Circular reasoning

I find fascinating, if occasionally uncomfortable, the ability of people to ruminate on difficult situations almost endlessly. I'm going to have to go through a series of difficult conversations with people in the next few weeks and what I need to say circles my brain like a hamster on a wheel, although maybe slightly more squeakily.

Why is this? I know what I need to say, but I keep going over it again and again. What in the evolutionary process made this a human characteristic? Why would people who did this survive and those who don't die off? It would seem that a distracted being is not the one best suited to survive.

Sometimes I've been able to stop this kind of stuff by writing it down, which I might try this time as well, but what's more interesting to me here is the way I'm coping with it. Yes, I know I'm writing about myself as if it's not me, but I don't presume to have much if any control over all of this, it's just happening. For better or worse, my mind has begun to frame what's happening currently and in my future life as a familiar story, where, aside from a few details here or there, I know exactly what will happen and how it will all end.

Of course things, and especially difficult conversation things, rarely go the way you expect them to, but it doesn't matter. Stuff will happen. Some of it will be fine and some of it will be hard. But people have their own identities, which creates a powerful inertia in a person's life, so for the most part, with only calamitous sorts of events to the contrary, things go where they're headed, no matter what you do about them.

Traveling guy

The LA trip was a whirlwind. It included shopping, eating, walking around Laguna Beach, and two baseball games. I have to admit that these were not the most scintillating of games, but we got to see two different stadia.

The most notable occurrence was the guy next to me, with whom I had shared my sunscreen and chatted amiably for an hour or so, turned nasty when he was unhappy with my reaction to his spilling beer on me. I had made the mistake of noting that "Sorry, but I spilled most of it on myself" wasn't really an apology, and he continued to escalate things, telling everyone in the rows around us what an a--hole I was and ultimately offering to take me outside to duke it out. He me mentioned that he could take me with one hand behind his back because "You're old," and I'm sure he could have pummeled me if he could have gotten a firm hold of me, but I wasn't sure he'd be able to stand steadily enough to do so. Nonetheless, we took the easier course and moved to other seats. Happy father's day indeed.

The flight back was on the long side but pretty uneventful. As to the additional length, the pilot, who had begun the flight by saying he hoped that this would be the most wonderful flight we'd ever taken, reported that "We are taking the along route because of weather in the northeast, or at least that's what they're telling us." I like that last little touch; it adds the possibility that we may be diverted because of something else entirely, perhaps something sinister.

I just noticed something in the plane bathroom that made no sense to me. Next to the sink, there's a sign that says AS A COURTESY TO THE NEXT PASSENGER, WE SUGGEST YOU USE YOUR TOWEL TO WIPE THE SINK AND COUNTER. I'm generally a fan of courtesy, but I'm also a fan of using the towel to dry my hands. Isn't that what they're there for?

That flight got in about 45 minutes late, which wasn't wonderful but wasn't a disaster either. Today, on my way to Chicago, we encountered a different, though still fairly common, difficulty. My daughter is doing a program for four weeks here, for which the most succinct description would be internship camp. She's living in a dorm and working at a small record company for a few hours each day and taking some kind of class in the evenings. Activities are planned for weekends.

She needed to arrive at the dorm around noon, so we decided to fly out early that morning, rather than the night before. I'm always up for this kind of thing, though the non-morning person part of the family is not. After a late night getting ready, I awoke around 5:15 and I'm telling you, the day just feels different on 3 hours of sleep. We got to the airport and checked the bag, parked the car and headed for security, for which the line stretched halfway down the corridor next to the now useless moving walkway.

That part of the line moved pretty quickly, but once we came around the bend and saw that we had to go another 50 yards or so before we even reached the back and forth part, I began to get concerned. Getting concerned in this kind of situation helps pass the time, but it isn't good for much else. You just have to hope you get done before they close the plane door. In our case, we started on the security line 65 minutes before flight time and got on the plane, having scurried the length of the concourse, 12 minutes before flight time. This is not an exaggeration.

And the people sitting next to me on the plane have a camera that precedes every picture by saying clearly "Say Cheese."

But we made it and I will report on the rest of this trip later.

