On the Twentieth Century

This is quite the week at school:
- Parent/Teacher conferences (Wednesday and Thursday, from 3-8)
- Homecoming Game/Parade/Dance on Saturday
- Spirit Week (=dress up!)
- A formal observation of my teaching by my principal
- The official start of after-school speech practices
- A speech team parent meeting on Thursday and
- and a field trip on Friday

Oh, and I'm also in charge of snacks for the faculty on Thursday.

I enjoy Spirit Week at school because it gives me an excuse to dress up. We're not allowed to wear costumes for Halloween, but in honor of the sports season? Mais oui!

Today was "Twin Day". The faculty was all supposed to dress alike, so we wore jeans and staff shirts. Boring.

Tomorrow is "Decade Day". The seniors get the 80s, the juniors the 60s/70s, the sophomores the 90s, and the freshmen get the 20s/30s. (The only thing weirder than the years I went to high school during being declared suitable for dress-up is the posters up for the middle school's dance: "Retro Dance! 70s, 80s, and 90s!" My friends, we have been declared retro.) Despite my rooting for the faculty claiming 1900/10s, the faculty settled on the 40s/50s. I have an outfit that could work for the 40s, but I think I'll dress up in my pioneer costume instead. They didn't specify which century the decade was from, after all.

Wednesday is Superhero/Villain Day, Thursday is Color Day (the teachers get orange, which is an improvement from last year's brown), and Friday is my field trip so I'm wearing normal teacher clothes.

Speaking of the field trip, I'm not inclined to plan another. After a lot of phone calls and running about getting various permissions and forms and so on, I finally booked my Advanced Drama class for a workshop, backstage tour, and viewing of a technical rehearsal at DCTC. It's a great opportunity, and I was excited. Then this morning the secretary informed me that students can't go if they're failing any classes. Which takes out 4 of my 13 students. Add in the other one who somehow forgot to tell me that she'd be gone all week on a family trip to Disneyland (how do you forget such a thing? Moreover, how do you go through the actions of filling out and returning a permission slip and not recall that you will be gone on that date?).

So, with half the kids not going, I'm trying to stay perked up for the thing that took me so long to put together. Oh, don't get me wrong - it'll be fantastic for the ones that are going. But it'll kill the group dynamic I've been working on, and the kids who aren't going were really the ones who needed such a thing, you know?

In other news, I had a lovely weekend hanging with the family. We enjoyed many of our favorite Denver restaurants, viewed the splendors of the King Tut touring exhibit at the DAM, and shopped a bit. It was a perfect way to spend my last free weekend for the next four months.