Boston Trip: Initial Thoughts

I wish I could have written this piece by piece instead of a big smorgasborg like I am going to have to do. I think I will cover this in a few parts tonight I will focus on my initial thoughts. I will have another portion on the history, another on places and a final on random thoughts I forget to include. So here goes:

Before this stuff gets too hazy I need to get it down. I will try not to give a minute by minute account, more of just what I thought about stuff.

We were kinda rushed into dinner, everyone else was there waiting for us. What I mean is we were on the last flight, about 8-10 of us and the rest were already there. I was taken back, in that I didn't know anyone but Brian Beal, and apparently he wasn't on my team. There were 32 other teachers involved, with 6 mentors, and Roger and Sandra in charge. Right around 40. There were more there at the dinner, administrators, and Bob Lemming who runs the whole program.

We were told we had to sit in our teams for dinner. I didn't quite know what to think about all of this. Our mentor Rique, spelled his name weird, but was from Salt Lake, and seemed to relish in these conferences. (the seemed to part was confirmed as Rique loved to wax poetic about these conferences, he spends his summers going to them.) My team rounded out like this: Laura Forde(pronounced 40-perhaps she could just go to having a number for a last name, I guess if she was in a bball game and got to pick a number it would be obvious what to pick) from North Dakota teaches HS. Mary Angelo from Ft. Lauderdale, in her second year of teaching middle school. Note: I think Utah is about the only place that doesn't have middle schools, it seemed like every other state had them. Josh Murtaugh from Lincoln Nebraska who did everything to break the Cornhusker stereotype, which meant I have less of a reason to travel there, what I mean is the only reason I would go there, other than to drive through it would be to see the huskers, if that reason was gone, you can bet it's not on my must visit list. North Dakota would actually be ahead of it. And finally Cara Phillips from West Virginia HS. Cara's softer southern accent was a treat to listen to all week.

I won't bore you by explaining all the crap they bored us with that night. We finally got to see Roger's students give their presentation and then take questions. It was pretty neat. The only lasting memory was Desodie Eberman grilling the conservative girl on Guantanomo. It was a little over the top and not a question of fact finding, but one of fault finding that had an agenda. Everyone was a little leary of Des, who I must admit I grew to taking a liking to by the end, it did take a while cause she tends to be long winded and loves agendas, but she is a nice person.

We got back to our room and slept. The room was actually kinda cool, it was a split suite, we each got our own room and shared the bath. It took me a few minutes to fall asleep, and while I was nearing lala land, I considered all that had taken place. I mean here I actually was in Boston and I didn't pay a cent for it. How cool is that? I was with about 40 other people from about 20 different states who got this priviledge. I was kind of excited that when 5:30 rolled around I was up and took a walk and actually found a geocache about a half mile away.

My initial thoughts were that Bawstan was cool, I totally dig the complete disregard for the letter R. Harvard is really Ha-vahd. My group was rather quiet the first night at dinner, I imagine I was too, so this was no cause for great alarm, as no one seemed like a prima donna, or a drama queen, or just plain weird. And thank heavens as I got to know these people, that didn't change. Not all groups can say that.