I am back, and get this: My plane from Charlotte to Asheville did not have Air Conditioning. Temperature? 100 Degrees. I mean, dude.

Okay. I am back from Colorado, have finished school, and back existing without difficulty in the Eastern Time Zone, and have happily reunited with Jessica and Noah. Summer has now begun, but not without a quick reflection on my experience in CO. As referenced in previous posts, the reading aspect of grading AP essays was daunting. (I snapped this photo during one of my reading breaks at CSU). But I learned a lot, and I will be a better teacher as a result of it. And, if nothing else, my students deserve that. The most notable thing that happened while in CO was making friends. I met some really amazing people, specifically Jeremy, Melissa, and Clint (from Tampa, Florida - Austin, Texas - and Jacksonville, Florida respectively). We hung out most every night from about 6:00pm to about 10:30pm (which was the ONLY time we were not grading essays). We are all AP World History teachers and we all try to be great at it. We talked a lot about teaching, students, and methodology. But we also talked about hopes, dreams, religion, goals, family, and politics. Jeremy said that he felt we knew each other so well by the end of the week because we had so much "facetime" with each other - something that most of us have trouble obtaining with friends very often. I think that is true, and I appreciated it. It did not change the fact that I was homesick the whole week, but it certainly helped me enjoy my evenings with people who , I felt, understood what I was going through and were inspiring. I hope that I see them again some day.

Now I am ready to start our summer. We are making of list of stuff we need to do. The list is getting long. Yardsales, bathroom flooring, organizing, writing songs, going swimming, planting flowers, etc. Alright, off to the list.

Oh yeah - did you notice that Jessica posted an entry on this blog? OMG, can you believe it? It sure was a sweet post, but more importantly that makes two posts in one year. I leave the state for a week and she goes crazy! What next, will she admit that she broke my car handle in 1998? :)