Pearls of Wisdom

I've spent the past two days at a teaching conference. I'm trying to keep up my certification, which is both an easier and more difficult process than I thought. Anyway, I thought I would share some things I learned with everyone.

1. I learned how to do free motion quilting on the machine. That was cool.

2. Carpooling is expensive when the person figuring the total everyone is to pay decides that we will reimburse for a full tank of gas in a GMC Envoy, doesn't include the driver as one who pays any gas, and doesn't take into account that two round trips from Lehi to Kayesville doesn't take up a full tank of gas in a GMC Envoy.

3. The opening and closing meetings will never be interesting. Ever. They can't be when they say the same things every six months.

4. When Pearl (our rep at the state office of education) threatens to take away our breakfast (as she did last year) because we are late to the boring opening meeting, she means it.

5. Pearl will not admit that's why breakfast was taken away. She will say that most everyone gets a continental breakfast at their hotel (most attendees don't stay in a hotel and the ones who do don't usually stay in one the night before the conference begins) and say the money was used to purchase snacks for us, so we should be excited. She won't remind us that we have always had snacks and that the ones we got this year are cheaper than the stuff we've had in previous years. She also won't mention that we get breakfast the morning when there isn't a boring meeting to go to and that we don't have any snacks that day, either.

6. I enjoy classes that have nothing to do with teaching. Like basketweaving and binding quilt edges.

7. Next time there is a conference and I'm seven months pregnant, I'm going to skip it.

8. A lot of teachers in my field are divorced. A LOT. That's one of the reasons I got out of teaching. I like my husband better than I liked my students.

9. When the word "free" is uttered, teachers in my field lose all sense of reason and stampede like a herd of mad cattle.

10. Conference actually has great classes, it's just hard for a pregnant woman to sit through them when she is sitting in a high school desk and feels like her oxygen supply is being cut off by an ever-expanding uterus. At least I still fit. Barely.

Really, the conference wasn't as bad as I make it sound. It just is a long time for me to sit on hard plastic. Did I whine enough for you yet?