I live in a rural community. Our school still has an agricultural science program (now run though the local Joint Vocational School) and FFA (Future Farmers’ Association). So when October comes, our school puts on the Fall Fair. The FCCLA (what used to be Future Homemakers of America) works with the FFA to put on the do. The band performs their marching band program (senior night for marching band, even). We don’t have football, so Fall Fair is our big event while other schools are having their various Homecomings. (Our Homecoming is in December, during basketball season.)

Friday night was Fall Fair. I arrived shortly before the event commonly called the Farm Olympics. AKA the Class Challenge. Each high school grade sends a team of 8 students, 4 males, 4 females, to compete in 8 silly competitions. This year, all of the teams had matching t-shirts of some sort. The juniors and the sophomores actually had shirts printed that were quite cute. The juniors went with green with pink writing. The sophomores, black shirts with white print. The seniors and freshman hand-did their shirts. I loved the seniors’ slogan: If it’s rigged, we will win!

Since I teach juniors & seniors, I rooted for their teams. But I enjoyed watching them all perform. All of the competitive events revolved around team effort – either in pairs or all as a group. The first was quite unique – they were tied into a knot of 8 kids & had to untie themselves without unclasping hands. The seniors must have rigged theirs (heh) because they were unknotted within seconds. It was entertaining to watch – sort of like extreme Twister.

Other events were the three-legged race, extreme flag tag (the freshmen kicked butt in this event), leap frog – over & under (the seniors wound up cheating and were disqualified because they were TOO obvious), bat spin (run down the gym floor, pick up a bat, bend over with it touching your forehead, spin 10 times, and run back – I’d be sick on this one), the wheelbarrow race, etc.

Halfway through the events, they reported on the winners of the Fall Fair events (anyone from the community can enter items from a variety of categories, farming, cooking, crafts, etc.) Then they announced the winner of the Kiss the Pig contest. In year’s past, the FFA/FCCLA were able to goad teachers into doing this, but the past few years it’s just been seniors. One of my senior boys announced that he wanted to win the Kiss the Pig contest this year. But all through the week, I heard the names of other students in the lead. So what is a kind teacher like me to do? Why, put $10 in his jar at lunch! I was quite pleased when he won and came up to kiss the pig. Lucky kid! I am so nice, aren’t I? 🙂

The final event of the Class Challenge was for each student to run down the gym floor, stuff 4 marshmallows in their mouth & shout “fluffy bunny!” Of course, with 4 marshmallows in your mouth, you aren’t very loud, so the judges (holding the bags of mar-mars) had to listen carefully. Most of the students ate their marshmallows, but I noticed the Sophomores had a spit bag for their teammates to use when they returned to home base. (Um, yuck!)

Well, after a hilarious evening of good sportsmanship (and only a little cheating) and teamwork, the sophomores came in first, followed by the seniors, then juniors, and finally freshmen. I enjoyed the evening of silliness. And it’s a lot more fun than most high school sporting events because no one takes it too seriously.

So what did I do tonight to try & top last night? Went out to see TWO movies at the theater. I saw Serenity and Wallace & Gromit. Had supper in between them and followed the movies with a hot fudge cake at Big Boy. Yum! I enjoyed both movies and will definitely see them again sometime. (DVD purchases? Most likely…) Tomorrow’s supposed to be laundry day, so hopefully I’ll be a good gurl and clean house too. We’ll just have to wait & see.

Lord, save me from boring meetings! I missed school Monday and Tuesday of this week to go to useful but boring meetings in Columbus. Lots of statistics (which I got the first time they explained them and didn’t need reiteration the following day) & educational jargon.

I’ve discovered that I’m bored at all meetings except for technology meetings (usually – have been to one or two clunkers there too). This Friday I’ll be going to the monthly county tech meeting, which I’m never bored at. But most of the other meetings I have to attend – YAWN.

