Also Known As the "What Was Up With the Cake Walk" Night

LM's school had a Science and Literacy Night this evening. Living in such close approximation to my sister, she felt an obligation to attend (or perhaps Bear just wanted to see what kind of a grade he LM, got on his marble cannon). Or maybe my sister just doesn't get out enough. Ahem. In either case, we went.

We were greeted at the door by students shoving handing us reuseable grocery bags. I thought for a moment that perhaps I had misjudged the event and it might be slightly more organized and interesting than I had imagined. Right.

We followed LM to his science room so he could drop of Bear's LM's marble cannon. The room had about 20 tri-fold first-grader sixth grader presentations on display, representing ten minutes' a month's worth of a science project for each student full of useful information grammatical horrors. On the projection screen were students mumbling giving book reports. (What the one had to do with the other, I never will know.)

LM's PowerPoint presentation was on display nowhere. We had to make room for his cannon display despite having told his teacher he would be bringing it for the evening.

We went back to the front of the building to actually attempt to go through the right procession of events for the evening, only to find there was no procession of events. They had skipped the Welcome part, dinner was being served for the next hour and there were various activities throughout the rather large building. Bear surveyed leftover school lunch dinner and suggested perhaps we think twice about eating there. The kids LM thought reheated monkey brains school spaghetti sounded delish. After a hike back to LM's locker to get the dinner tickets we didn't know were in the reuseable bags that we had shoved in his locker for the night, we jumped in line for our gruel dinner and sat down to eat without anyone ever asking us for the mandatory useless meal tickets.

While we ate, a small group of girls did some sort of stomping screaming thing rhythmic cheer thing on the stage (can someone tell me the correlation between that and Science or Literature?) We also heard the drums playing (not with the girls' performance) off in the hallway somewhere, but never did see them.

After dinner, we wandered around - not, in fact, to actually try the "interactive events for the whole family" namely Book Bingo and the Cake Walk, but to find LM's Science Teacher so we could ask some very pertinent questions about the Science Olympia this weekend that we've received NO details on to date. (Note it should be made clear that the Science Fair marble cannon and the Science Olympia trebuchet/catapult are not only not related, they are equally a pain in my butt.)

The highs of the evening would include showing LM that wintergreen Lifesavers really do spark in your mouth, and of course, the indulgent obligatory trip to DQ after a school event. The lows, while too numerous to name them all, included: A)LM's teacher telling us that the Science Olympia he's been preparing for since December is really only competitive at the ninth grade level, and while the sixth graders will take their projects, (LM's catapult) they are really nowhere good enough to actually compete in the event. B) Walking nearly ten miles back and forth between supposed "interactive activities" is always a fun way to spend a family evening together, lost in a middle school building. And certainly, 3) Talking again, with LM's math teacher and reminding him again, as I did the first time I met him, during the third week of school, that LM is ready to commit hara-kiri STILL bored in math and some truly challenging curriculum would be greatly appreciated.

I think, after this evening of learning, entertainment, chaos, ineptitude, my sister might listen to me choose to stay home the next time.



*Stacy, you're right! Strike-throughs are a sign of astute intellectual humor fun!