Another new place

Finals done, we beat it out of town for a few days. I'm currently in Newport Beach, CA. I'm sitting in Starbucks, having walked (I know it's California, but I still like to walk) a half mile up from the hotel. Across the street is a marina, something called Hampton Yacht Group, 2 Irish bars, a wig store, a jeweler, and 3 seafood restaurants including, oddly enough, a Joe's Crab Shack, a chain whose newest branch is a similar distance from my home.

The flight here was routine, which is to say, long and uncomfortable as any 5 1/2 hour flight is bound to be. It was absolutely without incident, aside from my rental car having a low tire, which we noticed before we drove off, so no harm, no foul. We're driving a gray Chevy Malibu, which is completely nondescript from the outside and very high tech looking on the dashboard. So high tech, in fact, that I still haven't found the trip odometer.

We then spent the next hour of our lives on the San Diego Freeway. I lived in LA for 2 years right after getting married, spent a summer in Orange County as a 19 year-old (can we spell B-O-R-I-N-G?) and have been here for business on many other occasions. One of this areas distinctive features is that you can drive for a long period of time, and whether or not you're moving quickly, which we were not, it still looks like you haven't gotten anywhere.

The first 15 minutes of this drive were spent trying to figure out how and when to enter the HOV lane. There were 3 of us in the car, so the carpool lane, which was perhaps moving 2 mph faster than the rest of the road, was available to us, except for the double yellow and solid white line. The regular lanes were moving slowly enough that I was able to research the rules for carpool lanes in LA. Crossing those lines is potentially a ticket and $350 fine. They take their driving seriously here.

Eventually figured out that every 2-3 exits there were places where you could enter or exit the lane. We did that for a while and then got off to take Pacific Coast Highway instead. The PCH is a California institution, of course, and everyone's seen it at least on TV, since virtually every car commercial showing a car driving with mountains on one side and water on the other is filmed on the PCH. But not this part. No mountains, and for the first 5 miles or so, no water either.

Eventually we reached the beach towns, where everyone was wrapping up their surfing and making bonfires on the beach. So many people in dozens of different groups, all doing the same thing. Honestly, it looked like fun.

Finally reached our destination after 2 hours on the road (it's 45 miles- it takes me 3 hours to do 45 miles on my bicycle) and by that time we had time to take a short walk, have dinner, and go to bed. More to report later.

Final exams (long, but not too hard)

Perhaps the only thing in school that's as stressful as taking a final exam is giving one. Although for some the exam is 2 hours of sheer terror, for teachers it's two weeks give or take of sustained intensity, as you plan an exam, prepare and present in class reviews for the students, write the exam, edit the exam, copy the exam, distribute the exam, administer the exam and grade the exam.

I can't really speak for any other teachers, but the process of putting together an exam is not really that easy for me. Although I'll recycle things from old exams, most of what I do is based solely on what I've covered in the class and how I think the students will handle it. It's really an extension of what I do in the classroom, which is to listen to the students and try to understand what they know and how well they know it. Sometimes I use a computer test generator, but more often it's cut and paste. For one of my tests this year, I took material from 3 different books, 3 different sets of resource materials (the extra stuff that teachers get along with the book, and 2 old final exams. All to make 50 questions.

Once that's done, you take the exam yourself to see how long it is and make sure that all of the questions can be answered. Once I used a test generator that spit out multiple choice questions where none of the answers were correct. I caught most of the mistakes in the editing process but missed a few. Good thing there wasn't a "None of these" option, or that would have been the correct answer for everything.

Not only are you taking the test to make sure it's correct, you're reading it to make sure that it's the correct length. Nothing makes for a stressful finals day like writing a 3 hour test for a 2 hour test period. When putting the test together, I try to not look too closely at the specifics of the question, just type, because otherwise I get a skewed version of how long it takes to complete it. Then I have to equate how long it takes me to take a test to how long it would take a student. One would hope that I can complete a test more quickly than a student, but you never know.


Then I have to think about how long it would take students to do the exam as a multiple. This varies tremendously, anywhere from 4:1 to 10:1.

The other thing you are looking for, of course, is whether the students are actually familiar with the material you are testing. As much fun as it would be to create a test where all the questions looked as if they ought to be easy but are in fact impossible or completely different than the course material (hmmm, a Russian History question would look good here), the fun would be short-lived because of what happens in the exam room.

