complete, but the other was (it wasn't correct, but it was complete). The game playing stations went pretty well. We only had one student who beat the Scholastic Computer Game the whole night! We took a picture as proof, because EVERYONE tried it but nobody seemed to win. I was sure it was rigged.

I was surprised at how fast time could fly and still seem to take forever. In the end the party broke up around 7:15 pm instead of 8pm, but I everyone seemed happy. We had two rounds of prizes, because I wanted to make sure that a couple of late arrivals got a chance at a prize. I was feeling guilty that the party was breaking up so early. But I think the prizes went well. I gave a poster out to the only person to win the computer game. I gave another poster to the only person to completely fill out the wildlife challenge. Then I drew names from a punch bowl for all everything else. I'd say it was a good mix of high school vs. middle school winners. There were way more high school students at the party so they got most of the prizes. Not everyone could claim a prize but most people were happy enough.

Joyce and Brenda, the workers I recruited from school were amazing help! They took care of all the food and were helping clean up before I could even worry about the mess we were making. We were all cleaned up and out of there by 8pm. In fact I think I beat most of the teachers out of their rooms! Which was good because Emy, Claire, and I needed a little rest before the movie. The movie...I'll have to start a new post for that!