MSVB is Done!

Boy, it's been awhile since I blogged! I honestly thought I'd be a bit more consistent, but...

Monday was our last msvb game. We played North Crawford, who had beat us twice already this year. The 6th and 7th grade team did awesome! They played so well -- serving was good, they hustled after everything, and even had a few spikes! And they won! Hooray for them!

Here's the 6th and 7th grade team photo

The 7th & 8th grade team won one of the three games, but couldn't come back in the end. It was still a good season for them. I have six pretty talented 8th graders that I will miss next year (I won't miss all their attitudes, but for the most part, they're pretty good).

Here's the 7th & 8th grade team

Both teams had a really good season. All that's left is the end of the year party, and apparently this year, that means roller skating. I will not be participating. I will be sitting on the sidelines eating pizza. :)

A long week

Last week was long. The week before ended on a great note, with my class winning Homecoming activities for the second year! U-rah-rah E-le-ven! Oh Good Lord, doesn't that sound strange? Anyway, it was awfully exciting, even though I paid for all the cheering by losing my voice, mostly, for the whole weekend. And even into Tuesday, if I talked too much during the day it was raspy by about 2:00. Seems like the kids didn't mind...

Monday I had a volleyball game, Tuesday I worked at the high school game, Wednesday I had a field trip (see paragraph below), Thursday I had a conference and a volleyball game, Friday I had practice after school, and then yesterday I had a vb tournament. Today, my Bears have a bye, so I am at loose ends.

My field trip on Wednesday is one that we usually take, but sometimes have to skip. It is for my juniors for Youth Government Day, and involves a trip to the courthouse in Viroqua to watch court proceedings. I really like the field trip -- it's sponsored by the American Legion, our judge is intimidating but fair, the Legion provides lunch (usually Pizza Hut), we go to DQ for treats before going back to school, ...and I think it gives kids a good perspective on what it would be like to have to go to court. Sometimes we don't go, however, if any of the kids are related to anyone actually appearing in court that day. Even though 25% of the junior class has actually appeared before the judge this year, for one thing or another (isn't that a spectacular statistic?), no one we really knew was on the docket, so we went!

And things went smoothly, until it was time for a 20-minute recess. While I didn't specifically tell the kids not to leave, it was sort of implied. However, apparently a few kids went outside. In and of itself, not horrible -- except that when I went to look for two of them (no the best behaved girls on any given day), they were coming back inside, and reeked of smoke and perfume. Grr was I angry! I chewed them out for a bit, but didn't actually find any cigarettes. They had to stay by me the rest of the day, though, and did not get to go into DQ for a treat. It was there that I found out why they didn't have any smokes on them -- they had taken butts out of the ashtray outside the courthouse and smoked those!!!!! EWWWWWW!!!! GROSS!!!!! I was way more disgusted by that than by any actual smoking... So, it was a fantastic field trip. :)

On a brighter note, my 8th grade team (+2 7th graders) took 3rd place yesterday at North Crawford out of 6 teams. Only three games left!

Cemetery Tour

Yesterday I had my field trip to Forest Lawn Cemetery in Madison. It is my favorite field trip! It is sponsored by the WI Veterans Museum, and features stories about the Civil War. They hire a playwright who creates monologues based on people buried in the cemetery who were active during the war. They also hire actors to present the monologues. This year was excellent -- the stories were interesting and held the kids attention, and the actors were simply fantastic. It was a beautiful fall day, the kids behaved, we learned a few things, and then, of course, went to the mall. :) If only all field trips could be so awesome...

John Coleridge Pradt and Col. Stephen Vaughn Shipman

Pradt was a survivor of a surprise attack by Quantrill's Raiders. He was one of only 9 survivors. Shipman was wounded three times in combat, then returned to WI to become an architect. He designed the rotunda for the capitol building.

John Wayles Jefferson
Jefferson was a leader in WI's 8th Infantry. He was wounded twice in combat, and after the war, became a prominent businessman in Madison and Memphis, TN. He passed as white all his life, although he was the grandson of Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemmings.

Cpl. George Washington Spears
Spears was a Confederate soldier who was captured, along with his brothers, at Island 10 in the Mississippi and brought to the POW camp at Camp Randall, WI. He was killed in a dispute with a guard and buried in the Confederate rest at the cemetery. It is the most northern cemetery for Confederate soldiers.