Typically, all the math exams are given simultaneously in the Named After Generously Donating Family Dining Commons (NAGDFDC). The teachers go down to the NAGDFDC about a half hour before the exam is about to start and start covering the tables with exams, scrap paper, and candy. The exams are distributed so that no two students from any one class are at the same table and the traditional candy is Hershey’s Miniatures and either DumDums or Jolly Ranchers.

Once this is done, we get ready for the onslaught. The students always seem quite energized and almost enthusiastic about taking the test, or at least about getting to their seats. As they rush by the teachers call out their colors- the exams are keyed with a colored cover sheet. At some point a couple of years ago, I came in possession of a ream of neon orange paper, which nobody seemed to want back when I had taken a few sheets, so I’ve been orange for the past couple of years. This time, someone else snagged orange so I was what they call Canary, a pale yellow that is the epitome of blandness.

It’s traditional for math teachers to put a cartoon on the cover of their exam. I rarely do that, because my classes tend to be cartoonish enough without outside assistance, but this year for Geometry I saw one where there were a bunch of geometric figures hanging out at what appears to be a cocktail party. This looks like more fun than most cocktail parties I’ve attended, and would have the added curiosity of seeing two-dimensional figures consuming three dimensional drinks. In this cartoon, a figure of some sort is “standing” between two straight figures and says something like, “Well Tom here is also a parallel line, so it’s not surprising that you two haven’t met.” Funny, eh?

Once we get the kids settled down we’re ready to start and the kids get to work. Then next two-plus hours consists solely of wandering around the NAGDFDC, looking around for students with their hands up.

The early questions usually pertain to how to record answers (yes, multiple choice means you can just write the letter, not the whole answer, in the space), should they show their work and do I have an extra calculator.  We quickly settle into a rhythm of questions ranging from “How do I do this?” something I’m amazed students have the nerve to ask during an exam, to “is that 35 or 85 in that diagram?”

The more difficult parts are when as student is stuck and you know they just need a little boost to get the answer. Earlier in my tenure, I would tend to be very helpful in that kind of situation, which I eventually realized was too helpful. How stupid is giving someone a test to see if they know stuff and then telling them if they don’t? So now the most I will try to do is structure the way someone is thinking abut something, to put it into some sort of smooth logical flow that combined with a basic knowledge of the subject could culminate in a correct answer. This is an unnecessarily poetic was of describing what happens, but it’s accurate.

Another difficult situation is when a student is simply freaking out. It’s happened to me a few times and I have no idea if it’s more or less frequent for teachers. I’ve gone so far as to take a kid out of the NAGDFDC for a short walk, but more often will just try to encourage them to stop for a moment and breathe. Staying calm is an underrated test-taking technique.

And occasionally I’ll get entangled with another teacher’s students, either because they’ve got too many other students calling on them or because I know the student. This has the potential to get sticky, because I don’t know what their teacher would be willing to tell them.

The most frequent question we get is “Do I need to simplify?” This is a deceptively simple (sigh) question. All math answers should be simplified except for very specific circumstances (AP exams, for example, do not require even such rudimentary simplification as adding two numbers together). However, many students do not have a solid understanding of what constitutes a simplified answer. This raises the danger that in the name of simplification they will do things that are unnecessary and wrong.

I once gave a test where every single student got the correct answer (in one step) and then continued on by, performing one incorrect, ill-advised, and perhaps nefarious action after another until all they were left with was a pool of nonsense symbols. That’s simple in its own way, but until we’re accepting things like a zillion, not what we’re looking for. The most frustrating kind is when the student has a perfectly correct answer and is asking if they “can leave it like that.” Understanding the concept is only one part of the learning process. Knowing what the answers are supposed to look like is nearly as important. That may seem unfair but that’s what life is like too. And also just like life, sometimes all the kids want is more candy.

The final stress point comes as time is beginning to run out. Students can begin to panic and beg for additional time. This is a good opportunity to bargain for money or manual labor, but we are discouraged from doing so. This year, everyone finished close enough to on time that there were no issues. A first for me. Maybe I really am getting good at this.

And now it’s time for the last stage, the grading. This is no fun at all, but it has the advantage that when you are done, you are done.  Every other step has something subsequent, but this is, after all, a final exam.

