estar cansado

Last week was the first full week of school that we’ve had in a while—and it very evident on Friday!

At our staff meeting on Thursday night, we were discussing the birthday party (for one of our volunteers) that we had planned for Friday at lunchtime.  I asked how long the party was going to be because I was planning on doing a lot of teaching that day—this statement was met with laughs and comments like “You gotta love first-year teachers!”  I just laughed and remained convinced that Friday would be just like any other productive day.

I received a reality check when my alarm went off at 5:45 on Friday morning.  Later, during the staff’s before-school prayer time, all of us were moving a little extra slowly.  My kids were dragging from the moment they arrived.  I’ll put it this way—I had planned on giving a vocabulary test, teaching reading, writing, art, science, math, Spanish and reading books aloud to the youngest kids (like we do every Friday).  What did we actually do?  We had a vocabulary test, a tiny bit of reading, a lot of laying on the floor or sitting at a desk with head down, many trips to the water cooler, a little math, a lot of coloring and decorating for the party, reading to the little kids, eating ice pops, and (thankfully because it was a fun microscope activity) some science. 

This experience is not going to stop me from planning a full schedule of work on Fridays, but it is going to remind me to be flexible!

I was thankful just to make it to 3:30, and I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to muster up the energy to go kayaking later that day—but I did!  We went to the bioluminescent bay in Fajardo.  It was an amazing experience!  The water contains a special type of organism that lights up when the water is agitated.  So basically, you’re kayaking in glowing water!  The moon was a little too bright that night, so we didn’t get the full effect—but I’m sure I’ll be back there sometime soon.