Happy, Happy! Joy, Joy! (Day 110)

I am very pleased to announce that I was able to get the problem with my phone fixed by a nice man from Verizon, who was able to direct me to the exact link to get my driver downloaded for my phone.  I spent about an hour doing what should have taken about 10 minutes, thanks to the oh-so-clear directions on the Verizon link.  Really, who writes these things anyway?  Is it really so hard to write clear directions? (Actually, it must be.  I spent a summer rewriting technical manuals for some companies that will go unnamed, and let me tell you, it was T-O-R-T-U-R-E.  Don't even get me started on that!)

ANYHOW, I was able to move ALL of my pictures onto my computer and put them into files, burn a disc to show my students, and put some in a file to share with you.  (Enter my happy dance!  Really, more like a chair dance, but excited/happy/delirious dancing all the same.  Honestly, I think my children thought I was having a fit!)

So where to begin?  How about the beginning?  If you've been following, you know I have been in communication with Scholastic Publishing Company because I was chosen as a Teacher Advisor.  (Check the 'Scholastic' tags to the right.)  Last week, I spent several fantastic days with the powers that be and the other 21 Advisors.  I have decided to post by what we did each day, mostly to save your eyes and my fingers. (That of course, means this week's posts regarding my class will probably be sort of mushed into combined posts.)

With that said, away-ee we go!

Thursday, February 24, 2011 was Day 110.  On this day, while my students were reading about ants and creating fact sheets, I was preparing for the plane ride to New York (via Newark Airport).  While they went through first recess, lunch, special, and social studies, I went through security at one airport, got on a plane, traveled, got off the plane, met one of the other advisors, and traveled into New York City.  We traveled to SoHo, where we checked in at the SOHO Grand Hotel.  The place was unbelievable. My room was on the 7th floor, diagonally across from the building where they hold the Tribeca Film Festival.  Here are some pics of the view from my window, from left to right.  (The window was so big, I had to take three pictures to get everything in.)

The intersection in the last picture is Broadway and Canal.  The hotel is very close to both Chinatown and Little Italy.

That evening, all of the advisors met together for dinner at a place called Puglia's.  The dinner was good.  They served us family style at the beginning of our visit: two types of salad, bread, and wine.  I don't drink, so I don't know how the wine was, but the salads and bread were very tasty!  Then the waiters took our orders.  I ordered the Eggplant Parmesan, which was good, but the sauce was a little thin for my taste.  (I like my sauce THICK!) After the entree, we were served coffee and dessert (again family style, on a huge platter).  Oh. My. Goodness.  I had a bite of the cheesecake and a cannoli.  They were de-licious! Oh, and did I mention we were treated to live entertainment during dinner?  Our meal was accompanied by a keyboardist and two singers who proceeded to belt out tune after tune of Italian favorites.  They even got us in on it!  It was loud, but it was fun!

After dinner we went back to the hotel to get ready for Day 111 (Friday).  That's when we would meet all of the folks from Scholastic and the other teachers who hadn't come to dinner with us.  I could hardly wait!

More tomorrow...