Because scuba diving can get boring sometimes

Started writing on my baseball blog again

http://paintcorners.blogspot.com/2012/06/everybody-ready-for-that-tigers.html

Untracked

Since I got off on a rant in the last post, I neglected to make my main point, which is, who is reading all of these news articles about what Obama or Romney says and whether their strategies or statements or gaffes are good, bad, or whatever? Like the lead on MSNBC.com about whether Obama's dumb, taken out of context quote about the private sector doing fine is important. Who's going to read that? And is that really the discussion we should be having? It seems like the media does an awful lot of talking to itself and I think it's lazy and destructive.

Rhymes with schmolotics

I typically stay away from political discourse here, a long-term decision with which I've been quite satisfied. Since the subhead of the blog's title is, "If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself," that pretty much excludes politics, which are are abut as far from that principle as you can get at the moment.

Every day I see articles about Obama or Romney said, confirmed, denied, restated or spun some issue or another. I see them, though I never read them. Why? Well, why would I read them? To what purpose? Am I trying to choose a candidate? No, there's a pretty clear choice. It's almost shocking to me that there are any undecided voters, though since being undecided at this point is a sign of intellectual laziness, I guess that's kind of my point. The whole dialogue is just plain dumb. And it's our fault, and it's emblematic of what's wrong with the country.

For me, my most frequently observed human failure is the inability to listen. Listening is far more that waiting quietly until the other people have stopped talking; it means taking in and thinking about what the other person is saying, apart from your feelings on the matter. Wait, don't our own feelings matter? Of course they do, but the other person in the conversation has their own feelings as well, and it's those feelings that they're talking about, not yours. You'll have plenty of time to apply your own feelings after you've considered those of others.

At the moment, there is no listening in American politics. In fact, there's not even agreement on even the most rudimentary set of facts. Evolution? Climate change? The appropriate balance between public and private sectors? The rights of the poor? There's no agreement as to whether any of these things even exist, primarily because Republicans deny virtually everything science-based and don't believe there should be any public sector jobs (except for their own, of course). And there are only poor people because they are somehow unworthy of being otherwise.

It's really more systematic than that. The most telling slogan of the health care debate was something to the effect of "Get your government hands off my Medicare." Because Republicans see no value in a federal government (except for the parts they control), there can be no honest debate on what the proper role of that government should be. Cut my taxes! Yeah! But make sure you fill the potholes and clean the streets and have police and firefighters when I need them. It's nonsense.

OK, this has turned into somewhat of a rant, so I'll stop here. Maybe I'll come up with something more fulfilling later.

A few pictures

I didn't take a lot of pictures on the senior trip. The most photogenic thing we did was the river rafting and I was too busy paddling and avoiding the "sweepers" to take many shots then, but here's that I've got:

Senior trip album

Cooking with Frank

I was making pancakes this morning and I was thinking, what if I left them on too long and they got all crispy. Would they then be pancookies? Would that not be a revolutionary idea? Why can't you make cookies on the griddle? Is there any particular reason? I must investigate this.

The end, for now

I don't really know what to say about Dorney Park. It's hard to come up with much that's new. Even if you haven't been to this particular place, amusement parks are an integral part of growing up in America and everyone knows the drill. When I was a kid, most parks had a moderate admission cost and then you paid per ride. The was one place in New York called Freedomland where it was pay once and ride as much as you want, but it was unusual. At the Disney parks, you bought a book of tickets that included a set number of tickets for the big, medium and small rides, so once you'd done the big ones you'd have to settle for the less thrilling attractions ("Oh Mom, do I really have to do "It's A Small World"again before I can go back on Space Mountain?"), because nobody would buy you more tickets until you'd used what you had.

Now it's $50 to get in, ride as much as you want, and for another $50 or so they'll even let you cut the lines. How egalitarian of them. It wasn't crowded because the weather wasn't great, but I rode some coasters with another chaperon and some kids.

Eventually, my mind started to wander and I noticed that the only people there were school groups. So what would happen if there were some sort of disaster and the only people left on earth were those of us fortunate enough to be at Dorney Park that day? What sort of society would develop with a couple thousand middle and high schoolers and a couple hundred teachers? Would we treat the spectacularly ugly midway prizes as idols and pray to them? Would we fight over the last hot dog?

Fortunately, we weren't there long enough for me to go too far down any of those paths of thought. We got home without incident and the trip was over.

