This week I gave BER seminars in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island and, as always, learned and observed some fascinating things.
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS New Englanders are so much more subtle about decorating for the holidays than we crass mid-westerners! In an entire week I only saw ONE inflatable Santa---though it, like most here, was deflated. Many homes simply have a single lit candle in each window and that's really quite beautiful. If there are outdoor lights, they are elegant---a single strand of white lights. It reminded me of my childhood. "Way back then" almost no one hung lights outside and we would go "to see the lights" in the rare neighborhood where people did a lot of exterior lighting. (I was still glad to get home and see all the really pretty and extensive lights all over our neighborhood!)
RHODE ISLAND On my quest to set foot in all 50 states, Rhode Island has been an enigma. I have driven through the state three times...but had never actually set foot on it. Although this seminar was billed as being in Providence, it really took place in Seakonk, MA. and I thought that once again, my feet would not have the Rhode Island experience. I was saved, however, because my program manager, Hillary, collects college t-shirts and wanted to buy one at Brown and we drove into Providence...so here's proof of my official Rhode Island venture!
The hotel we stay in in Rhode Island is affiliated with a prominent school of hospitality and is staffed by students. It is an elegant old building that some people say is haunted. I didn't see any ghosts, but felt haunted in a couple of ways. My room was on the second floor...and there's no elevator to the second floor. Great fun dragging two suitcases, a computer bag and purse up the elegant center stairway :-). The seminar room was chilly, got colder as the morning wore on, and I saw participants putting on their coats. Hillary twice was assured that they had turned up the heat, but finally was told "they" were going to go on the roof to fix something. Unfortunately, "going on the roof" meant that, in addition to shivering, we were treated to loud banging and drilling noises. What a great way to keep people interested in the seminar! A threat by Hillary to go up on the roof herself got the workers to stop the noise making and somehow they fixed the problem during lunch and the afternoon was toasty. The participants were most gracious about this whole mess. Kudos to them!
The restaurant at this hotel, however, is first class and my meal was so beautiful that I actually took a picture of it! Shrimp stuffed with crab and encased in philo dough. Note the placement of the shrimp tails!
We certainly don't eat this elegantly most days on the road!
MAINE is one of my favorite states and I was disappointed to once again be in an ordinary Holiday Inn on the west side of town away from the ocean. Hillary once again saved the day, taking an hour after the seminar to go to this beautiful sight in Port Elizabeth.
BOSTON We stayed in Waltham which is northwest of the city, so I didn't get downtown at all. We did, however, get in a huge back-up on the interstate as we drove into town from New Hampshire. The GPA gave us an alternate route on side streets which was interesting, but unbelievably slow and congested as hundreds of other people were also taking the alternate route. I love Boston, but I'm not sure I could deal with the rush hours on their narrow old highways!
PEOPLE are always interesting. At two seminars there was a person who came to my same seminar for the second time! That was really exciting to me. The person in Rhode Island was particularly fun as she excitedly told me, "Oh, I did X activity with X grade and they loved it, we did Y activity over and over again and it was terrific...." A really nice feeling for me! Of course, that joy was tempered by a few folk who wrote really nice complimentary paragraphs on their evaluation forms...and then circled 5's on the 1-7 evaluation scale! One guy in Rhode Island engaged me in a long conversation about all the Chicago sports teams and I managed to fake a knowledgeable response to his statements. When he started to talk about the Bears winning the Super Bowl back in the 90's I mentioned that I taught Jim McMahon's kids. He was just blown away by this and wanted to know every detail about those kids! Pretty funny.
ILLNESS On Tuesday night I felt something weird in my throat and by Wednesday afternoon, my throat really hurt and my voice was about gone. That was the experience I have been dreading since I began this BER gig. Fortunately, Thursday I was coughing and congested, but did have enough voice to do the seminar...albeit in a croaking way. Fortunately, Thursday night I returned home after infecting who knows how many people on the airplane!
That Hillary is quite the treasure! Sounds like a rewarding trip.
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