A Memorable Start

Though what happens in August and September is usually a vague, fuzzy memory by June, this start to the school year seems hard to forget.

The year opened with an earthquake during last period on the first day of school. Our building shakes a lot due to normal movement of desks in other classrooms and even from the wind so it took a few seconds to figure out what was going on. Other than some books falling off the shelves in the third floor library there didn't seem to be any damage. The students were great and managed to go back to class and learn for the rest of the period!

Though the subsequent hurricane came through on the weekend, some students were without power into the next week. One of my students had to complete his work at Panera in the evenings. Apparently if you are there until closing they politely hint that it is time to leave by handing you a bag of cookies "for the road". This resourceful student then discovered that he could work by the light of a truck unloading at CVS while simultaneously using the wireless access point at the closed Starbucks. Too bad he accidentally did the wrong homework assignment during his adventures!

Today we had to close school after first period due to a malfunctioning fire alarm. It has been raining incessantly for 3 days due to hurricane #2 so I knew something was wrong when the fire alarm went off. When I was in high school an unplanned event usually meant either someone pulled the alarm or there was a bomb threat (except for the time the soda machine caught on fire...or the time when someone set a trash can on fire in the bathroom...now that I think about it, we might not have ever had an actual drill!). I was relieved to find out that none of the above occurred. Again the students were very well behaved...at least until it started pouring! Most of us were soaked to the skin (you could tell which teachers had first period off as they were able to grab jackets and umbrellas). Though I was prepared to turn the heat up in my classroom and go on teaching, I was just as jubilant as the kids when they let us go home!

We're wondering what natural disaster with a minor but noticeable impact will happen next week...