School is back in full swing. I have two new students in my class, both who are wonderful and sweet (and girls - as if I needed more girls!) and eager to learn. Days have gone pretty much normal, despite construction going on in the HS/MS, with the exception of an occasional power outage here and there.

UNTIL>>>>> today. Some of you might remember my rant about power outages and (ahem) not-so-intelligent-administration-decision-makers. Luckily when we lack power since then it has not been a long term status. It's been a bit shakey because of the construction equipment running all the time, moving and disconnecting things, and so on. Yesterday I kept trying to run around school to find some where to print the names of my new students and their photos for the "who's at school" wall, but the power went out for long enough that I had to give up. Today when it started to flicker on and off during the morning exploration centers, I didn't think much of it because it usually comes back. It finally kicked off during circle (9 AM) and never returned (which spurned a whole series of stories of ghosts in bed rooms by my students that all generally ended with a parent removing the ghost, kicking it out, or otherwise eliminating it from the premises).

Luckily, since some parents decided to have countless meetings with our director, a skylight had been installed in my room during the vacation and when we have no power we no longer are in a dark cave with no natural light. We did our group activities with this natural light, washed hands, had snack, and went out to the playground. At some point, the message was passed through that went the power came back, we were not to turn on anything that wasn't in use and only use ONE A/C, lest we knock out the circuit again (I later heard we had completely blown out the circuit on the street and there was no estimate when it would be fixed). We spent the rest of the day with out power, and eventually without water because the pumps won't work with out power, obviously. The no water thing is particularly difficult for those of us in the preschool, and worse for me who has no less than 6 students who go #2 at the same time every day (!!!).

Parents started showing up to get their kids around 11 and word was passed that we were to remind the parents to also take the older siblings home when the younger ones left, as there was no power to cook lunch or wash hands in sinks, or anything really. The classrooms were already sweltering (90+ and humid and many without opening windows), but after being on the playground for almost an hour, I had to take them back inside just to get them out of the sun. Eventually parents trickled in and got their children.

No power here also means no phones, so I later found out that calling all 459 parents had taken over 2 hours to complete with 6 cell phones across the administration office. Some parents were never reached or did not return phone calls or maybe just had no way to get their kids before they left work, and when I left at 2 PM there were still quite a few sitting around on the front steps, looking bored and hot, unfed, and I felt bad for them.