A Tale of Two Weekends

I didn't realize how much I use and enjoy my weekends until the past ten days or so. Last weekend, I went to a men's retreat in Wisconsin. I had late basketball conditioning the Thursday beforehand, and left on Friday morning (first ever personal day from school!) to head north. I did not arrive back home until about 11pm on Sunday night. Can we say long weekend? Don't get me wrong, it was an amazing weekend, but it was incredibly taxing--physically (I was actually sore the next couple days), emotionally, mentally, spiritually... Oh yeah, and I gave a test to 60-some kids the Friday I was gone. So, all of last week was catching up on sleep, grading, and lots of laundry. It was a long week, though, with all of that, and starting basketball season. So, sleep didn't happen. At all. Except for the day I slept through my alarm...

Fast forward to this weekend. I decided to stay in Friday night instead of swing dancing, then some friends came to visit me on Saturday, so I got to stay at home all day as well. Throw in some church (woohoo!) on Sunday, and I was back home with no stuff to do by 8:15. I feel rested and ready to start the week.

To a teacher, weekends are beautiful things, and I didn't realize how much until now.

Just over a week until basketball games start!

Don't Tell Anyone

I was talking with one of my kids in class yesterday, and apparently she went to a math camp during the summer in late elementary school. At Ball State. Called Big-M (Ball State Institute for the Gifted in Mathematics). I went to that when *I* was growing up (big surprise, I'm a nerd, get over it). It was interesting to talk to her impressions about the experience and her impressions of it--they were somewhat different. But it was still really interesting to chat about. And she'll probably be mad I'm talking about this, as math camp is usually not something you like to broadcast to the world.