For the seniors, I think the best thing about these trips is the opportunity to just chill. Most of the kids I know are so highly scheduled that they barely have time to breathe, much less sit around and play Taboo or Apples to Apples. Or, as one girl said, lie down on every couch in the hotel. For the chaperons it's a chance to see the kids in a different context and to live the glamorous life at hotspots like Split Rock Lodge (my hotel review to come).

Next year I'll probably be running the trip again. I can hardly wait.

Splitting the Rock

I slept very badly the last night. Not really sure why, and I guess it doesn’t really matter. I got up and stumbled downstairs for some coffee. Then it was time to start waking kids. The hotel is funny about cleaning up. Most places that have kitchens and dishwashers tell you to load it and leave it running and that’s it. Here, you were supposed to do a whole load, run and unload. How’s that supposed to work if you want to have breakfast the day you leave? OK honey, we’re ready to leave, but we need to wait for another 47 minutes for the dishwasher to finish. And in my suite at least, they didn’t have a sponge or dishtowels or anything for hand washing.

So what did I do with my breakfast dishes? I rinsed them in hot water and dried them with a washcloth and put them away. Then it occurred to me, what if the person before me did that too? Were the dishes I used not really clean? Oh well, nothing to do about it now.

After packing up, I realized by backpack was missing. There really wasn’t anything urgent in the backpack, but there was some semi-important stuff and it’s my backpack. So I went to the front desk to ask about it and a young woman with red hair and two very prominent upper incisors told me I’d have to check the lost and found. Where is it, I said. You can’t go there, she said, you need to call. And there’s nobody there so you’ll need to leave a message. Which I did, noting to the young woman that we were leaving shortly.

About half an hour later, I hadn’t heard back so I went back to the front desk and spoke with the manager, telling her that I’d called. She replied, oh, she won’t be in until around 3:30. Well, that was helpful information I hadn’t received before. I noted once more that we would be leaving within the hour, so she helpfully offered to go and check herself and came back 5 minutes later with the bag. This was all fine except for the original clerk not mentioning to me that it was going to be hours before I heard back from lost and found. I’m presuming they give these people some kind of training, but you shouldn’t need any training to know that if someone has come to the front desk about a lost item, that they probably want the item back and would appreciate their help in the matter. I could have called the lost and found without any help.

We dragged all the bags down to the parking lot to await the bus, which came rolling in a few minutes later. Everyone put their bags on the bus and then went to get a packed lunch. There were tuna, turkey and veggie sandwiches. Unfortunately, about 75% of them were tuna, which was not pleasing to the students.

I guess I need to stop for a moment and discuss the food, which I’ve mentioned only in that I’d been smelling it in my room this whole time. The kids referred to the food as mediocre. That is a very kind assessment. The food was bad- poorly prepared and incomplete in part because the guy doing it was not competent. I know that kosher food is expensive and requires special handling, but I could have done a far better job on the reheating and serving (which was the entirety of what this guy did) in half the time, and not forgotten, for example, to put the rice, crispy noodles, and fortune cookies out with the Chinese entrée. I heard less than complimentary descriptions of the guy’s cleanliness too, but I didn’t observe any of that.

So once the lunch grumbling was complete, everyone got on the bus and we were off to Dorney Park. Final episode to follow.

End of day 2

Because I’d been smelling the food sitting in our refrigerator for the past day and a half, there was no way that I was eating it, so I was glad when one of the other chaperons wanted to walk to a nearby restaurant for lunch. We set out and were keeping up a nice pace, and after we’d been walking for 10 minutes or so, it started to sprinkle, then drizzle, then rain, then downpour.  There was no point in turning back because by the time it was raining hard it was probably 15 minutes back to the hotel.

So on we went. I had a raincoat, which was the very last thing I’d thrown in my bag. What I’d neglected to bring were my rain booties, primarily because I don’t own any. I have a pair of waterproof hiking shoes, but not with me, so my feet got very squishy. Finally the rain began to let up and of course, we immediately arrived at the restaurant and by the time we were seated the sun was shining.

Lunch was pleasant, but took a long time to arrive. And by the time we were done the sky was dark again and yes, the same routine was repeated on the way home. But we made it, squishy feet and all.

The rest of the afternoon seems kind of hazy to me. I think I took a nap, so maybe that’s why. Coming downstairs there were people in the elevator talking about the movie playing at the theater. “It’s called Moonstruck, with Cher or something. I thought Moonstruck was James Bond.” I wanted no part of dinner either, so I hung out for a bit and then did faculty bowling.

