Children of the Corn Maze

Last week, the third graders went on a field trip to a Washington state corn maze.  Due to a shortage of chaperones, I volunteered to go along to help out.

That is, the corn field was in the shape of Washington state and they had carved paths through it like the major roadways of the state.

The kids were divided into groups of four or five with a couple of adults in each group, and they were given maps with cities marked on them that had to be located with questions to be answered.  Each group were supposed to find six cities on the map following the marked roads.  Technically, the kids were supposed to do it on their own and the parents were supposed to just follow behind, but I had the most directionally challenged group of kids, so I ended up having to direct them for the last three cities.  As it was, we got to the end about 15 minutes after everyone else.

We traveled up and down I-5 and across Hwy 20 visiting small cities like Forks, Montesano, and Pullman--

Larger cities like...

Olympia

Seattle

and Walla Walla,

and saw such landmarks as...

the Tacoma Narrows bridge

and Stonehenge...or rather Cornhenge.  

At each "city" there was a description of some of the history of the towns and the importance of these landmarks.  Funny enough, they didn't even mention vampires at Forks.

This weekend was the Midhaven Ithra.  Ithra XX is now in the books.  Yep. 20 sessions.  It sounds like a lot when you put it like that.

This session was one of the easiest ones ever--things really flowed smoothly and fell into place.  Of the negatives, we had a room that we had reserved that had been recently painted and smelled strongly of paint fumes; it caused headaches within minutes and became unusable.  We also had two other groups come in and say they "use the space every week", but apparently the reservations person hadn't notified them that we would be there.  One was a dance group that said that if they knew we had the place reserved, they would have cancelled for this week.  But they were already there so we made space for them.  But then another group came in and was much more belligerent but decided to open up the computer room for their meeting.  Personally, I think we need to get a refund for having to give up part of the space when it wasn't part of the agreement.  We'll have to be much more specific on our contract next time.

Otherwise, we had more than 45 very happy students, and we might have had more if there wasn't an event where some fighter was getting elevated or put on vigil or something.  I don't follow these things.  Duke Paul of Bellatrix moved up from West Kingdom recently and made a special appearance at our session to teach with Duke Thorin.  We ended up getting four new students at the last minute because of that.  I opened up late registration for those two classes, although we did have a couple more people show up to take the dance classes.

I was able to take a couple classes as well as teach a couple classes.  One of the classes was awkward; the instructor seemed nice enough...especially to the Peers in the room, but seemed to talk down to me as an untitled nobody...or at least that's how it felt.  Maybe I was misinterpreting it, but there it is.

So I took a haversack class where I began this satchel.  This has only one piece sewn down--I've adjusted some of the details before appliqueing it down.  I still have to sew the body of the sack, and I think I'm going to line it also.  The wool itself doesn't seem stout enough for a sack.

I also took a Judging & Being Judged class that was quite good.  We had some interesting discussions and it seems that we have a series of classes on entering contests that will have to be taught again...perhaps this time for Ithra credit.  There were a series of classes taught last year on documentation, presentation and displays prior to the baronial A&S championship, and the instructor, who was there judging at that event, said that the caliber of entrants had been quite high--they were very well prepared and did an awesome job.  I think we need to do it again "on the record"!

I taught Cardweaving with Bekah again, which went pretty well, although we need to make a few small improvements.  I think we need to pre-cut the yarn, provide some sort of shuttles (I use a wooden ruler), and adjust the setting up of the looms.  I may have to re-engineer the looms, too.  Lots to think about and I still have to read the reviews from the students.  I entered the grades tonight (except for one dance class whose attendance sheet may have gotten misplaced into another file...I'll probably find it tomorrow when I finish unpacking).

The next thing I need to do is teach a class, or have someone else teach a class, on How To Teach an Ithra Class.  Rules, paperwork, procedures, as well as how to engage the class, pacing yourself, and addressing questions.  The big thing we've had problems with is the financial part of the classes.  Instructors are handing in receipts for $50 in photocopies, but they only charged $1 for the class.  If your handout is 30 pages long, it'll cost a lot more than a buck per student.  Other instructors are charging $6 per student and turning in no receipts.  WHY???  I don't get it.

The week begins anew in just a few hours.  Another busy week with Girl Scouts, quilt guild, and Cammie's birthday.  Here we go!!