Today the entire 5th grade class went to the Virginia Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach. It was quite the eventful day and I thought I’d share it all with you.
I spent my day with 4 kids. Read their names and brief descriptions below:
Kevin-All-American, blue-eyed boy with a charming smile and a “killer fastball.” Pretty much guaranteed entry into any fraternity once he enters college on a full athletic scholarship. Very smart and sweet, but, more often than not, a pain in the ass.
Amanda-Very sweet but insecure young lady who wants to please all adults, and to talk about umcomfortable things with them.
Taylor-As ghetto-fabulous as they come and insists on wearing her down-jacket with the fur-lined hood at all times, but just with the hood hanging off of her head.
George-our favorite Egyptian friend who has recently added the phrases, “Come on, man” and “Dude, for real,” to his vocabulary.
The rest of my students were passed along to my chaperones, who I must say were WONDERFUL today. I chose each of these kids to be in my group each for their own special reason. Kevin, because he lacks any shred of self-control. Amanda, because she has very little to say to children her own age and tends to have mental breakdowns when she can’t communicate with them. Taylor, because she would just boss around anyone in her group, including (or, perhaps, especially) the chaperone. George, because I am one of the few adults who can actually understand what he says. It proved to be an interesting and, eventually, heartwarming day.
We started off in the Bay and Ocean Pavilion where you get to see hissing cockroaches and hermit crabs. While we were at the hermit crab touch tank, anytime Amanda saw two hermit crabs anywhere near each other, she would ask in an exceptionally loud voice, “Are the mating?” or “Where are their genitals?” I obviously could not chide her for those questions because she used the appropriate terminology, but I myself am not mature enough the answer those questions, so I just shoved her over to one of the volunteers and allowed them to stutter over the explanation.
After Amanda learned all about hermit crab reproduction, we made our way over to the sting ray tank where you can actually stroke sting rays when they flap to the surface. Most of the kids were scared, but the sting rays seemed to really like being pet, and they would kind of bump the kids hands and snuggle with them. When George’s hand skimmed over the back of one ray he yelled, “Feels like baloney!!!!!!!” I almost died from the cuteness and hilarity of this statement.
After our hands-on encounter with nature, we decided to go outside and walk around on the 1/2 mile trail they had. Here Kevin decided to become a jerk-demon from hell. He would either be running off somewhere, or lying on a bench, refusing to move. After threatening him with an office referral that would be waiting on the principal’s desk on Monday, he eventually straightened up. However, he decided he would “pay me back” by climbing all over any display he could find once we were back in the building. And he really got me. Having him make that phone call to his father, explaining for himself how he was acting really stuck it to me.
Lunch seemed to rid Kevin off the demon-possession and any general crabbiness in the group. After eating we went back to look more closely at the animals we hadn’t seen. Much to our excitement, we found the sea turtle tank. It’s tucked away in this dark hallway with the aquarium taking up an entire wall. We all just sat down right in front of the tank as the turtles came up to us, bumping their noses on the glass. I looked over at one point and saw that George was laying on his back, looking up at the tank. Soon the rest of our group was doing the same thing, just staring at these huge creatures, with their prehistoric feet and smooth bellies. I have never heard a more silent group of children in my life. It was definitely one of those moments that I will never forget. At first I was bummed that I didn’t get a picture of all of them spread out on the floor like that, but a photo really wouldn’t have done it justice anyway.
After a quick IMAX movie about Sharks that was pretty boring, it was time to go home. Our trip down to the museum only took 1 hour and 45 minutes. However, the other driver (not the driver on my bus, thank you very much) was the leader for the route home and she chose to take some ass-backwards way that ended up taking 4 hours. Taylor was ordered to be silent about 30 minutes into the ride because she is physically unable to speak at a volume less than, like, 300 decibels. We watched “Finding Nemo” for the first hour and a half, thinking that would cover us for the majority of the trip. But no. The kids got so riled up and crabby that for the last 2 hours of the ride we turned off the lights and they were all ordered to go to sleep. They fought it at first, but soon all you could hear on the bus was the sound of 5th graders in a chorus of snores. Oh, and one chaperone’s phone ringing every 10 minutes, followed by the following conversation:
Her: Hullo?!??
Other person: mmpmpjhpjpjpjjjppmm
Her: What?!?!?!?
Other person: msdlfkjsdjjjfjsji!!!
Her: Why don’t you speak up?!?!?!?
Other person: MMFMDKSJHDKJHKJH!
Her: Ok then, bye.
We arrived back at school at 7:15- 2 hours and 15 minutes late, carrying two busloads of hungry children and greeted by 80 angry/worried/annoying parents. Not the best way to start the weekend. But hey, at least I got to gaze at turtle bellies for a while.
