When you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The fire alarm went off in the middle of my fourth grade class today. I knew immediately it wasn't a drill because the alarm in my actual trailer doesn't go off in a drill. Out we went in the cold and rain to stand and wait. The fire station is about 30 feet from our school, but still they got in the truck and drove over. Protocol I'm sure, but the hoses probably would have stretched from the garage!
We weren't on fire, of course. Just a faulty alarm...that they couldn't turn off. They sent us back inside, with the alarm still going off. Imagine loud, piercing siren-like sounds. WTF? Were we supposed to keep on teaching??? After about ten minutes (and what felt like the beginning of blood vessels popping my brain) they told all us trailer folk to go into the main building, where the alarm was not going off. Some county dude had to come and turn off the damn alarm...about 20 minutes later. I ended up teaching some Civil War stuff on the fly instead of music. *sigh* Suggestions for second careers now being accepted.
In other news, in light of my recent 5k results, with a handy link in case you want to read my awesome race report and congratulate me, hint, hint, nudge, nudge, I've just finished registering for the MCM 10k. My current 10k time is bad...coming in a race where ITB pain forced me to walk over a mile. It would be very cool to get it under an hour. Timing is perfect, as the race occurs on October 29. I will train during September and October only, so I don't get bored and blow it off like I sort of did for CB (though, the option of playing a tennis tournament helped greatly in that decision).
UPDATE: On the subject of school fire alarms...this reminds of my first year at this school, when I was in a lone little trailer out behind the school...there was a fire drill, only the office staff forgot to broadcast into my trailer. As I'm teaching I see the entire school lined up on the field behind my trailer, and here I am strumming away on the guitar, teaching my songs, and doing my thing. The classroom teacher evidently didn't care if her class made it out of impending doom or not...hell, she was probably out for coffee. It will be nice to be attached to the main building next year, where I will only be forgotten some of the time.
Almost as memorable as the time I lost power in my trailer during a very bad storm, kept teaching very calmly in the dark, while inside my head I was sure we were going to be sucked up by a tornado at any moment.
We weren't on fire, of course. Just a faulty alarm...that they couldn't turn off. They sent us back inside, with the alarm still going off. Imagine loud, piercing siren-like sounds. WTF? Were we supposed to keep on teaching??? After about ten minutes (and what felt like the beginning of blood vessels popping my brain) they told all us trailer folk to go into the main building, where the alarm was not going off. Some county dude had to come and turn off the damn alarm...about 20 minutes later. I ended up teaching some Civil War stuff on the fly instead of music. *sigh* Suggestions for second careers now being accepted.
In other news, in light of my recent 5k results, with a handy link in case you want to read my awesome race report and congratulate me, hint, hint, nudge, nudge, I've just finished registering for the MCM 10k. My current 10k time is bad...coming in a race where ITB pain forced me to walk over a mile. It would be very cool to get it under an hour. Timing is perfect, as the race occurs on October 29. I will train during September and October only, so I don't get bored and blow it off like I sort of did for CB (though, the option of playing a tennis tournament helped greatly in that decision).
UPDATE: On the subject of school fire alarms...this reminds of my first year at this school, when I was in a lone little trailer out behind the school...there was a fire drill, only the office staff forgot to broadcast into my trailer. As I'm teaching I see the entire school lined up on the field behind my trailer, and here I am strumming away on the guitar, teaching my songs, and doing my thing. The classroom teacher evidently didn't care if her class made it out of impending doom or not...hell, she was probably out for coffee. It will be nice to be attached to the main building next year, where I will only be forgotten some of the time.
Almost as memorable as the time I lost power in my trailer during a very bad storm, kept teaching very calmly in the dark, while inside my head I was sure we were going to be sucked up by a tornado at any moment.