Weekends are the end of the week

In college, the weekend didn't feel entirely UNLIKE the week - I did not have classes on Friday last semester, so Thursday night flowed into the weekend, but I still had papers, meetings, and all that jazz to do. Yet, with a regular 9-5 job (albeit that mine is 7:30 to 6), Friday dismissal is so much sweeter. Sure, I have lessons to plan and letters to write to my kids, but in general I can relax and not think about Breakthrough all weekend. And heck, grading papers at the pool just isn't that bad!

Class went really well yesterday and today - I've changed two main things since I received the course evaluations from my kids. I plan less material per class so I can take more questions and pursue more student-generated tangents and I've done a group activity/competition every day. It slows down the pace -- and there is so much I want to tell them about the brain -- but, the kids love the competition or races or activities. It's the essence of "bridgey" -- our buzz word this summer which encompasses all things decorative, exciting, unconventional, and activity-based.

Today we enjoyed the Talent Show - today's big event as well as Culture Week which has been on-going this week. We enjoyed a fantastic, Thanksgiving-like pot luck at lunch today, where students brought in food from their heritage country. We have kids who are either directly from or who's family heritage traces to about 15 Latino/Caribbean nations (about 30-50% Cuban and 35% Haitian, which a smattering from Honduras, Nicuragua, and Argentina) so we had a good mix of foreign and American food. At lunch today, I enjoyed: baked macaroni and cheese, gallo pinto, latkes, banana pudding, and brownies. Oh, and oooodles of mangoes! Did I mention the sliced and diced mangoes? One of the teachers conveniently has a mango tree in her back yard (!!!) and brought us Dormers about 30 mangoes and hand cut about 20 for the lunch today. I was in heaven with all that food -- mangoes and rice and beans pretty much make the whole week better! (Chocolate pecan pie and maduros could have helped a bit...but I'm not complaining!)

Photos to come in my next post. Off for a run - the sun is setting and it's so beautiful to see the palms highlighted against the sky like a performer on stage.

Adieu!