March Madness

I think it's always appropriate that College Basketball Tournaments are this month. March truly is Mad, but in other ways than basketball. Here's what I've been up to, bullet style:

* Junior Prom. The first week of the month brought on the Junior Prom, which I advise with a few other teachers. Mostly it's the ladies (me and one other teacher) that run the show. We've been planning and ordering and running fundraisers since the beginning of the year. During the week of prom, we decorate every night and practice dancing all week. It's a crazy mad dash until Saturday. The night turned out beautifully. Kids danced all night, girls looked gorgeous in their dresses and boys were dashing in their sharp tuxes. In the end it went off without a hitch, and I'm in gear for next year.

* Region Speech. In the middle of the week, I helped our speech coach (who is also the other adviser for the prom ironically) run Region Speech. It was our turn to host, so for two days I was helping run a tab room with my mentor Stella Hill (my old speech coach). She taught me a lot about how a tab room should work. I've seen a lot of coaches run a meet in the past few years and it was cool to be one of the decision makers finally. I got to stand up against some cheating, something I didn't stand up for last year and cost our school a place at Region. Though, because I didn't give half the competitors a bye and a free win to qualify them for State, I've made an enemy of our close rival North Sevier. Oh well. A little hateful competition is always healthy right? :)

* State Speech. This weekend I went to State Speech with our speech team. We left Friday for sunny St. George and competed in individual events. It was a great day, with a few minor drawbacks. A few of my students chose to participate in some illicit activities. No charges yet, but I think they underestimate the power of my hearing and innate goodness of the few of the students they told about their shenanigans. Anyway, students did well. A few of our kids made it to the final rounds of individual events and debate. In the end the school took 3rd place. My star public forum debate team didn't do as well as normal, but that happens. One of our other teams got to be in the spotlight and I must say they deserved it.
I also got to see Bret and Lori for a minute. We went karaoke-ing at our favorite place Honolulu Grill. Super fun. It was great to see them, even for a short time. My friends Cassey and Landon came over to my hotel too, and had an excellent talk. I love catching up with old friends.
The team had some pretty cool adventures over the weekend. At our hotel, we saw a full scale drug bust. Teams of drug units and their dogs invaded a room and arrested several guys and took them off in discrete white vans. Plus on the way home our bus broke down in Cedar City. Thank heavens our bus driver used to drive for Iron County and knew just who to call. A mechanic came but couldn't get the engine to turn over. In the end they lent us a bus to come home in. We got home at 1 a.m. and it was late. Overall I had a blast getting to know my students a little better and I'm proud of the work they did over the weekend. Way to represent.

Coming up: I'm headed to Washington D.C. this weekend for an essay contest ceremony with one of my students. We'll find out what place she took in the top 3, and we'll also get to see some pretty great sites. I love D.C. It's one of my favorite places to visit. I'm flying in a day early to see Doug and the family. The rest of the four days I'm there will be too busy to see much of them. I can't wait.
The next week (the last week of March and first of April) I'm flying to San Francisco to visit my good friend Margaret. I planned this trip to see her last summer when we were at school. I've never been to that part of California and I'm stoked. We have plans to see the Redwoods and many other things. I can't imagine a better way to start Spring Break.

After that, who knows. I have no April plans but I'm waiting for things to happen. Easter and General Conference are in there somewhere. But I really am looking forward to a little break from the Madness that is March. So have fun with all the bracketology and I'll see you when the madness is over. :)