gilpinology: {She Said} Some Austin Action

As a continuation of things that have been going on… THE AUSTIN TRIP.

Ok, I feel like I have said this before but here it goes again because I can’t acknowledge enough how I realize this about myself and am immensely grateful for the people in my life that go along with me…I get myself into things. Often, I actually sign myself up for them- I see something and I am like, “Oh, that would be fun, let’s do that.” And next thing you know, I am planning some event, directing a camp, hosting a lot of children somewhere, etc and I need help. I have never been abandoned in my time of need. Sometimes, however, I feel obligated to get myself into something- this was the case with the Austin Trip.

Evidently, every year the history department at my school brings loads of students to Austin on the first Saturday in May for an educational field trip. This started before me but when I signed up to be a 7th Grade Texas History teacher at KMS, apparently I signed up for this trip. Last year, the trip was cancelled due to the Swine Flu scare. This year it was on.

A couple weeks before the trip Matt and I started bantering about whether he would come with me. It caused some pretty good scuffles but in the end he agreed to go because I needed another chaperone and I wanted him with me so he obliged (yes, he is the best- be jealous). My BTFF (best teacher friend forever) Cindy, also went with us, and our lunch buddy, Connie (and her friend, Dee Dee), came along as well- we were quite a crew on our bus with 53 (to be exact) 7th graders.

Here is the doozie… we had to be at the school at 3:30 A.M. At that point, it was understood that we were not to talk to one another (or so I thought). The kids were enthusiastic. I have a hard enough time with all those students feeling as if they need to wave and say “hi” to me EVERY TIME they see me in the hall (seriously, even if they just saw me two minutes before in class) let alone in the wee hours in the morning. I took the approach of just looking at them blankly and that seemed to convey the “don’t talk to me” message pretty well.

We stopped in Round Rock at McDonalds for breakfast. While other busses let their children off to walk around I told mine to stay seated on the bus and just be grateful for their sausage biscuit. They didn’t argue… good thing. The busses almost left Matt there. I wouldn’t let them.

In Austin we started by watching a couple shows about Texas at the Bob Bullock museum of Texas History, then off to the Capitol.

(Here you see Matt, posing as a weird loner/ outcast at the second show... eventually he moved to sit with us)

We ate lunch on the lawn of the Capitol, during which a pro-marijuana rally started. So, I promptly began an impromptu lesson on the importance of freedom of speech and how differing opinions shape the freedom of our nation (*cough* have a different opinion, children).

We had a tour set up for the capitol. The guide, a very detailed man, gave a very thorough explanation of the events (all of history) leading to the building of the capitol complete with anecdotes (that had nothing to do with anything) about the people involved. He got some facts wrong… if you are a Texas History buff- by his story, Santa Anna raised the red flag at Goliad, Fannin surrendered at the Alamo, and the massacre at Goliad was all just a big misunderstanding. At the end of the tour, I was pretty sure the dude was taking us to the dungeon of the capitol and then all of the sudden he was just gone and we were at the gift shop… clever, two points to the tour guide.

After thoroughly embarrassing myself at the gift shop by loudly proclaiming to the children that the better gift shop was at our next stop, we made our way back up to the street (somehow ending up across the street from the Capitol, and back to the bus where I promptly sang Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like a Woman” (yes, not a random choice- it is what happened to be on the radio) to the children over the P.A. system. It was a big hit that I am still hearing about at school (when they wave and say “hi” to me every five seconds).

We gave the children 10 minutes per level at the museum (each level is easily an hour’s worth of material) and then 20 minutes in the (better) gift shop. Then, it was off to the State Cemetery, where (not by our busses choice) the children were allowed to run free (they literally ran) and some (though NOT our children who had gotten the “respect” lesson from me on the bus before) were caught rolling down the hills and pretending to urinate on gravestones. I don’t necessarily agree with the cemetery stop of the trip.

Then we were on our way back. THAT was a good feeling. Stopped at a very unfortunate Cici’s in Waco for dinner. That was interesting. Arrived back at the school at 9:00 P.M. where a child proceeded to spill half of an (entirely too large to begin with) box of nerds in the aisle. That was actually pretty fun because then I got to make all the children stay on the bus until every nerd was picked up- a difficult task due to the ridges in the flooring. Good times.