Back by popular demand: Me!

You want an update? No?! Oh...ummm....Too bad! You're getting one, so sit back and listen...

It all started last Thursday afternoon. That was the day my grandpa came to visit for a long weekend. Boy was it long!! Who knew an 82.5 year old man could have so much energy? Starting Thursday when he got in from the airport and ending Monday morning when he headed back out it was non-stop tourism. I am so very glad he will be my last tourist for the summer! We averaged 4 miles of walking a day (despite the heat) and literally crammed as much as was physically possible into 3 1/2 days as humanly possible.

The events were as follows (deep breath now): soul food buffet, Times Square, Grand Central Station, 34th Street, Heartland Brewing Company, Egyptian Embassy, Board of Education, MTA Transit Museum, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Coney Island, Empire State Building, World Trade Center, Financial District, South Street Seaport, St. Paul's Parish, Trinity Church, The Bull, Bowling Green, Liberty Island, Ellis Island, random walking tour of south south Manhattan, remains of Lovelace Tavern, Fraunces Tavern, Vietnam Memorial, Federal Hall, City Hall, Brooklyn Bridge, Mustang's Bar and Grill (where gpa got a little drunk), crazy taxi ride home, Central Park Zoo, carousel at Central Park, American Museum of Natural History, heaps of sushi, and Central Park.

It was almost relaxing to head to work on Monday. Speaking of work... Those of you who haven't been paying attention don't know that summer school started.  For me, it started the day after regular school got out, the 28th. This day also happened to be the morning after a crazy long night of drinking and debauchery at the school's End of Year Party. I only have two words to explain that night's events to you: Booze Cruise.

ANYWAY, summer school starts and we have 2 days without the students. I was hoping that things would be more organized with Ms. Harris (our excellent AP) taking the lead, but things were and still are a bit crazy. I did find out I have a student teacher. She is most likely about 10 years older than me, is doing the Teaching Fellows program, and seems quite nice. The additional nice part is that she started teaching as of this week - week 2. Summer school is only 4 days a week, which is great, and as of next week, week 3, I am no longer the lead teacher. It was going to be even easier when we were told we were teaching from a kit so that everything would be easy. All Ms. Harris seems to say is that things need to be easy and not stress us out. Ha! Our "easy" kit ended up being mostly based on cds, of which we only have 4, and none of which work on the laptops available to our classroom. This could be remedied, but we cannot download the necessary players to get the cds to work. So, the kit is out. Now, we are scrambling to come up with ways to get the kids to do anything. It's really boiled down to them writing a paper to pass science. Most of them are also supposed to be writing a paper to pass Social Studies as well.

We have our students for 2.5 hours a day (then have 1.5 hours free = nice!). 1 hour of that is supposed to be "independent time" so that the 8th graders can make up a 3rd class. Oh...did I mention that summer school is only 19 days? Yep. These kids are allowed to "make up" 3 to 4 subjects during 19 4 hour days in the summer. Insanity. If I was any of these 8th graders and my future of going to high school hung in the balance I would be working my ass off. I am sure you would be too. But, these little people are a whole different breed. We lay the books open in front of them and they do NOTHING. Some nap, some have yet to come with either something to write with, something to write on, or both, some come an hour late (despite being told they wouldn't be allowed to, no one stops them), some just do whatever the crap they want to. It's great. Tomorrow is Day 14.

In other, slightly less stressful news, I was able to get my VISA for Egypt now so I don't have to try to navigate the process in China. I officially signed my contract with China to teach there and am currently waiting on my letter of request so I can apply for my China VISA as well. I was finally awarded by NY State Teaching License - just in time! I gave my landlady notice that I am moving out. I have been unsuccessful at selling any of my stuff but that is most likely for lack of really trying. I have started to pack stuff up and am amazed at how much "teacher stuff" I have. My original limit of 10 boxes just isn't reasonable.

Each day now is just another countdown day for me...there are 42 days until I leave for China, 29 days until I am in Seattle, 20 days left in my apartment, 14 days of summer school, 4 more weekends in NYC, and 1 more work day this week.