A Short Day at the RoundCircus

The co-teachers and I took about 120 students to the multi-ring circus that is the Roundhouse yesterday. The kids seemed to have a good time being engulfed into the madness, got introduced at the Senate floor session (along with about 947 FFA members, 23 Senate pages and shadows, and a 2nd grader dolled up in a fancy suit that everybody went "aaahhh" over), and got to pepper Senate Judiciary Chair Cisco McSorley for about 45 minutes on how the medical marijuana is going get to those who need it and where does he get off telling middle schoolers how to eat.

And, as far as I know, no students died, and we didn't leave anybody up there to be pigeonholed by lobbyists in Winnie-the-Pooh ties and multiple cellphones about why kids need to support the Spaceport. That being the case, you gotta call it a successful "field trip".

Along the way we also:

• Saw Bernalillo County Commissioner Alan Armijo crossing the street, okay actually jaywalking, but this is New Mexico (so no scoop there).
• Heard now-famous Senator John Grubesic make self-deprecating remarks on the Senate floor about chances for his Capital Outlay projects now that his mini-memoir came out in the New Mexican about how the whole Big Bill boot-licking process works. The guy has a sense or humor even if he doesn't have a chance in hell.
  
• Saw Big Bill himself at a noontime ceremony behind some Mexica dancers strutting their stuff while Bill appeared rather upset to be missing lunch.
  
• Saw first hand that despite our relative urbanity in ABQ and SF, there are just a whole lot of hicks in this State and many of them are running it. The endless "introductions" section of the Senate floor session included multiple good 'ole boys talking Texan about this, that and the t'other. I noticed that my "inner city" ABQ students were not really getting the plentiful jokes from the rural Senators. I don't think they were missing anything.
  

There's more, but it's now time to celebrate my teaching profession by attending a stupefyingly boring "in-service" about this, that and the t'other. Good thing we teachers have field trips like the one yesterday to get through the soul crushing mega-ennui of "teacher training". Meanwhile, in the real world it's a Friday...have a good one, whether you're standing outside Intel protesting the traffic jam that is the new, improved President "screw the Middle East, the U.S. is addicted to oil" Bush, or doodling alongside me during hour five of "curricular mapping".