Well, I figure that’s why they pay me the big bucks. 🙂 I teach for free – I love teaching. But they pay me to go to boring meetings & grade papers. Of course, I showed them! I had the chemistry students grade their own tests today. Ha! 😉

Actually, I spent most of Thursday & Friday afternoon coming up with my sub plans for Monday & Tuesday (had the kids reviewing & then taking tests – hated to do that to ’em with a sub, but we need to keep moving). Last night I was lying in bed trying to remember what I had planned for Wednesday. I arrived at the school to find out I hadn’t actually written the week’s lesson plans! Whoops! But at least I took care of Monday & Tuesday.

So, having chemistry grade their own tests was one way to figure out what to do this week. Print out a lab, grade tests, start the next chapter. There we go, lessons for the week. 🙂

On Thursday, I went on the Light the Night walk with our band director, Jared, his fiancee, Melanie, and another band director from Troy, Stephanie. Thanks to my kind contributers here and offline, I raised $160 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Thanks again!

We arrived at the Fraze Pavilion in Dayton and registered. Since I’d raised over $100, I got a free t-shirt as well as my red balloon for the walk. Nice! Stephanie had raised over $300 so she also got a free sweatshirt & a wind breaker which they’ll mail to her. (One of her co-workers’ husbands got corporate matching to help – nice!) The four of us raised over $600 – not bad for 4 school teachers.

After we picked up our free gifts, we moseyed over to the food booths. Papa Murphy’s Pizza (sold locally at the Walmart in Troy among other places) had pizza and I nabbed a slice of cheese pizza. I picked up a 7Up as well – the 7Up bottling company provided those. We moved onward and discovered that Chipotle’s was also a food sponsor. They had half-burritos they were giving out. I picked up a steak burrito – yum! That filled me up aplenty, so I didn’t need to partake of the chips, hot dogs, or bagels which were also available. For the walk, I grabbed a bottle of water.

We continued our mosey of the area and another booth was selling cute (and very soft!) teddy bears with Light the Night t-shirts for $5 a piece. The four of us couldn’t resist, so another $20 was raised for Light the Night. We then were ready to pick up our glow-balloons. They were helium filled with a wire that went up into the balloon powering a blinking light. The handle was the battery supply. Unfortunately, the helium was substandard or something, and there were a lot of balloons, like ours, that barely floated. No matter, we just tied ’em to our heads/glasses/ears.

Carl Day, anchor for Channel 2 News (a Dayton TV station), was the local chapter spokesperson. He’s been a 9-year survivor of lymphoma. He spoke some, letting us know that we were one of the biggest groups to march. Jared estimated 5000 of us. Could have been – there were a lot of us! Anyhoo, Carl introduced a lady whose daughter is fighting (and looks like she might be winning) the battle against leukemia. The little girl was so cute – 4 years old or so. She had her white survivor balloon. 🙂

Anyhoo, we started the walk as it was getting dark. It was neat to see all the red & white (lots of white – yay!) balloons with their blinking lights (in various stages of flotation) as we walked through the nice neighborhood that Fraze is a part of. We walked around a pond and all we could see in front or behind us were people walking. It was a very nice sight.

After two miles or so, the walk returned to Fraze and they gave people Hostess fruit pies or ice cream. Our party went for the ice cream (teeny tiny containers of strawberry – picture Taste portion, elsaf & judiang). We could have stayed for the final numbers (crowd size & money raised) but we decided to head back – it was almost an hour drive back.

Of course, having had the Chipotle’s for supper, we decided we should stop at the nearest one for burritos for lunch the next day. Wearing our lovely Light the Night stickers as we went through the line, Jared & I both managed to get free burritos! We’re still not sure why – after all, Melanie & Stephanie didn’t. But hey, I’m not complaining! That was very nice of the lady at the till. (Could be she was to give out free burritos to the first X Light the Nighters who went through the line. We weren’t sure.)

