Goodnight, Moon

It's late and I am very tired. I got back from the fun beach weekend late Sunday night and headed to Red Mountain Writing Project from 8:30-3:30. It's the local branch of the National Writing Project, which is a month long writing institute for teachers of writing, grades 1-university level that focuses on teaching, research, and writing.

It seems amazing so far (yes I am a complete geek) and is going to be some intense work for the next 4 weeks, but I am getting 6 hours of grad credit to complete my Masters FINALLY. The best parts: they pay for it, you don't have too much work outside 8:30 to 3:30 everyday, and you come away with a LOT more practical preparation to be a better teacher than you came with. And then you are supposedly certified to lead professional development for other teachers (I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of THAT--probably NOT).

The downside: We are doing icebreakers and get to know you games every day this week. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Makes me want to leap into the Cahaba River, really. Although we DID get to play the "Who Am I?" game today--the game that beloved Michael Scott forced his staff through on the beautiful "Diversity Day" episode of The Office's first season. I about lept out of my skin I was so excited.

Someone told me to be un-PC and guess a stereotyped demographic and I'd be able to guess mine. "Stir the melting pot, Pam!!!!" if you will. So I said gays, and they told me that's who likes this person. BINGO!! Cher. I got it on the second guess.

Back to the beginning though--I'm tired because I got home late Sunday night, went to RMWP all day today, then to UAB's registrar's office to try for the gillionth time to register for the two classes I'm supposed to get credit for, and THEN found out I was in fact on the schedule to work at Anthropologie from 5-close, or in tonight's case, 5-11:30. I'd pretty much decided NOT to work there this summer, but never did TELL them, and since today was the day I told them I could start back, of course they scheduled me. So I went in so as not to burn any bridges. You never know if you might want to return to a career folding shirts later in life.

So I'm home now and about to pass out--but not before I share this video with you that we watched today at RMWP. It's just a bunch of statistics on the information age and how much things are changing--we really do live in exponential times. It makes my head spin to try to wrap my mind around the information presented in this video--it's absolutely astonishing. If you have 6 minutes, you should really watch it. You'll be amazed--I was, anyway.

It makes me realize how much further I have to go as a teacher to prepare my students to live and work as productive citizens--and scary, too, given that technology hates me. Anyway, give it a watch. It'll at the very least make you wonder over the kind of age our kids and grandkids will grow up in.