Whistle Blowing, Break Dancing, and Card Throwing

Sorry for the lack of posts. Everything seems to be old hat to me after more than a month. I have been fairly busy with my classroom and I'm getting out a bit more with the longer day. Speaking of days, they started out with about six hours of sunlight at the beginning of January, we are now up to about nine or ten a day.
Friday night I reffed a 6th & 7th grade boys basketball game. I hate reffing. Absolutely hate it. I can't concentrate on the game. When I am a spectator I am constantly people watching, talking to people, and thinking about something other than basketball. When I ref I do the same. I missed quite a few calls. The fans got on me a few times about it so I did the typical ref move and made up for it next time down the court.
"ZSTTTTT, Foul! uh... yellow team," I boldly whisper.
"It's GOLD, not yellow," shouts some overzealous mom.
"ok..."
Second half, some kid got absolutely stuffed. Basketball, hands, forearms, even shoulders. All taken out. I opened my mouth, raised my eyebrows and laughed... forgetting for a split second I was reffing. Coach didn't like that too much.
"OH C'MON!!"
Well, that whole experience just about drained me, but I still had to DJ the junior high dance that the student council, which I am an adviser for, sponsored. Apparently kids these days don't like the typical songs like Billy Jean, Ice Ice Baby, Jessie's Girl, and Jump Around.
"These songs suck!!"
"Mr. Young is the worst DJ ever!!"
I felt like saying, "I'm the only one you've got punk so you better shut your mouth!"
Luckily, I wasn't. One of the parents owns his own dj system so I quick slipped him a few twenties so I could save face for Monday morning. Apparently this was the first dance in school history and there wasn't any grinding so I guess it was a success and I have permission to do more.
Saturday afternoon I was growing tired of sitting inside, so despite the -40 degree wind chill in town I bundled up and took a hike. I went down along this small creek and walked along a snowmobile trail. I then branched off to a smaller foot trail along a different part of the river. The trail kept getting smaller and smaller the farther out I went. Finally I came to a clearing. Unlike Colorado there were no big mountains or crashing rivers or anything like that. But, the snow blowing around on the frozen tundra with no life in sight was pretty incredible. It got very cold out there, probably close to -70 with the wind chill. It was a feeling unlike anything I had ever felt. At any point if my skin was exposed to the wind it would ache. Taking pictures killed my hands, but I reminded myself it was a worthy sacrifice for all of you back home (which come to find out, all the folks in MN witnessed pretty similar weather over the weekend). On my way back to Bethel I happened upon some dog sled teams whose dogs were terrified of the wind and wouldn't run into it. They got all tangled up with the ropes and were in a huge mess. So I got to hang out with the dogs for a bit and warmed up with a couple.
Not much longer than that I got back and had a tasty hot chocolate a la whiskey. That definitely warmed me up.
Then it was time for the marathon poker night. My roommates and I had about 6 other guys over for poker night. It was an interesting mix of guys. My one roommate is a pretty funny guy. He's from Sweden so he has broken English. Like when we were tying up the dogs last week he says to me.
"You know Brandon the dog piss on your leg now."
He is about the nicest guy in the world, never heard him cuss... until last night. He got a few drinks in him and he sounded like a sailor.
"Damn dis card game inventor of you."
"Son of bitch you is good!"
"HA HA You think you can beat me little man? Brings it"
We played until about 4:00 in the morning.
Needless to say, I didn't meet the missionary girls at church the following morning.