Senior Trip, Day 2

Day two started with a torrential rainstorm. There was a group of students who were signed up to play paintball, but some of them were skittish about playing in the rain. What is that? You're okay to run around in the dirt and get splattered with paint, but not okay to get wet? If that's you're mindset, far from me to disagree, but I can't say that I understand.

I consulted the best tool available for checking present and near-future weather, the Wundermap, from Weather Underground. I could see from the map that we were about to hit a gap between the showers and that's just what happened. The group spent a couple of hours happily shooting at each other, and it rained for all of 30 seconds.

For my own part, I did not play. One of the kids asked me if I didn't believe in guns. I told him, in effect, that I was aware that guns did indeed exist and that I had fired guns (I've done a bit of target and skeet shooting) but I don't enjoy it and I certainly don't enjoy getting shot.

We got back to the hotel at lunch time, and had some discussion about how to spend the afternoon, the result of which was that we would not have any group activity- people would just do whatever they wanted. I think most people went to the pool. Some people ice skated. I can't for the life of me remember what I did. I guess I thought I was going to the movies but then decided not to. Maybe I napped and didn't realize it.

In the evening, we had dinner and then went for a round of mini golf. Nothing to lighten the mood like a spirited round of mini golf. It is a silly way to spend an hour, but always fun anyway. Ocean City has got to be the minigolf capital of the world. You can't go half a mile on the main strip without seeing one, and some of them (like the one we went to) have multiple courses. I chose this place because they have both indoor and outdoor courses. Okay, I've got to stop here. These things bear no more resemblance to a golf course than does my back yard. I can dig a few holes and make some obstacles and hit a golf ball around with a club, but it doesn't make it a course, or a links or whatever. And my yard has actual grass, not green carpet. And the water isn't dyed blue, as mini golf places do to make their water look like, well, blue water.

I played the outdoor course (if you must), which had a pirate theme. It was not the most elaborately pirate-themed mini gold I've ever done, but it was a fun course. And we didn't have to worry about the golf balls getting dirty, because all the holes were full or water from the afternoon's rain. Indoors looked prehistoric. There was also a small arcade where people played skee ball, air hockey and the like.

We came back in time to watch the ultimately dismal NBA basketball playoff game. Once I gave up on that, I ice skated a bit and spent the rest of the time time hanging out and talking with the kids and the other chaperones. That's really the best part of these things. During the school year, there are very few students you get to spend any kind of relaxed time with. Even if you're not working on something, either the student or I or both need to move onto something else soon and we can't just chat. Senior year of high school is a really interesting time, and the end of the year is one of the big transitions in someone's life, so there's plenty to think and talk about.

Hallway talk was both people just sitting on the floor and standing in doorways. Girls are not allowed in boy's rooms, and vice versa, and I noted early on that the previous trip, a couple would hang out on opposite sides for the threshold, either standing or bringing chairs. One of the students quickly dubbed this "thresholding" and it was a popular arrangement throughout our stay.

The kids got a little noisy in the hallway, which brought an seemingly inebriated old woman out of her room. She spent the next couple of hours talking to the security guard in her footsy pajamas. My final act of the evening was a futile and frustrating attempt to help a couple of the kids, who were not allowed out of their rooms after 12:30, to order a pizza. Actually, they could order it just fine. They just couldn't come out to get it. I said I'd bring it to them, but it got later and later and I finally cancelled it.

And that was the day. The lousy weather limited what we could do, but it was still a fun day.