There’s a bit by the late comic Mitch Hedberg, differentiating between something that was genuinely exciting and something that’s pancakes exciting. Pancakes exciting is your pancakes arrive and you’re feeling like “Ooh! Pancakes!” and then by the time you’re about halfway through, it’s more like “Er, pancakes.” Faculty bowling was kind of like that. For the first game, everyone was cheering the others and celebrating successes and failures alike.  But by the middle of the second game we were just walking up and rolling the ball and then sitting down. One guy walked off, another person rushed off after each frame and played an arcade game until it was her turn again. All in all it was fun though.

Then we sat around and watched some basketball on TV, while the kids trailed back from the arcade, brandishing the booty they’d won. There were inflatable crayons and brightly colored bouncy balls and, well, that was about it, really, but some of them were really attached to them.

Most of the kids eventually filtered upstairs, until I was downstairs chaperoning 2 kids sitting and talking on a couch. On one level this was not the most challenging assignment I could have taken on, but really it was a microcosm of why senior trips are so great. How often during the school year would those two kids have had the chance to talk quietly for 2 hours straight? Never, and it was really sweet. 

A new day begins

Gotta be honest here, I'm getting a bit written out and don't really have the energy to do any kind of detailed review of the second day. It certainly wasn't as busy as the first day, and the weather wasn't really good. That's too bad, because the lake is the best thing about this place.

The day started off with a bang. There's not any place to get fancy coffee around here, but there is one of those "We proudly brew Starbucks Coffee" places in the lobby. Well, just because you have Starbucks coffee to brew doesn't mean you know how to brew it. The person before me finished off the urn of coffee and unlike at an actual Starbucks they only have that one urn, so the woman running the stand started off a new 20 cup pot and I got the first 16 ounces through the filter. You really have to not know anything about coffee to not understand that this is suboptimal. I like strong coffee, but I had to go back twice to get hot water added just so I could get through the cup, and I was buzzing for the next 2 hours and then just crashed.

I had breakfast and then hung out in the lobby. There are a couple of tables outside the cafe which seem convenient except that the menu board is right over them so you have people invading your personal space and trying to decide between chicken fingers and a cheesesteak or maybe french toast fingers. This is sort of unpleasant but does give the opportunity to observe the wide world of parenting techniques. My "favorites" are the people who say stern and serious things to 3 year-olds and then get pissed if they don't respond in an adult enough manner.

The lowlight was this woman who at first I thought was yelling, but then I realized it was just a loud talker. She started out apparently yelling at the cafe people because they put onions on her sandwich and she HATES onions. If I see her today I'm going to say "Hey, you're the lady who hates onions!" She hates them so much that they had to make a new sandwich because the onions TOUCHED THE REST OF HER FOOD. She repeated this several times to make sure everyone in the lobby knew this. So she was not exactly my paragon of adult behavior to start with. And then I heard her apparently yelling at her 4 year-old daughter "We spent more than I'd intended at the last place so we can't get everything we want here." "OK Mommy, I understand your budgeting concerns. Have you thought about increasing your contribution to your 401K to make sure you're adequately prepared for retirement? And can I go potty?"

End of day 1

After the pool closed to the general public at 10, we had a private pool party. I'm not sure about the others, but my guess was that the people who went rafting found this idea less attractive than those who were paintballing. It gave them an opportunity to show off their welts, an important postgame activity.

To be perfectly honest, I wanted nothing to do with this. The pool is nice and big for an indoor hotel pool, but the water was not even approaching clear and the air was unpleasantly warm and humid. I played ping pong for a bit, then sat miserably for about a half hour. There was some fascination to the ability of some of the kids to stay in the hot tub for extended periods of time. After 10 minutes I'm ready to pass out, but some of these kids were in there for an hour or more. But that somehow was not enough to sustain me. It then occurred to me that since the pool has a glass wall all around it, that I could stand outside and still be present and available (and keeping up with the principle that someone should be in the lobby at all times.

I made some phone calls, which continued as the number of pool partiers began to dwindle. Eventually, all but a half dozen kids were gone, so with there being 2 lifeguards, it seemed things were under control. I'm guessing that if you're a lifeguard you really don't want to have to save anyone's life, but they weren't even having any reason to blow their whistles, which is of course the best part of being a lifeguard. Well, that and wearing zinc oxide on your nose, which looks silly if you're inside. This had to be excruciatingly boring. I went in and sat down, continuing to talk on the phone, until the last 2 left, leaving the lifeguards alone to frolic.

