Eagle Mania

It's been a busy week and a half since I have last posted. Let's see... last Saturday was the Eagle Mania fun fair at school. I could tell that the kids had a blast, and I even had my first blueberry shaved ice sno-cone in years. I didn't make it into the dunk tank this year, which I know was slightly disappointing to my students. Maybe next year! I volunteered at a prize booth called "Eagle's Nest." It had hundreds of suckers standing upright in an upside-down box. Some of the suckers had a colored marking on the bottom, and the color determined the prize. And there were some cool prizes: temporary tattoos, stationary/ stickers, key chains, puzzles, and the grand prize of a giant stuffed animal. Sometimes I miss being a kid! They eat this stuff up :)

After Eagle Mania, I had lunch with a co-worker at Thaiphoon. I really love Thai food... and with that said, Vietnamese and Japanese food, too! Sunday I ate Thai food again in Washington, DC with some friends after attending Emily's belly dancing recital, the Fourth Annual "Under a Desert Moon" Sahara Dance Student Gala. Unfortunately the friend who was picking me up was running late, and by the time we arrived at the theatre, we'd missed Emily's dance. You win some; you lose some, right?! We watched the rest of the recital, and I saw Emily in the finale.

May is the busiest month at school with all of the Virginia state tests, Standards of Learning, or more commonly referred to as the "SOLs"... all part of the No Child Gets Ahead legislation. Fifth grade has four tests: Writing, a two-part test - English grammar and a writing prompt, Reading, Science, and Math. The two-part Writing SOL was taken in March, so we have the other three this month, one each week. One down and two to go! I am really not that worried about my gifted and talented students passing the exam, but the high stress comes knowing that they need to pass advance to carry our school's test scores so we don't lose funding!

I didn't have any new dates this week, and I didn't renew my Match.com subscription. I didn't want to pay, and I've met several people. I am going to see how things work out for now. Simon came down this past week to drop off my stuff and pick up his. It was really hard, and I feel that I somewhat regressed this week in all of my feelings and emotions. I do have a date tonight, which I am really looking forward to. It's date #3 with Bachelor #1, and we're going out dancing. He's really a great guy. I was very impressed the first time we met, and he gave me a gift - a travel guide to Vietnam, knowing I am going to Ho Chi Minh City next summer. He's also Vietnamese, which I discovered only after our first date. He's a software engineer and truly a fascinating person... also a SCUBA diver, well-traveled, and very adventurous. He's run 5 marathons and gone sky-diving, too! And he was a volunteer fire fighter and ambulance driver for several years.