NYC

We had two bomb threats this week because it got warm outside and the kids wanted to go out and get some sun. I would complain, but...hey, it was warm outside and I wanted to get some sun. Even with all that going on, my kids learned quite a bit this week. I thought they'd cry because we were doing PV=nRT, but thanks to an extremely useful hint from my Topics professor, they did well. I heard a lot of "This is really easy...you aren't challenging us enough." That's new by me! I think this unit will be when I try the pilot edition of the 3 different difficulty level tests. I'll let the kids choose how much they want to be challenged on their test...no extra points, just my added respect. I'll let ya know how it goes.

Friday was a PD day, thank the sweet Lord, with some less-painful-than-I-thought-it-would-be Hopkins stuff going on in the afternoon. Tony and Tom were my favorite people when they brought me my grade sheet so I could bubble in comments while people were talking.

After all the Hopkins, I ran home and did another set of Hopkins crap and got ready to go to New York to see my two roommates from senior year (Julie and Rachel...Rach lives there, and Julie was visiting). I drove out to the "bus station" (actually just a random street corner outside of a Greyhound station) and proceeded to wait for over an hour due to some bus screw up. After being told by the bus company that it'd be an hour late and then it still not coming, I came home and changed my ticket to leave Saturday morning instead. This allowed me to spend the evening filling in the rest of my little grade bubbles...and prevented someone from having to come get me from Chinatown at 1 am.

Saturday Matty drove me down to get the bus, which went off without a hitch this time. Until it broke down in New Jersey right before we got on a bridge. We got picked up by another bus and it was actually better, as the new bus had air conditioning and I didn't almost die of heatstroke. Rach and Julie met me at the bus station in Chinatown, and we went out for tasty Chinese food (go figure), then walked to Rachel's house. We stopped for ice cream, of course. Then we hung around Rach's and caught up. Here's a picture of that:

  

Julie had to go because of family obligations, so Rachel and I just went out and wandered around. She took me to a lot of different neighborhoods so I got an idea of what it was like to live around there. It's a whole different world, of course. It's so anonymous but so connected, and just...I don't know, I haven't sorted it all out yet. I enjoyed myself, though, and it was good to be with Rachel. We went home and then back out for BBQ and Margaritas, then caught the train out to the Brooklyn Museum for some free Saturday night event. There was a disco party, but it was a little lame, so we walked around and saw all the exhibits. That's what I love about New York...free nerdy Saturday nights.

I want to give one last reiteration of how much I adore my coworkers. Mad props to Tony, who is a phenomenal cook (thanks for Tuesday's wonderful dinner!) and Tom for being the best neighbor I could ask for, and Michelle for being an extremely crazy and entertaining person (which, by the way, we didn't realize nearly so much until you got rid of Jack). My life would suck with out you guys!

And ONE MORE WEEK UNTIL SPRING BREAK!!!