Anyhoo, Jared drove us all back to Troy where my car was waiting. Then I headed home, burrito & teddy bear by my side. (Dying balloon in the back seat, where it still resides.) I had intended to take my free burrito with me for lunch the next day. Of course, I forgot! (I don’t pack lunches, so it takes some effort on my part to remember when to bring a lunch in. And Friday mornings, I just don’t have that effort.) No matter, I had my burrito for supper!

BTW, if you still wish to contribute to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, you can still do so. You can contribute through this link, or go to their website.

It’s warm in the house right now cuz I refuse to shut my Open Windows and turn on the central air. I love Open Windows! So does Leo – he sometimes lays in his hammock, other times he just lays in front of the kitchen screen door. But tomorrow, it’s supposed to be chilly – yay! I might even get to wear a sweat shirt at the Light the Night walk!

Speaking of the Light the Night Walk (for the Leukemia & Lymphoma society), after my whinging last night, several people contributed to send me over my goal – woohoo! (Hmmm, maybe I should have had a higher goal. 😉 Thankie, thankie to elsaf, gregmce, felicityk, hergrace, and drox! I really appreciate your contributions – especially at a time when we’re all being spread thin between so many worthy causes.

I know that I like to do what I can for the many worthy causes that we see every day in our lives. But you really do have to make a choice. I decided about a year ago that I would focus my contributions on two major causes: Gay Rights and the Woman’s Right to Choose. I even contribute to a couple of political arms (non-tax deductible) with respect to those causes. Sure, I’ll donate to other causes when I can. I’ve given to Red Cross to help with Katrina, and I intend to do so again once some time has passed (because they’ll still be needing, but probably not receiving as much). I’m not as regular in blood donation as I probably should be (and being O positive, I’m rather popular, blood-wise), but I have done it and encourage others (who can) to do it. But eventually, you have to realize that you can’t save everyone and you can’t help every cause.

I’m going to do the Light the Night Walk tomorrow night and will probably have a good time doing it. I’m sure tomorrow I’ll think often of Jenny (the friend who died from leukemia my junior year of high school), and her sister, Tracy, who was an inspiration in love and hope after Jenny passed away. And I’ll carry my glow-in-the-dark balloon and maybe a few other people will notice us and think about contributing to their favorite cause.

My Gramma’s family has a reunion every year, the Sunday after Labor Day weekend. This, then, was the day for it. The reunion was a bit smaller than usual, but that meant I could learn a few more names. (And we managed to have a name tag for everyone, for once.) I think I finally have the family tree up to date, which isn’t easy. (My Gramma had 8 siblings, and the second oldest had several kids who had several kids.)

I have fun at family reunions, even when I don’t know a whole lot of folks. But if people show up every year, you do get to know ’em, and that makes it even more fun. And I like databases, so I keep the family address book up to date (as best as I can). We might have, for once, gotten invites out to everyone. Well, we sent them at any rate. Some didn’t arrive, it appears! One family member received hers yesterday! Whoops! (So Amy, did you & Rachel get your invite?)

Out of Granny’s siblings, there’s only two left. We’d had a rather bad trend in that we had one fewer sister each reunion since we started it a few years ago. But both Granny & Maxine were able to attend this year, just as they had last year. Phew!

One of the interesting things we do at this reunion is a White Elephant sale. You bring in some old crap from home, wrapped in a paper bag, then it gets auctioned off, sight unseen. I bid on two items (totaling $7.50) and got some actual nice crap. Candles, DVDs (not ones I would have bought), and some shower gels. Mom, meanwhile, paid $6 for two cans of diet Coke. Heh. But she also got an ice shaver for less than the two Cokes – should be fun to play with! (I’m sure you hate having ice that has a beard, too.)

Lots of birthdays on my FList today & tomorrow. So Happy Birthday tptigger, blinovitch, and tomorrow, versaphile!

(Bleh! I’m tired! I didn’t think reunions wore one out, but perhaps they do! Well, they, a really good sinus headache, and too much time spent playing City of Heroes probably add up to wearing one out.)