i'm baaaack
i so need to get a lap top to have with me at all times. it about killed me not being able to hop on-line all week.
So, Sunday mom and dad drove me to the airport and dropped me off. i'm a big girl. i can get my ticket taken care of by myself, right? so i'm there waiting in line and i see the rest of my group walking toward me and think, "OH THANK GOD!" for this meant that I wasn't late, nor was I going to be lost and thus left behind. that would suck a lot.
so we get on the plane and take a 2 hour flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. we then have a FOUR HOUR LAYOVER! gross-ness! Then we took a 45 minute flight (including boarding and un-boarding the plane) to Austin. Seriously? We could have driven in less time! oh well. I got window seats both times, so that was cool.
we got to austin and went right to the convention place...get this...a Hilton hotel. swanky, no? then we headed toward the hotel, a drury inn, to be exact, to figure out rooming arrangements.
we were all gonna share rooms, but one girl was gonna have a room all to herself. well, since i was the newbie, plus a music teacher (and thus not a "real" teacher) no one wanted to room with me. I'm not complaining. I liked having my own room, i won't deny it. however, it would have been nice to have someone to hang out with and whatever. there was another newbie, but she was on the other flight with all the other ladies so they already kinda knew eachother. sigh. anyway, if you ever have the opportunity to stay at a hotel, try for a drury inn. nice free hot breakfast every morning (including make your own waffles...which rock my world.) plus, for those of you who are of age, there was happy hour every night from 5:30 to 7...3 free drinks...so i had a time with some margaritas every night. they had like...scotch and sodas, gin and tonics, stuff like that...and beer. and nachos and chex mix and stuff. good times. a good way to loosen up before going out to eat. plus, then you don't really want anything big to drink once out and about, which was also good because we don't get reimbursed for that.
the convention was good. we were being trained in various aspects of A.V.I.D. I was in the "Implementation" group with another Sparta teacher. It would have been REALLY informative if people weren't always interrupting the facilitators with personal stories of how their AVID classes are better than this...or if they'd stop asking individualized questions. Seriously, that's what the breaks and stuff are for...so you don't take up the whole group's time. Oh well. OH! and the main facilitator had a lot of very good points to make, but after she'd make them, she'd follow everything up with, "okay?" Seriously. EVERY sentence. We started counting on the first day...and got 88 times in one hour. a bit excessive? anyway, there was a lot of information, lots of sources given out, lots of ideas passed on. we're all pretty pumped for the upcoming year...hopefully things will go a lot more smoothly.
after the seminar we would go back to the hotel...some hung out by the pool, some hung out in the lobby. after sitting through lecture-type things all day, i kinda just wanted to veg, so i'd flip on the t.v. and end up taking a nap till happy hour. um...we went to a bunch of local places...the only chain food I had all week was from Schlotsky's and DAMN was it good. We went to a steakhouse, as is tradition when in Texas, where i got a chicken sandwich (cause my stomach just wasn't feeling steak) the waitress was AWFUL. i think she forgot page two of the order...and i admit, we did have a 10 person party, but still...15 minutes after taking our order, she came back and asked one lady how she wanted her steak done. yeah...we knew we were gonna have a problem. karen would have asked for free desserts or something since we had to wait an HOUR for our food, but she didn't want to sit for another hour.
Another night we went to this place called The Oasis. It was way up on a bluff overlooking the river...i think it was the colorado...and we went at sunset so it was WAY pretty. The food was good, too...really good. I'd never had blue enchiladas before. the waiter was kinda a yutz there, too. this one lady ordered a salad and the description said it came with a "sunset chiffon" so she asked just what it was. first he said he didn't know, then he said, "that's what we call our croutons." So she ordered it...and out came this orange-y dessert...for, as any good chef will tell you, a chiffon looks kinda like this
like i said. yutz. it was Karen's birthday that night, too, so we told yutz-boy to make a big deal out of it, and he brought out this HUGE piece of chocolate cake with pieces of cheese cake in it...it was HEAVENLY!
um...what else...more seminars...more food...we saw signs advertising affordable caskets...as well as an ad for "really funny defensive driving lessons." none of us were brave enough to call... there was lots of anti-bush stuff, which surprised me...being the capital and all. i also learned NOT TO WEAR FLATS if there's any chance of walking a lot. my calves are KILLING ME. it also could have something to do with the WAY cute pair of shoes I wore that went PERFECTLY with my outfit for the day, but my feet went WAY puffy while in Texas, so they dug into the sides of my feet...i still have sores there...and they're gross. so i couldn't even wear sneakers if i wanted to, cause i couldn't wear anything but open sandals. Oy.
