You know it has been a long day when...

... you open the back door of your car to put stuff in the back seat, get in the car, put your seat belt on, turn the keys, are chatting with the person sitting in the car with you, and then are wondering why in the world they are looking at you so strangely -- because the back door of the car is still wide open :) Thank goodness I was taking Jessica home after class or I might have just gone all the way with my door open! It took us a good 5 minutes to recover from laughing. Yes... most of you can attest to the fact that I am quite capable of laughing at myself :)

So other than that slight snafu, the day was good and went by really fast! I got to school a bit early as we had some last minute stuff to finish, but since Dedra (my GT teacher) was running late it turned into a bit of a scramble to finish before the kids showed up. So in came the kids, with their parents (we got rid of them relatively quickly) and while they were getting settled I took every one's picture. This was pre-planned so Dedra could put names with faces when assigning parts after the auditions (and I figured it would help me learn names faster). I was under the impression that meant I would print them out for her after the class, but as soon as I got everyone she asked me to go print them out. I was a bit bummed as I didn't want to miss any part of the class, but she wanted to take notes on the print-outs. So I ran (literally) over to the library and got them printed and came back in the middle of the "We're going on a picnic, I'm Polly and I'm taking Pears, that's Sara and she's bringing Soccer balls, etc." game... so I don't think I missed much. Of course the kids are calling me Ms. Frostman, which I don't know if I will ever get use to since it just makes me think of Mrs. Frostman (aka my mom). I need to find some good guy and marry him so I can be Mrs. Something-Else and it won't sound as weird :) Anyway!! After the icebreakers, we played Shakespeare Jeopardy. All the kids were sent a packet of info with the audition part, synopsis of the play, etc and they did pretty well with the Jeopardy. After Jeopardy we practiced insulting each other in Shakespearean dialect. That was HILARIOUS. Dedra had put together lists of Renaissance-period adjectives and nouns and the kids picked combinations of them. So instead of being a big smelly dork, you would be a lilly-livered, two-toed mealworm. It was very entertaining, and it helped the kids warm up for their auditions by being in character. Dedra has a very difficult job tonight, because out of the 24 auditions, only a handful were not really great!! I was impressed. I can't wait to see our finished product! So, other than the fact that it was raining as we were dismissing kids, getting down to the field and putting them in cars (we - including most of the kids - were all quite soaked by the end of this process) the first day with the Shakespeare Players was a lot of fun!! Note to self... tomorrow bring an umbrella.

At this point in the day, I could have just stopped and taken a nap, but of course we get to have class in the afternoons, so it was off to class we went. We started with sharing our morning experiences (everyone pretty much had a blast) and then Marci did the first micro-teaching lesson (she's the teacher, we're the kids, etc.) She picked a mini-lesson about synonyms and antonyms and did a great job... and I got some ideas for how to do mine (on Wednesday). Then we talked about teaching spelling. Since I suck at spelling I figured this would be something I could hopefully find some tips from... but its pretty much the same as when I was a kid. Oh well. At least I will have empathy for the crappy spellers in my classes :) At the end of the day we got 30 minutes to meet with the person that is going to be our mentor for our Masters papers. Oh!! Before which we got our journal responses back. I got an "A" yay!! :) So Jessica and I have the same mentor (which we both were excited about) He is a retired teacher/principal who works part time with the ed dept. at CC and seems very very nice. He also does magic shows for kids :) He said our outlines were some of the best he has ever read... which we thought was a pretty good start! Thankfully the next chunk of paper-due-dates aren't until next week, so it can go on the back-burner for a few days. So that was a good way to end the school day! Now its time for... yes, you guessed it.... reading/homework :)