Lessons Learned: Paper+Water+Flour+Balloon

As a pretentious 24-year-old, I knew I had a lot to offer when I took this job. What I failed to realize was that this job had so much to offer me. I forget that sometimes.

In the two and half years I've been in this job, I've learned so much more than I could ever imagine. Some things I never actually expected to learn...like how to papier-mâché. Never in my 18 years of living at home, my 4 years in college, and 2 years in California did I ever have the need to papier-mâché. But apparently, as a Residence Director for a freshmen girls' dorm in the middle of nowhere, it's a necessary skill.

I first learned this skill during Homecoming my first year here. By my third year, I told the girls absolutely no papier-mâché for homecoming. It's a mess. I hate it.

I couldn't totally get rid of it, but at least this project was for something worthwhile.

We celebrated the dorm's 60 years of existence, but that's a mouthful so we called it our 60th birthday. We had a whole week of celebrations that was probably a little bit of an over kill. Friday was the birthday bash. We had karaoke, dance party, food, and...piatas. One of the girls came up with the brilliant idea of having pinatas. Who doesn't like hitting the crap out of something and getting something good in return? The same girl volunteered to make the pinatas, and what does it require? Papier-mâché, of course.

She did the first layer and I came over a few days later to help her with the second and third layer.

Papier-mâché isn't that bad. It's just a mess and requires long periods of drying time so they have to sit there. I don't really know why I have such an aversion to it. Bad first experience, I guess.

These turned out well. The girls had a blast smashing it to pieces and when they're happy, so am I.