It's second week and classes are in full swing. The snow is snowing, the cold is colding, but most importantly frisbees are flying all around the Rec center. The 2011 Syzygy team is made, and we're doing as best we can to hone our skills on the tennis courts in preparation for four very exciting tournaments coming up in the next ten weeks. Next weekend we're driving down to Iowa to scrimmage University of Iowa, Iowa State and University of Wisconsin, three very strong teams from our region. Seventh weekend, we're flying out to San Diego and ninth weekend we're making the trek to California again to play in a tournament at Stanford. Spring break marks our yearly week of boot camp and tournament play in Texas (more fun than it sounds, I promise).

But Syzygy, we've decided, simply has to start getting creative with our fundraising techniques. Or, rather, Syzygy needs to start fundraising in general. The college is very supportive of Ultimate Frisbee and does its best to give us the fields and resources we need, but funding simply doesn't exist (as it does in Varsity programs) to send us to the elite tournaments we attend in California and Texas. And so we're more or less left to fend for ourselves financially.

The Annual GoP Beard Auction, which took place last weekend, made us Syzygy girls pause. If GoP can make a good amount of money by selling trimming rights to their hair and beards and CUT has no problem getting alumni to chip in at the Alumni Auction in the Spring, why can't Syzygy think of something we could instate as an annual fundraiser?

We're a little short on ideas at the moment, but we're still in the brainstorming phase. We're in no mood to cut off all our hair, nor do we want to burden our alumni with monetary requests. And so we're still thinking. We are all, we realized after months of delicious team potlucks, very good cooks. I wonder if we could do something around this - a Syzygy catering service around Northfield perhaps?

Anyway, the beard auction was a raging success, as always. Enjoy a few shots of some of the works of art from the evening!

Just the beginning:

Tada! A heart on his head (what a trooper).

Down for styling:

 The "earmuff" style is always a good idea:

Now seniors, these were, long long ago, freshman year roommates. Rumor has it their room number was translated into computer code and shaved into his beard. Sentimental? Touching? I'm not sure.

And of course, what's a January post without some wintery scenes. If you're from Florida, the words "negative four degrees" probably don't mean anything good to you. If you're from Minnesota, that number just means "hey, it could be a lot worse!"

Until next week,

Marlena