last night half the group went bar-hopping, and i would have liked to have gone, cause they were going to a dueling piano bar, but one, there wasn't room in the van for me, and two, they weren't gonna stay there the whole night...hence bar-hopping and i didn't feel like paying cover charge after cover charge. so instead i went with 2 principals and Karen to Baby Acupulco's...this little mexican restaurant with live music...and connected to a bar called, "fruity rita's" where you could sing karaoke with "edie" tuesdays and thursday (so i missed it). When we first walked in, one of the ladies thought it was a gay bar cause there were rainbows everywhere and, well, fruity ritas? However, it meant MARGAritas that came in many fruity flavors...and they just liked rainbows i suppose. anyway, it was very good eats...as mexican food should be...in texas...
last night i set my alarm for 6:15 so i'd have plenty of time to shower and pack up all my stuff. however, i didnt' check to make sure it said 6:15 AM, not PM, and slept in till 7:19...which sucked major booty because we leave at 7:35-ish to get to the AVID convention thing. I made it down to the lobby, though, grabbed a banana and was good to go. i wasn't even the last one down. go me.
me and the other sparta teacher in my group went to the first half of the last session, and it was VERY worthwhile...but then we had a break and it was just too hard to stay...especially when half the people were leaving, anyway. so we walked around downtown and he got some t-shirts for his younger cousins. if situations were different, i might consider liking this guy, but there's just too much to have to sort through...and i'm already liking another guy a lot right now. i'm a one man kinda girl, ya know? ANYWAY, we get back to the Hilton, and there's 3 more people sitting in the starbucks lounge place...one of which was the assistant principal, so i figured we were safe.
we went to the airport, and everyone got their boarding passes except one guy from our group...so me and this lady laura stayed and waited while he sorted everything out (all was well, by the way) but the rest of the guys in our group just took off...so they could sit in the terminal longer. geez...i guess boys really don't change. we had no other kinds of problems at all, so we were REALLY early for our flight...like...2 1/2 hours early. glad we hurried... so we board the tiny little jet/mini van with wings and fly over to dallas again, only to sit and wait again in Dallas for our flight to St. Louis. Half the teachers were right behind first class (so we got lots of leg room) and the other half was stuck way at the back. I really lucked out as far as airline seating...the furthest back I ever had to sit was row 24, and that wasn't really even half way, so whoo.
anyway, now i'm back. i sat in the hot tub once we got home and was attacked by a horsefly. ah, it's good to be back. i work at hartmann realtors tomorrow, so i really should be going to bed. sigh...will i ever learn?
So, Sunday mom and dad drove me to the airport and dropped me off. i'm a big girl. i can get my ticket taken care of by myself, right? so i'm there waiting in line and i see the rest of my group walking toward me and think, "OH THANK GOD!" for this meant that I wasn't late, nor was I going to be lost and thus left behind. that would suck a lot.
so we get on the plane and take a 2 hour flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. we then have a FOUR HOUR LAYOVER! gross-ness! Then we took a 45 minute flight (including boarding and un-boarding the plane) to Austin. Seriously? We could have driven in less time! oh well. I got window seats both times, so that was cool.
we got to austin and went right to the convention place...get this...a Hilton hotel. swanky, no? then we headed toward the hotel, a drury inn, to be exact, to figure out rooming arrangements.
we were all gonna share rooms, but one girl was gonna have a room all to herself. well, since i was the newbie, plus a music teacher (and thus not a "real" teacher) no one wanted to room with me. I'm not complaining. I liked having my own room, i won't deny it. however, it would have been nice to have someone to hang out with and whatever. there was another newbie, but she was on the other flight with all the other ladies so they already kinda knew eachother. sigh. anyway, if you ever have the opportunity to stay at a hotel, try for a drury inn. nice free hot breakfast every morning (including make your own waffles...which rock my world.) plus, for those of you who are of age, there was happy hour every night from 5:30 to 7...3 free drinks...so i had a time with some margaritas every night. they had like...scotch and sodas, gin and tonics, stuff like that...and beer. and nachos and chex mix and stuff. good times. a good way to loosen up before going out to eat. plus, then you don't really want anything big to drink once out and about, which was also good because we don't get reimbursed for that.
the convention was good. we were being trained in various aspects of A.V.I.D. I was in the "Implementation" group with another Sparta teacher. It would have been REALLY informative if people weren't always interrupting the facilitators with personal stories of how their AVID classes are better than this...or if they'd stop asking individualized questions. Seriously, that's what the breaks and stuff are for...so you don't take up the whole group's time. Oh well. OH! and the main facilitator had a lot of very good points to make, but after she'd make them, she'd follow everything up with, "okay?" Seriously. EVERY sentence. We started counting on the first day...and got 88 times in one hour. a bit excessive? anyway, there was a lot of information, lots of sources given out, lots of ideas passed on. we're all pretty pumped for the upcoming year...hopefully things will go a lot more smoothly.
