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Mar. 9th, 2003 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaFirst, an exclamation:
There are ammonite fossils in the floor at Baybrook Mall! Holy $#!&!
Okay, now for the story:
Yesterday was what will be the last tournament for my Mu Alpha Theta group this year unless St. John's both decides to have a tournament this year and decides to invite us to it. I had already had some excitement on Wednesday, discovering that our bus forms (which I had submitted the proper two weeks in advance) had arrived with the assistant superintendant's signature back to our secretary only that day, and having to beg RR to drive me over to the bus bard to turn them in to the proper person. So it was with some chagrin that I discovered yeaterday morning that both the busses scheduled to arrive at Elsik at 6:30 am - ours and the girls' track team's - were late. Theirs arrived at 6:50, and by asking their driver, I found that our driver had broken her foot. The bus barn was hunting up a replacement driver. The track coach very kindly gave me the number to the barn before they left. Fifteen minutes later, I called over (on a cell phone borrowed from our club's president) and was told that it had just left. It arrived at the school at 7:15 on the dot.
Now, the tournament was Clear Brook High's first math tournament ever. Clear Brook is in Friendswood. And school buses can't go over 55 mph. The first event - Number Sense - started at 8:00 am. And our substitute driver had only a single $50 bill to pay the tolls on the beltway.
I and our three Number Sense competitors vaulted off the bus as soon as we entered the parking lot, and ran in to get registered and distribute tickets. Fortunately, they were (this being their first tournament ever) running a little late, so my kids got to compete this time. We got settled in and distributed tickets, and a few people went to exchange the tickets from our no-shows to something they wanted to take.
Then we settled in to wait. I ended up playing Charades (movie titles only) with three of my students.
After a fairly uneventful morning, we headed to Baybrook Mall and its food court for lunch. I ate stuff that was bad for me, shocked a "personal beauty consultant" who was ambusing passers-by with my nub-bitten nails, and headed back to our rendezvous point, when I looked at the floor and almost stumbled over an ammonite fossil as wide as my hand.
I'm sure it was an ammonite - the spiral was tighter than a nautilus's; the chambers were divided, so it wasn't a snail; and the divisions between chanbers was corrugated instead of a smooth curve.
I looked around and discovered at least three other whole or partial ammonites in the floor slabs immediately arround me. I found them (along with a few fossils for more conventional shelled things) all the way back to our entrance. Treading on my dead spiritual ancestors . . .
Back at Clear Brook for the wards ceremony, our president swept the three social sciences tests (our treasurer: "You've demonstrated for the first time that there really is an I in Team!") and we picked up one other trophy and about eight ribbons. Not bad for this batch.
On the way out, the sponsor from Clements asked if she'd see me at UIL. Boy, will she. I'm going to have to grab her and scream "I don't know what I'm doing!" a couple of times, I suspect. Which reminds me, I need to talk to my third competitor and make sure he still wants to do it.
Now I just need to finish grading the last of my overdue tests in time for yet another batch to come in. And finish all my grading in time for the end of the nine weeks on Friday.
There are ammonite fossils in the floor at Baybrook Mall! Holy $#!&!
Okay, now for the story:
Yesterday was what will be the last tournament for my Mu Alpha Theta group this year unless St. John's both decides to have a tournament this year and decides to invite us to it. I had already had some excitement on Wednesday, discovering that our bus forms (which I had submitted the proper two weeks in advance) had arrived with the assistant superintendant's signature back to our secretary only that day, and having to beg RR to drive me over to the bus bard to turn them in to the proper person. So it was with some chagrin that I discovered yeaterday morning that both the busses scheduled to arrive at Elsik at 6:30 am - ours and the girls' track team's - were late. Theirs arrived at 6:50, and by asking their driver, I found that our driver had broken her foot. The bus barn was hunting up a replacement driver. The track coach very kindly gave me the number to the barn before they left. Fifteen minutes later, I called over (on a cell phone borrowed from our club's president) and was told that it had just left. It arrived at the school at 7:15 on the dot.
Now, the tournament was Clear Brook High's first math tournament ever. Clear Brook is in Friendswood. And school buses can't go over 55 mph. The first event - Number Sense - started at 8:00 am. And our substitute driver had only a single $50 bill to pay the tolls on the beltway.
I and our three Number Sense competitors vaulted off the bus as soon as we entered the parking lot, and ran in to get registered and distribute tickets. Fortunately, they were (this being their first tournament ever) running a little late, so my kids got to compete this time. We got settled in and distributed tickets, and a few people went to exchange the tickets from our no-shows to something they wanted to take.
Then we settled in to wait. I ended up playing Charades (movie titles only) with three of my students.
After a fairly uneventful morning, we headed to Baybrook Mall and its food court for lunch. I ate stuff that was bad for me, shocked a "personal beauty consultant" who was ambusing passers-by with my nub-bitten nails, and headed back to our rendezvous point, when I looked at the floor and almost stumbled over an ammonite fossil as wide as my hand.
I'm sure it was an ammonite - the spiral was tighter than a nautilus's; the chambers were divided, so it wasn't a snail; and the divisions between chanbers was corrugated instead of a smooth curve.
I looked around and discovered at least three other whole or partial ammonites in the floor slabs immediately arround me. I found them (along with a few fossils for more conventional shelled things) all the way back to our entrance. Treading on my dead spiritual ancestors . . .
Back at Clear Brook for the wards ceremony, our president swept the three social sciences tests (our treasurer: "You've demonstrated for the first time that there really is an I in Team!") and we picked up one other trophy and about eight ribbons. Not bad for this batch.
On the way out, the sponsor from Clements asked if she'd see me at UIL. Boy, will she. I'm going to have to grab her and scream "I don't know what I'm doing!" a couple of times, I suspect. Which reminds me, I need to talk to my third competitor and make sure he still wants to do it.
Now I just need to finish grading the last of my overdue tests in time for yet another batch to come in. And finish all my grading in time for the end of the nine weeks on Friday.
