I've barely seen Brent at all; I've woken up beside him every morning but have come home and fallen asleep alone every night. He's been burning the candle at both ends studying for finals, completing projects, and working at the warehouse. He's finished now and enjoying a short break before his first summer intersession courses begin.
At school it has been all about testing, testing, testing. The fifth graders have completed round one of STAAR testing for math, reading, and science, as well as MAP testing for math and reading. Next week they have Common Assessments for all three subjects, as well as STAAR re-takes for the students who failed round one. It's an understatement to say that our students are overly tested.
We've also taken our students on several field trips - two weeks ago we took two day field trip to Houston to visit the University of Houston, go to the zoo and to the museum of natural science, among other things. We stayed in a hotel and we ate at nice restaurants - it was a lot of fun and an amazing opportunity for many of our students who rarely leave the island. And last week we took our students out to the bay to plant smooth cord grass and go seining in the water with Galveston Bay Restoration.
For our students, it has been a roller coaster of extreme emotions - it's either been extreme frustration or boredom with testing days or extreme excitement on field trip days. Going back and forth between both extremes have made classroom management unbelievably difficult. Even on the "normal" days that are in between testing and field trips - we have science fair coming towards the end of the month, and though I'm working hard to plan engaging lessons and to keep test prep to a minimum for their CA III, the students are mentally checked out and have attitudes about being asked to do the simplest tasks.
June 14th just can't get here soon enough. I love my students and I love my school, but these last week weeks have really worn me down, and I really need to take a step back and breathe.
Oh yeah, and we moved. I don't know which of us thought it would be a good idea to end our lease at this time of year. But we did. That's a story for another time.
Because these last four weeks have been what they have, Brent and I needed a fun night out. So tonight our friends Joey and Rachel came over to have dinner and drinks at our house. I made black bean and vegetable burritos using a recipe I found on Epicurious - so good - and Rachel brought over raspberry beer - perfect for a warm summer evening. Afterwards, we walked to a gallery on 25th Street for Galveston Storytellers Night. It was different - a guy told a series of short stories to music, and between each story a band played a song. We really enjoyed it, especially the music. The band was a local group called Come See My Dead Person and they play gypsy folk rock... a genre of music I didn't know existed until several hours ago. We'd definitely love to hear them again. Spending time with friends and getting out for some fresh air was just what we needed - especially me still having five weeks of school left. It was an early taste of summer time, reminding me that soon (yet not soon enough!) every night can feel like a Saturday night! Tonight I'm so excited to be able to spend time with my husband again, thankful to live on this island, and feeling blessed to have good friends here.
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