Tuesday, April 15th
Today was a half day for those of us attending the two-day workshop in Baltimore. The group consisted of me, Down the Hall (other 3rd grade teacher), BK (Biligual Kindergarten teacher), and our principal. After last minute classroom prep for the sub (or subs), the Baltimore group was out of the building about 1PM. We took the Amtrak to Baltimore, arriving about 5PM. We stayed at a very nice waterfront hotel. My Principal and I registered minutes before the registration closed down. The other two took a while to get settled and arrived too late. Not a big deal since the workshops don't start until tomorrow. After settling in, the group met up about 2 hours later for dinner at the hotel restaurant. For dinner, I had a $31 crabcake dinner.


Wednesday, April 16th
The only minor incident was me burning my white shirt with the hotel iron. Breakfast was at 8AM. The workshops began at 9AM. All day workshops on the philosophy and implementation of the literacy program. Our group ventured out of the hotel to have dinner at a seafood restaurant. Maryland is known for its seafood (I was told). I had a samon meal with rice. I was the only one to order dessert. I had chocolate cake a la mode.

Thursday, April 17th
Day 2 of all day workshops. More of the same. Since DTH and I finished early (our last workshop was for early elementary and the trainer didn't seem to eager to have us their. Even me telling her that our principal signed us up to be there didn't help. She just kept saying that we would not get anything out of it. DTH was not with me yet. Since the woman was so insistant, I left. Down the Hall found another workshop about intergrating technology into the literacy program. Nice idea, but very poorly executed. It was basically a couple of teachers that knew something about technology and using whiteboards. They really did not (in my opinion), show a clear understanding of the programs that they were suppose to be championing. Since we finished early, DTH and I went to the Reginald Lewis Black History Museum. A very big place, but not a very impressive museum(in my opinion).

After visiting the museum, I went shopping for a new camera at Best Buys. While I was in Best Buy, DTH went shopping at Filene's Basement. See the attached photo of my new camera(about $249 in total with the extras). Next, DTH and I went to Barnes and Noble. I bought a differentiated instruction reading book. After B & N, DTH and I had brickoven Chicago pizza. After the pizza, DTH wanted to look around the shops in the shopping center planning to go home. I wanted to walk off the pizza, so I decided to try to find the hostel that I would be staying at for the extension of my vacation. I'm finally getting the hang of this hyper linking. It was about a 30 minute walk through a less than great area. It was a bit of like walking though a poor town's version of 1970's 42nd street peep shows, bars, etc... A guy was being arrested right in front of me. On my way back, I called DTH. She was still in the shopping center. I was going to meet up with her, but my phone ran out of minutes. When I returned to the hotel, I went online to order more minutes for my phone. While online (right after getting my phone back on), the principal called. Her niece stopped by, so the P. wanted to go out for dinner. Even though I was still full from the pizza, since the P. called, I said yes. DTH said she was full and too tired to go. She has more backbone than I do. Dinner was at a famous seafood restaurant minus DTH. I was still full from the pizza, so I just had soup.

I attached a couple of photos I took while in Baltimore. The first is a photo of the hotel we stayed at. The second photo is the view I had from my hotel room.

It is late, so I will have to finish at another time, so...

Too be continued...

Completion Date - Wednesday, April 23rd 2:51AM
Post Date - Tuesday, June 10, 2008 3:23AM