ha ha, i know, i’m hilarious.
but you will forgive me in a second cos:
pants world, i have some most excellent news to share with you!
and it has nothing to do with food or hip hop dance or the fact that ryan gosling and rachel mcadams are together (although that is obvs news everyone should be celebrating, cos YAY LOVE!).
I GOT A NEW JOB!!!!!
i did!! i really did!!!
it’s all so exciting!!!
i won’t divulge too many details, since i try to keep my professional life neatly separated from ye blogosphere, but i WILL tell you that i get to work with undergraduate students!! which is what i’ve been really really really wanting to do!!! HOORAY!!!
LET’S HAVE A PARADE!!! seriously!!! let’s all dress up and dance down the street and eat funnel cake!!
anyway, i really am over the moon about it, and i can’t wait to start in two weeks. la la laaaa!
of course, when i tell people the news in person, the second thing they say after “congrats!” is “but wait, what about yr blog?!!”
rest assured, pantsers, that this blog is going NOWHERE! wait, that sounds wrong. what i mean is, of course i’ll keep writing! moreover, my (future) work with student development will most certainly inspire some posts, although obvs i won’t be writing about specific people or anything.
in fact, my new job has inspired today’s entry! and not just cos i wanted to tell you guys. but also cos… i need help!
anyone know any good icebreakers?
no seriously. i need to know. and not just cos i wanted to post this picture of a group known as “the icebreakers,” whom i assume are some kind of tween dance team.
nor was i looking for an excuse to once again proclaim my love for hilary duff, who loves her some ice breakers gum!
no really, i’m trying to find some ice breakers that aren’t really super cheesy or embarrassing.
which, is like, going to a long john silver’s and trying to find seafood that hasn’t been living in the deep fryer for the past three years. it’s, like, against the point.
the only ice breaker i can think of that isn’t SUPER lame is “never have i ever,” where the group sits in a circle of chairs and the person in the middle says something they’ve never done, and then if you HAVE done it, you have to change seats, and then you learn about each other amidst a lot of chaos and possible bruising!
yeah, so… help!
LINKS
in light of our recent sisterhood of the pants discussion, you have GOT to watch the latest video from sarah haskins, where she discusses romantic comedies and how crying is fun. serious hilarity.
if you’re a fan of chuck bass (WHO ISN’T?), you will pretty much drool over this interview with ed westwick (thanks, meredith, for the link!). because, you know, he’s CHUCK BASS.
amazon wishlist update: the new G&R book! holla!!! although i doubt it will reach the pulitzer level of slash’s autobio.
check out this really fascinating story of an FBI agent who tracks down stolen art.
The only ice breakers I can remember were stupid and/or required you taking off your shoes or communicate without actually speaking. The flip side to cheesy ice breakers is that most college students are full of cheese.
I do, however, have a TON of team building exercises (thank you military education/classes), most of which are relatively cool. When you need those, let me know.
Have fun with college students and try to not feel too old when dealing with them…I remember discussing the first Middle Eastern conflict and getting blank stares….then I realized my students were still in diapers…
CONGRATS ON THE NEW JOB!!!!!!!!!!
Congratulations! I have an awesome icebreaker for you…
Ok, i just made it up but I think it’s good. Play a balderdash type game except instead of real words people come up with fake cuss words in foreign languages. You have to guess which on is real. Edgy! Funny! Icebreaky!
one idea for an ice breaker: design a bingo sheet, where the students have to find “someone who has been to alaska,” etc etc. whatever. the person/people who has/have must sign the box. you can do the bingo however you want, but the nice thing about this ice breaker is that it addresses all the different modalities (i’m a teacher nerd), so people retain the knowledge about each other more easily.
i have a million of these. i can make copies or something. or i can email you in a spare moment or two.
because really, do you want THAT MUCH boring teacher talk in your blog?
(ps: that was a comment about me, not the other people who posted. no one had posted yet when i said boring teacher talk. please don’t throw tomatoes at me!)
uhhh, new G&R book? i should have that done by the weekend. thanks for the heads up, that intro was amazing.
i agree with the teacher statement. we literally have hundreds, and it is teacher mantra to beg, borrow, and steal.
EEEEE SARAH HAS A NEW JOB!!! Even though I’ve already told you congratulations in about 14 different formats, I have not yet congratulated you on this blog. SO CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
Well, I was a drama nerd, so all of our ice breakers were hella cheesy. Like, we did the Time Warp. Every single day. That’s how we started rehearsal. Every single day. Sigh. But there’s always the old Two Truths and a Lie standby. You know, “I’m 5′3, my grandmother was an extra in a Steve Martin movie, I can write with my toes.” Which is a lie? I’m only 5′2! (shut up). Seriously, Nanny’s famous, y’all. You can tell by this picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahpants/2613465014/in/set-72157605827100280/
Another is just going around the circle and having everyone tell the story behind his/her name. It helps with the remembering.
The worst mixer I can remember was one I went through during freshmen orientation. We had to sit in a circle and then one person started by saying their name. The next person had to say the previous persons name and their name. Then the next person would have to say those two names and so on and so on. Guess who was one of the last people? There’s NO way I remembered all twenty or so names. It was cruel and unusual punishment.
oh, btw, Congratulations! Now ‘I’ just need to find a job. haha.
There’s the “If you had…” questions, like:
• If you were a supervillain, what hero would you arch?
• If you could carve anyone’s face into Mount Rushmore (besides your own) whose would it be?
• If you had infinite money but you could only spend it on an item that cost less than $5.00, so like you get a billion of them, what would it be?
• If you could rename the planet Earth, what would you name it?
