Pre-Summer

I had a three day weekend this weekend and I think it was a bit dumb. It's not that I don't think Memorial Day should be a holiday. Obviously I am in support of a holiday that honors soldiers who gave their lives for our country. The dumb part comes with next week's schedule. We are off today, Monday. Then we have a full school day tomorrow, a half day on Wednesday and a half day on Thursday(the last day of school). The teachers have to come in on Friday to wrap everything up. I really don't know what I am supposed to do with one full day and two half days. I am going to bring some kids' movies since I have a suspicion that the other teachers are just going to have kids watch movies all day. We'll see. I guess I will prepare a back-up lesson just in case. The three day weekend did give me a little taste of what summer will be like or more accurately what the two and a half weeks I won't be traveling will be like.

On Wednesday we have a class party and awards presentation. Apparently I have to think of an award for each kid. Some will be very easy but others will be quite difficult. "Smelliest farter," "Most likely to say a cuss word" and "Most likely to end up in prison" are probably not acceptable despite their validity. In all seriousness, I want to validate something I see in them that other people or even themselves might not see. I should probably start thinking and praying about this.

On Friday we went on a field trip to Moody Gardens- a hodgepodge of random attractions in Galveston. The day started off very poorly with an unplanned wake-up call at 8:00am from my teacher friend, Belinda. I normally wake up around 6am and arrive at school around 7:15-7:30am. School starts at 7:45. Needless to say, I felt terrible. I made it to school at 8:30 feeling pretty dumb.

Field trips are good and bad. Good because it's a chance to be with the kids on a more informal way and bad because they won't stop asking the same innane questions over and over again. We went to the aquarium, on a paddle boat ride and watched an IMAX movie. The movie was in 3D and watching all the kids try to touch the 3D images was very entertaining. It was about the Grand Canyon and made me want to go rafting down the Colorado River. Apparently it is super pricey.