It's "hall curfew" at 12, and everyone's supposed to be in their room by 1. At this point, we do bed checks, yet another awkward part of the chaperon job. It involves knocking on everyone's door and checking to see if the people who are supposed to be in their room are there, sleeping or not. The reactions to this range from befuddlement to irritation. We traipse through and take attendance, even checking out who's asleep. Once the kids are checked in, they're not allowed to leave. This left us to go to bed at 1:15.

I went back to our stinky room, where I vowed to eat none of the food I'd been smelling since we arrived. Finally fell asleep around 2.

TIming is everything

My only pair of shoes are all wet from walking in the rain today so if I wanted them dry quickly I was left with the choice of putting them in the microwave or using the hair dryer. I honestly have no idea what would happen if I put shoes in the microwave and decided that although this was perhaps my best opportunity to find out, it was an opportunity I could pass up.

So now I'm sitting in the room with the hair dryer on and stuck into one of the shoes. I'm staying within sight of it with a bottle of water so I can douse it if I start to see smoke, but so far, so good. I guess I should turn it off before I go bowling though.

Day 1, Part 2

We arrived at Split Rock Resort at around 4. The kids kind of know their own experiences, so I'll focus primarily on the chaperon lfestyle. The lead chaperon and I went in to do the check-in which turned into a real chore because, in spite of our consistently directing them to reserve the same block of rooms that we've rented the previous dozen times the class has come here, they failed to do anything of the sort. For the kids it meant sitting on the bus for a while. From the chaperon point of view, this led to about 45 minutes of back and forth as they offered one set of rooms and then the next. Finally we got to what seemed to be the best arrangement that we were going to get, so we started unloading.

Remembering that my first fundamental theorem of chaperoning is that I have no social skills, my second fundamental theorem is that while I hate being in charge, I seem to have this natural authority that regularly puts me in that position. Maybe because I have a deep, resonant voice, or maybe it's because people with big foreheads look smart, but I'm constantly finding myself running things. But I don't like it. I have a natural inclination to avoid responsibility. I know that's not my most attractive personality trait, but at least I know it's there and can work with it. And yet somehow, responsibility is thrust upon me. As everyone knows, responisibility can take the fun out of almost anything.

First we brought all the food to the room where we'll be having our meals. This is a kosher trip, and though there's no requirement that you eat on kosher food, most people do and it always has to be available. That means having a caterer who is not only certified to do that kind of thing, but can bring their own cooking stuff (because they're not going to kasher the whole kitchen, unlike these guys).
So half the bus was filled with enough kosher food and stuff to eat it on and with for 4 meals of 55 people. We filled 2 1/2 luggage carts with stuff and wheeled it around to the room. Let me say one thing about this place, they are not wasting any money on lighting. Pretty much every place in the hotel is underilluminated, especially the bedrooms, and unlike my wife's friend Judy, I do not carry higher watt bulbs with me when I go to hotels.

Then all the luggage came in, filling up most of the lobby in comprehensive fashion. Let's just say it would have been a bad time for a fire inspection. The kids had their roommates set up, and off they all went to their rooms.

I am sharing a 2 bedroom suite. For the first night, me, the other male chaperon, and the cook shared, with the other chaperon, who's a 20-something guy, sleeping on the pullout couch. The cook leaves tonight so he'll get a bedroom. My bedroom has twin beds, a nightstand with a lamp, a floor lamp, a hanger bar with those unstealable hangers (is hanger theft a big problem?), an armoire with a TV and 3 drawers, and an alarm clock the size of a salt shaker. That's it. No windows, doors to the bathroom and living area, where there's a kitchen with a refrigerator filled with catering food whose odors filled the room.

Everyone spent the next hour milling around and then it was time for our chaperon meeting, where we were assigned our specific duty times. As usually, I wrote everything down and then lost the sheet, assuming that someone would remind me. We had dinner, which was, well I'll say edible. Then announcements, notable only for the almost but not quite admirable inability of one table to stop talking no matter how many times or in what fashion they were asked or told.

