Midterms, Disappointments, and Field Trips

1. We just got our midterms back. 88%. Not too bad. Class average was 82%. I only received 33/45 on the multiple choice, but got all the points for the writing. We're allowed to re-submit our wrong answers, explaining why the answer we didn't circle was correct, for half a point each. I'll probably do that. But I really don't know how to write a narrative about why "A and B" was right instead of just "A." I just didn't know that the Surgeon General had something to do with IRBs being created, okay? I knew the Tuskegee Syphilis study, but not the Surgeon General thing. How am I supposed to explain why I was wrong? Uh, because I didn't know. I still maintain I've learned nothing in the course.

2. And, sadly, I'm at Towson right now, not the Sinead O'Connor concert. I just kept thinking about how I'm spending $2300 on these courses, and not going to a class is just isn't something I should consider. That damn sense of unneeded obligation I have! Today, they posted Boston Globe review on the Sinead O'Connor website, and I'm a bit more disappointed now that I didn't go. Starting with "The Emperor's New Clothes"? Wow. Oh well, I'm sure she'll tour again. Not before retiring again and coming back again, though. She's playing in Philadelphia on Oct. 30. Ridiculous, but I could swing it if I really feel too disappointed. It's not the end of the world.

3. My not going, to be honest, has as much to do with my general exhaustion right now as anything else. I usually get out of school pretty early on Wednesdays, since I have class until 10, but today, I left at 6:30, leaving me just enough time to drrive up to Towson and arrive four minutes late to my 7:00 class. See, tomorrow is the big 9th grade field trip, and we I spent a lot of time tying up loose ends and getting shit together. The biggest stress is the money cycling through me right now. The field trip is $13 per student, and the current book we're reading is $14 per book. I just went and paid a $2076 bill at the bookstore. I've already brought in $1352 into the bank for the field trip, turning it into money orders for the university and the bus companies. I still have a few hundred left. I've been carrying around so much cash lately that I live in fear of being robbed, like my colleague was over the weekend - she had an undetermined amount of around $400 stolen from her classroom for this field trip. We're all sort of pitching in to get the kids busses still, but it sucks nonetheless. Now she hands me all her money because I'm - ha ha - the responsible one, or at least the one who doesn't get money stolen. By the end of it all, I'll have had several thousand dollars worth of dirty ones, fives, and tens cycle through my pockets and into the hands of others. I wonder how much I'll end up losing on the deal? Hopefully minimal. At this point, it's impossible to know. Field trips are hard work and stressful, at least big field trips (this is over 200 kids).