Holy Crap It's Late!
Okay, so I take a sabbatical and THEN get sucked into a vortex created by a tear in the space/time continuum...? Not buying that one, eh? Okay, fine. I've been busy. Really REALLY busy. (Which is NOT to be confused with GETTING busy....dammit) Anyway, this update is way overdue so I may as well dispense with the excuses and such and get on with it.
June:
The school year ended as did my career as an elementary Art teacher. I spent the following couple weeks cleaning up and OUT my classroom. It's remarkable how much stuff one can accumulate. [Note to self--try not to integrate your own personal stuff too much with that of the schools; it only makes it that much more time consuming to separate it all when you leave.] I then spent the next couple weeks teaching a creative summer workshop for 4th graders at the Columbus College of Art & Design. Aside from a minor encounter with a spoiled little girl and her critical mother (who complained to the Art office that her daughter wasn't "having fun", but that I shouldn't take it personally; while at the same time her daughter announced to me and the entire class that if she didn't have fun that day her mother told her she didn't have to come back the rest of the week--sure lady, I won't take it personally. Oh and please God let the door hit her on the way out.) the whole two weeks went rather well. Which leads us to...
July:
Immediately after my final creative summer workshop class, I packed up, grabbed the folks and went up to my brother's house outside of Cleveland where we hopped on a plane and flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico (via a brief connecting flight outta Atlanta) where we boarded a Carnival Cruise ship for a week long excursion celebrating our parents' 35th wedding anniversary. We had an incredible time and everyone made it home (no one even came close to tossing anyone else overboard--well, okay, my mother considered doing it to the woman singing in the nightclub on the floor below her cabin, but who could blame her, apparently the woman's warbling could pierce steel because we could hear her through the floor of the cabin, not the musical accompaniment, just her.) After visiting St. Thomas, Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic), Barbados and Aruba, we returned to port in San Juan, flew back to Atlanta and then languished in the airport for over 6 hours because Hurricane Dennis caused our original flight to be canceled and the next possible flight (5 hours later) to be delayed an hour. [What is it with me and returning home from trips?] I took the next couple weeks off although I did have to finish clearing out my classroom---of which I got delayed again and had to finish out my summer semester of grad school. Which brings us to the final week of July where I agreed to help an old college friend and Art colleague in overseeing an Art Camp for the week. Although I think I dove into the pool without really looking first because this looks to be a very VERY long week. We arrive at 8am, the kids get there at 9am. We lead structured Art activities until 4:30pm and leave some time around 5:30pm---it's a LONG day for everyone, kids included. Oh and the kids range from 7 to 11 which isn't really much chronologically, but developmentally it's enormous in places. So it's pretty exhaustive stuff keeping everything going and managing to make things not too complex, but yet not too simplistic either. My friend asked me if I wanted an advance in my pay for the week and I declined thinking---"If I take the money, I might not come back....LOL"
August:
Looks to be just as packed full of stuff. My buddy Chad is gonna be visiting from Minnesota...[I bet he doesn't run into a blizzard on HIS return home--Ha!]and hopefully we'll get up to Cedar Point (it's the BEST amusement park in the country for those of you not familiar) while he's here. I have to start cleaning up and organizing my NEW Art room at my NEW school and preparing lessons for the fall. I have to hold a barbecue and an Art critique at my place for the artist group I'm part of (which also means I need to work in some time to actually produce a piece to be critiqued)and then the new school year begins. I know I'm gonna look back and wonder where all the time went, but at least this year I can list all of the stuff I managed to do and not feel like the time slipped by wasted.
June:
The school year ended as did my career as an elementary Art teacher. I spent the following couple weeks cleaning up and OUT my classroom. It's remarkable how much stuff one can accumulate. [Note to self--try not to integrate your own personal stuff too much with that of the schools; it only makes it that much more time consuming to separate it all when you leave.] I then spent the next couple weeks teaching a creative summer workshop for 4th graders at the Columbus College of Art & Design. Aside from a minor encounter with a spoiled little girl and her critical mother (who complained to the Art office that her daughter wasn't "having fun", but that I shouldn't take it personally; while at the same time her daughter announced to me and the entire class that if she didn't have fun that day her mother told her she didn't have to come back the rest of the week--sure lady, I won't take it personally. Oh and please God let the door hit her on the way out.) the whole two weeks went rather well. Which leads us to...
July:
Immediately after my final creative summer workshop class, I packed up, grabbed the folks and went up to my brother's house outside of Cleveland where we hopped on a plane and flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico (via a brief connecting flight outta Atlanta) where we boarded a Carnival Cruise ship for a week long excursion celebrating our parents' 35th wedding anniversary. We had an incredible time and everyone made it home (no one even came close to tossing anyone else overboard--well, okay, my mother considered doing it to the woman singing in the nightclub on the floor below her cabin, but who could blame her, apparently the woman's warbling could pierce steel because we could hear her through the floor of the cabin, not the musical accompaniment, just her.) After visiting St. Thomas, Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic), Barbados and Aruba, we returned to port in San Juan, flew back to Atlanta and then languished in the airport for over 6 hours because Hurricane Dennis caused our original flight to be canceled and the next possible flight (5 hours later) to be delayed an hour. [What is it with me and returning home from trips?] I took the next couple weeks off although I did have to finish clearing out my classroom---of which I got delayed again and had to finish out my summer semester of grad school. Which brings us to the final week of July where I agreed to help an old college friend and Art colleague in overseeing an Art Camp for the week. Although I think I dove into the pool without really looking first because this looks to be a very VERY long week. We arrive at 8am, the kids get there at 9am. We lead structured Art activities until 4:30pm and leave some time around 5:30pm---it's a LONG day for everyone, kids included. Oh and the kids range from 7 to 11 which isn't really much chronologically, but developmentally it's enormous in places. So it's pretty exhaustive stuff keeping everything going and managing to make things not too complex, but yet not too simplistic either. My friend asked me if I wanted an advance in my pay for the week and I declined thinking---"If I take the money, I might not come back....LOL"
August:
Looks to be just as packed full of stuff. My buddy Chad is gonna be visiting from Minnesota...[I bet he doesn't run into a blizzard on HIS return home--Ha!]and hopefully we'll get up to Cedar Point (it's the BEST amusement park in the country for those of you not familiar) while he's here. I have to start cleaning up and organizing my NEW Art room at my NEW school and preparing lessons for the fall. I have to hold a barbecue and an Art critique at my place for the artist group I'm part of (which also means I need to work in some time to actually produce a piece to be critiqued)and then the new school year begins. I know I'm gonna look back and wonder where all the time went, but at least this year I can list all of the stuff I managed to do and not feel like the time slipped by wasted.
posted by Chris at 7:29 PM
5 comments