after the seminar we would go back to the hotel...some hung out by the pool, some hung out in the lobby. after sitting through lecture-type things all day, i kinda just wanted to veg, so i'd flip on the t.v. and end up taking a nap till happy hour. um...we went to a bunch of local places...the only chain food I had all week was from Schlotsky's and DAMN was it good. We went to a steakhouse, as is tradition when in Texas, where i got a chicken sandwich (cause my stomach just wasn't feeling steak) the waitress was AWFUL. i think she forgot page two of the order...and i admit, we did have a 10 person party, but still...15 minutes after taking our order, she came back and asked one lady how she wanted her steak done. yeah...we knew we were gonna have a problem. karen would have asked for free desserts or something since we had to wait an HOUR for our food, but she didn't want to sit for another hour.
Another night we went to this place called The Oasis. It was way up on a bluff overlooking the river...i think it was the colorado...and we went at sunset so it was WAY pretty. The food was good, too...really good. I'd never had blue enchiladas before. the waiter was kinda a yutz there, too. this one lady ordered a salad and the description said it came with a "sunset chiffon" so she asked just what it was. first he said he didn't know, then he said, "that's what we call our croutons." So she ordered it...and out came this orange-y dessert...for, as any good chef will tell you, a chiffon looks kinda like this
like i said. yutz. it was Karen's birthday that night, too, so we told yutz-boy to make a big deal out of it, and he brought out this HUGE piece of chocolate cake with pieces of cheese cake in it...it was HEAVENLY!
um...what else...more seminars...more food...we saw signs advertising affordable caskets...as well as an ad for "really funny defensive driving lessons." none of us were brave enough to call... there was lots of anti-bush stuff, which surprised me...being the capital and all. i also learned NOT TO WEAR FLATS if there's any chance of walking a lot. my calves are KILLING ME. it also could have something to do with the WAY cute pair of shoes I wore that went PERFECTLY with my outfit for the day, but my feet went WAY puffy while in Texas, so they dug into the sides of my feet...i still have sores there...and they're gross. so i couldn't even wear sneakers if i wanted to, cause i couldn't wear anything but open sandals. Oy.
last night half the group went bar-hopping, and i would have liked to have gone, cause they were going to a dueling piano bar, but one, there wasn't room in the van for me, and two, they weren't gonna stay there the whole night...hence bar-hopping and i didn't feel like paying cover charge after cover charge. so instead i went with 2 principals and Karen to Baby Acupulco's...this little mexican restaurant with live music...and connected to a bar called, "fruity rita's" where you could sing karaoke with "edie" tuesdays and thursday (so i missed it). When we first walked in, one of the ladies thought it was a gay bar cause there were rainbows everywhere and, well, fruity ritas? However, it meant MARGAritas that came in many fruity flavors...and they just liked rainbows i suppose. anyway, it was very good eats...as mexican food should be...in texas...
last night i set my alarm for 6:15 so i'd have plenty of time to shower and pack up all my stuff. however, i didnt' check to make sure it said 6:15 AM, not PM, and slept in till 7:19...which sucked major booty because we leave at 7:35-ish to get to the AVID convention thing. I made it down to the lobby, though, grabbed a banana and was good to go. i wasn't even the last one down. go me.
me and the other sparta teacher in my group went to the first half of the last session, and it was VERY worthwhile...but then we had a break and it was just too hard to stay...especially when half the people were leaving, anyway. so we walked around downtown and he got some t-shirts for his younger cousins. if situations were different, i might consider liking this guy, but there's just too much to have to sort through...and i'm already liking another guy a lot right now. i'm a one man kinda girl, ya know? ANYWAY, we get back to the Hilton, and there's 3 more people sitting in the starbucks lounge place...one of which was the assistant principal, so i figured we were safe.
we went to the airport, and everyone got their boarding passes except one guy from our group...so me and this lady laura stayed and waited while he sorted everything out (all was well, by the way) but the rest of the guys in our group just took off...so they could sit in the terminal longer. geez...i guess boys really don't change. we had no other kinds of problems at all, so we were REALLY early for our flight...like...2 1/2 hours early. glad we hurried... so we board the tiny little jet/mini van with wings and fly over to dallas again, only to sit and wait again in Dallas for our flight to St. Louis. Half the teachers were right behind first class (so we got lots of leg room) and the other half was stuck way at the back. I really lucked out as far as airline seating...the furthest back I ever had to sit was row 24, and that wasn't really even half way, so whoo.
anyway, now i'm back. i sat in the hot tub once we got home and was attacked by a horsefly. ah, it's good to be back. i work at hartmann realtors tomorrow, so i really should be going to bed. sigh...will i ever learn?