After dinner I went for a walk. It was very nice out. I decided I'd go take a peek down by the outdoor activity place to see if they'd upgraded their rental bicycles from last time I was here, which would have meant having bicycles. If fact they did, a bunch of beach cruisers in a rack. The building was closed, and the bicycles had the appearance of being locked up, but the locking bar they'd threaded through the frames wasn't attached to anything, so I pulled it out and took off on a bike. As much fun as renting a bike would have been, it was twice as fun to just take it when I sort of wasn't supposed to. It's an almost gleeful feeling. Another chaperon and I rode around a bit, then he put his bike back and I rode down to the lake. It's very pretty down there. I hope the weather's nice enough tomorrow.

After it got dark, there was a short period where some kids bowled, others played basketball and I have no recollection whatsoever of what I did. So I'll break here and finish up the day in a separate post.

A bit of metablogging

I have to say, it's just a little strange to write something in my hotel room, then walk out of the room and have people tell me they like what I'd written. Blogging is such a personal thing and I tend to be such a solitary writer that it feels weird to get feedback almost in real time. I don't mind it; it's nice to see that 40 people have already read what I've written 3 hours after I wrote it, but it's hard to get used to.

Senior trip day 1, part 1.

Being a chaperon is kind of a strange thing to do. You hang out with kids and act friendly but all the while with some small amount of your attention you're supposed to be monitoring their behavior. I guess I'm well suited to this because that's kind of what I do most of the time anyway; the problem I have is that spending long chunks of time with a group of people highlights (to me anyway) my lack of social skills. I'm pretty good at concealing this most of the time, but over extended periods it gets difficult.

That being said, this has been a pretty pleasant day so far. I had to get up ridiculously early, because we had to be somewhere a couple of hours away by 9:30. I get to school at 7 and start to perform my first duty, the bag check. This is an awkward kind of thing, pleasantly chatting with someone while you rifle through their personal effects, opening up and sniffing water bottles, poking around through socks and underwear. In the past, this has presented some difficult situations, like spotting condoms in the bottom of someone's bag while conversing with him and his mom, but nothing that interesting happened this year. Honestly, anyone who tries to hide stuff in their bag is an idiot, since at least so far we haven't made people turn their pockets out or patted them down.

We got up to the Poconos at the proper time and got ready to go river rafting. We got fitted for life jackets and sat around until the guides gathered us up for our orientation. River guides tend to all have the same unserious kind of of patter, mixing corny jokes with useful information. We're supposed to be able to know the difference, I guess, though it's not always obvious.

Fortunately, rafting is pretty simple business once you learn how to steer. It's pretty much impossible to sink a raft and even in mild rapids you have to seriously screw up to fall out.

I found myself in a raft with another chaperon and three girls who, had they been given the choice between river rafting and sitting in the luggage compartment of the bus for 4 hours would have had to think about it, at least for a minute. Once I saw how terrified they looked just getting on the bus to the river I knew we were for a treat. The river was pretty calm, but whatever fears the girls had, getting lost, drowning, being eaten by crocodiles, was soon subsumed by an all out effort to avoid getting wet. This is hard to do in a river, since it's made mostly of water, especially when everyone had bailing buckets, described by the guides as being for taking water out of your raft and throwing it into someone else's. As soon as we started everyone commenced trying to soak everyone else with pretty much complete success. This prompted the girls, who had previously been somewhat indifferent to paddling, to race to the front of the group so as to have limited interaction with the others. This also turned out to be a success and we stayed dry for most of the rest of the trip.

We stopped for lunch, during which time another dynamic, chilliness, came to the forefront. Turns out, if you keep soaking each other when it's not very warm out, you get cold. So by the time we had to go back to the river there were a number of malcontents. I noticed one bunch of girls, who had been play-flirting with the guides  during lunch, kind of drifting aimlessly along the side, occasionally getting stuck and not really doing much of the paddle in the water thing. As we were making our move back to the front, I looked back and saw that their boat looked like it had orange wings. Then I realized that they had gotten one of the guides to get out of his kayak and paddle them the rest of the way. If this was a plan, I mean if they did the drifting, getting stuck thing on purpose, it was brilliant.

The river was beautiful for the most part and the air was pleasant. We got back to the base and waited by a fire for the bus to pick us up. It came reasonably quickly and then it was off to the next phase, the resort hotel, which I will cover in part 2.