School Officially Begins Tomorrow

Well, it is officially here.  Tomorrow is Wednesday, August 31st, and I just heard that school will begin for teachers after having Monday and Tuesday off due to hurricane Irene.  This definitely will be a weird start up.  I haven't been able to get to my classroom all summer because of the fire issues.  I am just hoping and praying that all of my teaching supplies are still there.  Evidently, they took everything out of our rooms, our filing cabinets, our cubbies and cleaned it and reboxed it.  I just hope I can find everything.  I am afraid I have probably lost past student projects and posters...as long as I get my unit binders, I will be fine.

Hopefully everyone has survived the hurricane in good shape.  I only lost power for about two hours.  I think Mrs. Cook still is without power, so I know some of you are without power too.  Lots of trees and limbs came down in my neighborhood, but no real damage luckily.

Kali is perplexed...the trail is blocked

Interesting smells

Look at the tree!

I hope you all have had great summers.  I did with going to Australia, but I unfortunately have some issues that I am dealing with concerning my foot.  It seems like I will probably need to have foot surgery sometime, but I am going to try to wait until July of next year.  It seems like my Achilles tendon is not in good shape, and I also have a bone spur on my ankle.  Do you remember how I was wearing sandals a lot last spring?  It wasn't because I was trying to be comfortable (though they were), but it was because it hurt when I wore shoes.  I was also told that I cannot run anymore...that was a shocker...depressing at first, but I went out and bought a bike!  I am using it for the background on the blog right now.  I have done some cycling in the past couple of weeks.  I wish I could ride my bike to school, but it is about 12-13 miles, which in itself isn't a big deal, but on some roads I would be putting my life in danger.  I wish I lived somewhere where everything was connected by safe bike paths...a great way to get exercise!

Tomorrow I will hopefully be able to check out my room and see if anything is missing.  Keep your fingers crossed!  I will see everyone next week.  Where has the summer gone?

~Mr. McEwen

An Earthquake, A Hurricane, A Fire, What's Next?

Well,
It's the Saturday before school begins....for teachers.  Students, you have one more week!
This certainly has been a weird summer concerning potential mishaps!

The fire was a total shocker, and I never realized just how much damage the guy did.  Mrs. Cook and I are some of the luckier teachers just because of where are rooms are.  Some teachers lost most of their stuff.  I have not been able to get back into the building to check the status of my binders and teaching debris, but I have hopes that it will all be okay.  We start at James River on Monday.  The latest I heard is that we will be back in the buiding on Wednesday.  I have always told you that one person can make a difference...here's a prime example of one person making a difference in a negative way!

What were you all doing when the earthquake struck?  I was emptying the dishwasher...I at first thought my daughter was bounding down the stairs too loudly....then I realized what was going on....wild.

My new teeny weeny computer

Now I am sitting here during the hurricane using the CCPS netbook.  I haven't used it all summer for a multitude of reasons.  The little mini-keyboard is definitely going to be a challenge.  The typing of this post has been laborioius, but I am managing.   As I see the wind roar through the trees in my back yard, I keep my fingers crossed that they stay intact!  I hope everyone is safe and warm and not in the dark.

I look forward to seeing everyone in a couple of weeks.  My room will probably look a bit more barren than it did last year because I believe I lost all of my posters from smoke damage. 

~Mr. McEwen

South Pacific

The South Pacific trip was great!
We were exhausted when we returned, but it was well worth it.  One of our travelers calculated that we logged over 20,000 miles on this trip in just two weeks.  Wow.  Now I truly understand what jet lag means.

Some highlights of the trip for me?
1.  Mrs. Cook getting us in a fix where we all had to drink kava.  It is a very long story.  Suffice it to say that kava doesn't taste good at all, and as a matter of fact it tastes quite nasty.  We all had to drink from a communal bowl...something I didn't like, but I did it anyway.  Kava left your mouth feeling numb...what an experience....

Isabell getting ready to drink kava.  Notice the look on her face.  She was the last one to try it, and had witnessed our reactions to the indescribable taste.

# 2  We went white water rafting in New Zealand.  Wow.  It is New Zealand's winter, and the water was COLD.  We all wore wet suits.  The rapids were amazing.  The look of terror on Mrs. Cook's face was amazing too...unfortunately I could not bring my camera to capture it on film.  Just imagine the look in her eye.  Priceless.

#3  We got to pet kangaroos and koala bears...they are so incredibly soft.  That evening some of the travelers had kangaroo for dinner.  NOT ME.  I could never eat something I had just pet.  Our tour guide jokingly said that Australia is one of the few countries of the world where they eat their national symbol!

Guess what this is?  Yes...kangaroo...no way did I even taste it when offered..

# 4  We went to this great Chocolate restaurant in Sydney.  They serve nothing but chocolate dishes.  They have two big vats of chocolate as you enter the restaurant with pipes leading to the kitchen.  I have never seen Mrs. Cook eat so much chocolate in my life....

The vat of chocolate (one of them)

Eating our chocolate.  It was pouring rain outside.  And cold!

Mrs. Cook's crepe

Isabelle downing her hot chocolate

Isabelle with our tour guide, "Sludge"

# 5  Our tour guide was phenomenal.  Her parents are Serbian who immigrated to Australia before she was born.  She taught us so much about New Zealand and Australia.  I will never forget her as she made the trip extra special.  We called her "sludge", but her real name was Sladjana...but she told us Sludge would be easier to pronounce.

I hope that you all have had fun adventures as well this summer.  What have you done?  I am sure that you've enjoyed your time away from school.

The fire at Robious was an unbelievable surprise.  Mrs. Cook and I lucked out with just smoke damage, but I believe Mrs. Estes and Mrs. Moore lost a lot of stuff. 

Enjoy the remaining summer days...hopefully you will squeeze in as much fun as you can before we start up again.  I guess I will be having about 1/4 of you again...7th grade is much different than 6th grade.  You'll see....

Take care,
~Mr. McEwen