Stuff like that.
And then there’s another one that I like, where you get the game Apples to Apples, only you play it wrong. For example, you use the cards to play charades or as scavenger hunt items. That’s fun because it’s super interpretive.
Only Sarah could think that I Never is an Icebreaker and not a Drinking Game.
So I propose you keep chasing that pony until it collapses. What other drinking games can you take, repurpose, and call icebreakers?
Kings? - instead of a warm beer in the middle that the loser has to drink, it’s a solid block of ice - or an ice sculpture - that the loser literally has to break apart, then feed to everyone else!
Beer Pong? - except obviously it’s called ice pong. When your opponent gets the ping pong ball in your cup, you have to drink the whole slurpee in one gulp. Ooh! Brain freeeeeeze!
Power Hour? - Instead of drinking a shot of beer every minute until you throw up, you have to drink an entire glass of water every minute until you pee. But you’re not allowed to stand up or leave the room when you have to pee. That’ll melt the ice for sure!
The best part is that when the freshmen start going to frat parties, they won’t be as susceptible to the allure of all those drinking games, because they’ll think they’re all just cheesy FIG orientation activities.
“Seriously, you guys play Ice Pong with beer? That is so lame.”
“Right? You should at least be playing the Smallville drinking game. We’re going to go back to Jester, where it’s fun.”
my friend works as a counselor and I just saw her new ice breaker - she wrote questions on the white sections of a soccer ball (like, what’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done) and people threw it around, with her calling out which question to answer via which finger it was touching (ie question at your left thumb) and it was pretty fun when we were practicing.
CONGRATS ON YOUR NEW JOB!!!
Congrats again!! I’m so excited that you finally have a job that you’re excited about and going to be great at!
Secondly, dude, there are some seriously awesome games on here! I’m totally stealing them. I’ve done Jessica’s bingo one before (without actually playing bingo- just the kids answering the questions). I like it because at the end I’ll have them raise their hand if they answered the question so they can all see who else has that in common and get some of them to share their story.
I think I am the only one devastated about Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams on this blog. She was supposed to fall in love with me. . .Wait there’s a Smallville drinking game?
Moody, you can’t. You just… can’t. You’d instantly become Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.
Here’s just a taste - drink anytime they say Clark’s name.
Meredith - PLEASE DON’T TELL HIM ANYMORE. IT WILL DESTROY HIM.
wootsauce!
i think part of the problem is calling these activities ‘icebreakers.’ you cannot kill the stigma.
instead, call them ‘cupcake warmups’
you can eat cupcakes together.
woowoowoo!! Congratulations!
We always had to do icebreakers at store meetings when I worked at the Apple Store. There was a photo scavenger hunt and once we had to build gingerbread houses without talking. That almost turned into a food fight, though.
Maybe you could break the ice with a dance party!
Moody, if you’re interested in learning the complete Smallville Drinking Game created by myself and my boyfriend, send me an e-mail at mborders@mfah.org. But beware–Henri’s not kidding when he says it might destroy you. Although I suspect he just brought this up to make fun of me.
All of you fellow-commenters are awesome.
Especially Meredith with her awesome grandmother! That totally made my morning!
Alas, I have no ‘icebreaker’ gift for you. But I do have this: Congrats on the new job!! I am happy for you!
you guys are the best pantsers in the whole wide world!!! thanks for being excited for me!! and muchas gracias for all of these ice breaker ideas!! wow! my students are gonna end up knowing all KINDS of things about each other…
p.s. moody. seriously. be careful with that game.
p.p.s. seth, EXCELLENT cupcake suggestion. we are actually having cookies, so it’s a start.
Aww thanks Michelle! If you’d like to see Nanny in action, check out Leap of Faith. She’s the little old lady who sneezes outside of the revival tent.
Yay yay yay!!! I’m so happy for you and can’t wait to hear alllll about the new job!
Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!
Congrats, deary.
So, I remember playing “never have I ever” as an icebreaker of sorts in jr high and again I think in high school and maybe even college, and I also distinctly remember the moment I learned that *other* people thought it was a drinking game. I think the tone is quite different in the alcoholic version.
My former roommie Karen and I were tasked with an icebreaker at a women’s retreat long ago and far away, and people *still* come up to me and say what a great icebreaker it was. Honestly, I think this has more to do with the previous icebreaker quality than our concoction - but I also think it worked well, at least for a group of girls. I don’t remember the questions, but we had, say, 10 questions that each had 4 possible answers (e.g. “What is your preferred vacation spot?” Beach/Mountains/Luxurious Spa/France). So then all of the Beach people would have to head to one corner of the room, where they would talk with one other person about a good vacation memory, in this example (after exchanging names). Then, there would be a new question, and everyone would shuffle. I think we stopped when it seemed like the time was right, not necessarily when we were out of questions.
Yes to Jessica’s bingo game and to I’ve Never (this could produce some hilarious responses and it involves running around-like a Q&A musical chairs).
I also vote for any of Jen K.’s team building exercises which I’m guessing are similar to what you would do on a ROPES course.
Our staff did one last year. Our principal prepared statements like-Find three people who are the same age as you. Find 10 people who have the same shoe size as you. Find 5 people who have the same number of siblings with you. So you had to count and you got grouped in different ways with different people.
A video/photo scavenger hunt might be fun-especially if you’re working with incoming students. It could help them learn/find the really important things on/about campus-the ones you don’t hear about on the tour.
And maybe for a finale, team cupcake decorating?
congrats on the new job! the only ice-breakers i know are ones for smaller groups - two truths and a lie; and scar stories (everyone has to show a scar and tell the story behind it).