What an amazing night.  International Night is Place Bridge Academy at it's finest.  This is a night when our students and families can come to school at night and share their culture.  Working at my school has made me realize that I have taken so much for granted.

The students and their families are so excited, proud, and happy to share...

My 3rd period elective class has been disrupted today due to CMAS testing.  7th and 8th graders have a modified schedule, so they don't go to their 3rd period classes. They go to their 1st period classes instead.  On the other hand, 6th graders have a regular schedule so they do go to 3rd period.  This means I have 3 sixth graders in my 3rd period and none of the other students showed up.  Actually, this is ok.  I will not introduce any new material in todays class.

Last year I wrote about the trouble we had with our toilets backing up.  Several times all of our toilets backed up at the same time and consequently flooded the floor in our basement. This event caused much stress in our lives.  I wound up pulling toilets and calling a plumber to snake our line when I couldn't find the blockage.  Well,after this happened a couple of times, I learned that the blockage was happening right inside the septic tank where every thing enters.  There is a "T" that just decides to block and when that happens, everything blocks up.  Every flush, every, drain of the wash, every sink, fills up the sewer line and it has no where to go except up through the floor drain in the basement. 
Anyway, this happened again last night.  Someone had to go to the potty and someone said, "That one's clogged!"  Then I hear, "That ones clogged, too!"  My wife looked at me and reminded me that last time both potties were clogged mayhem ensued.  I immediately ran out to the septic tank and grabbed a long metal pipe.  After I got the lid off, I was able to unclog the pipe and watch all that water and "stuff" come flowing into the tank.  But not until the basement floor flooded.  I had to clean that up and do some laundry.
On the bright side, if there is a bright side, I didn't have to pull the toilet and I didn't have to call a plumber to fix this fresh heck.
Such is life.

Back in the 70's, for the 3rd grade through the 7th grade I lived in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.  We lived in a place called "The Widow's Colony."  It was some sort of subsidized housing for women who had children and were widowed or divorced .  One of my favorite places was the library.  I can remember walking up the steps to go in and I remember the smell of the books.  My mom would take me and my sister to the library and I would go to the science section.  I loved to read about astronomy.  My first dream was to become an astronomer!  Here is the Page Memorial Library, I guess it is a museum now:

Inside that top window to the right was the science section.  I loved to check out books on the planets and memorize data about them.  Of course home computers  didn't really exist back then or I would have created a data base for them.  I  loved this place.  Visit these links to read more. http://www.tulsalibrary.org/charlespage/history.php
http://sandspringsok.org/category.php?cat=1004
They mention that (+)Laura Mae Barnes was the librarian there.  I didn't know that until just now.  She was close friends with my grandparents and I saw her fairly  often when I was young.  I wonder why I didn't know she was the librarian at one  my favorite places in the world?  I feel even better about the place now!