I read a book.

Well, a PDF of a book. It's not that shocking, really.  I did the same thing a few weeks ago, reading 1984 over a day and a half, because DS2 had recently read it and may be using it in his senior thesis.  That book is even more grim than I remembered, and not exactly a fun read.

Yesterday, I read Treasure Island, somewhat unbelievably, given my wide reading habits, for the first time.  This was occasioned by our 8th grade being on a multi-day trip to Washington D.C., their teachers being gone with them -- and me teaching language arts to the 7th graders while they're gone.  They're just finishing up TI, so I thought I should read it so I could, you know, actually answer some of their questions.

Anyway: I loved it, as unlikely as it was.  It's the kind of story you just go with, because it all happens at such a breathless pace in gorgeous old-fashioned prose.   Perhaps the thing I loved the best is the clear lineage from TI to Pirates of the Caribbean.  I maintain that the PotC The Curse of the Black Pearl is one of the most perfect adventure movies ever made, and I still enjoy it when I catch it from time to time.

By way of giving the substitute language arts teacher a break, the students have been watching the old Disney movie version of TI and I am 100% sure that Geoffrey Rush, who played Capt. Barbossa in PotC, based his performance on Robert Newton's Long John Silver.  His voice is uncannily similar.  Of course, the whole Capt. Sparrow as "pirate, and a good man" conundrum has its origin in the character of Long John Silver, who is clearly a pirate, but also, when possible, and sometimes even when it's not very convenient -- a good man.

I only saw half the movie, since I'm switching off classes with the other 7th grade homeroom teacher, and so today taught social studies (the Kansas-Nebraska Act!).  I may just borrow the DVD later this week to watch the rest of movie, just to see how they treated the material.  Huge chunks of dialog come straight from the book, the film's Jim Hawkins (Bobby Driscoll) looks entirely too young and soft to pull off even half of Jim's exploits from the novel.  Skimming the plot summary just now, though -- I don't think I'll bother.  Silver making off with the treasure in a skiff?  Bah.

there, and back!

I'm exhausted and sun burnt, but very happy with how things went.

Mt. Lemmon is absolutely gorgeous! In my jeans and hiking boots, with my layered shirts and sweatshirt, traipsing about in Nature at 9000 feet elevation, I was in my happy place. I almost feel as if I've missed my calling...

Not my photo -- I didn't have time to take any of decent quality -- this is just part of the mountain road, near Hoodoo Vista [elevation ~6600 feet], an absolute stunning array of geology in action.  The woods were just as spectacular. (Also not my photo, but we did walk through forest like this at Middle Bear, elevation ~5000(?) feet, and again at the summit, ~9000 feet.)

The students were great, the chaperones super helpful, the staff wonderfully knowledgeable, kind, and enthusiastic.  The bus driver was heroic (would you want to drive a tour bus up there?!).  The only slight disappointment were the cloud cover and extreme winds last night, but we still got a telescope demonstration which was very cool. 

Perhaps the only significant downside to all this is that I didn't sleep well at all, and am thoroughly exhausted now even more than usual.  Post-hike exhaustion is very  similar to the excellently-tired feeling I get after being at the beach all day, maybe that's just the sun burn.  The only real down side now is that I don't want to go back to work tomorrow!

field trip eve...

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, my brain already going 100 miles an hour.  Lots of little things to do to pull this whole thing off. 

40 students, 15 chaperones, 7 inquiry groups, 16 dorm rooms...

I think we're all set, although I do have paperwork still pending for one student that was a late addition (today!).  Amazingly enough, by the end of Wednesday, everyone had paid, and by Friday morning, I had all the paperwork, too.  There was quite a bit of that.

Yesterday was preparing the material the 8th grade needs for Monday and Tuesday.  Today was administering the pre-program survey (put it online, then emailed it to the students), finding and typing up prayers for the trip, sending reminder emails to the chaperones -- only half of them read it -- and then everyone else who is coming, and about then is when I got the "Hey, can we make this work?" message.  So we did, which of course made extra work.

Then to school, to print everything that needed printing, then shopping for water and snacks with a colleague.  Then driving around looking for name tags and a new expandable file, and ended up getting both at Staples.  Then home to wrestle Word into mail-merging the name tags so they'd have the student's group numbers and dorm rooms on them: best way to avoid having to repeat the information ad infinitum (I hope).

Anyway: still have to do my own paperwork (oops), pack, make a lunch for tomorrow, obsess over every detail yet again, and hopefully get some sleep before this thing kicks off. 

No chance of rain in the forecast, but it's supposed to be cloudy.  It would be disappointing to be at an observatory without getting a chance to use the big telescopes! I'm not giving up hope, though.  We'll see!
St. Albert the Great - St. Francis of Assisi - St. Bernard - St. Dominic pray for me!
(patrons saints of science, environmentalists, mountain climbers, astronomers)