Woodstock has a new dance floor. And gym.

Yesterday, we had our gym dedication.  The old gym was knocked down 11 years ago and the new gym went through permit hell (purgatory maybe?) before being built.  Eleven years of basketball up at dorms and gym teachers screaming at teams outside of classrooms in session.

But no more!  Woodstock now has a gym FAR better than any I've ever seen in a school.  In addition to the standard brown wood on the floor and blue pads on the wall, we have the following:

A gymnastics room

A climbing wall

A squash court

A proper weight room (the treadmills have tvs on them)

REALLY nice scoreboards

Basically, it's an awesome gym.  If I were a PE teacher, I would feel like I could never live up to the standards of the gym.  Let's hope they don't build an RE complex.

In addition to the speeches given by some of the donors and family members of the guy the gym is named after, we had a special dinner and dance.  After filling up on chicken burgers, dosa and hot cocoa, we went up to the gym to enjoy a REAL DJ (not a grade 12 student with an ipod and a tick in his/her thumb, changing the song every 25 seconds).  They also had brought in a guy to do some laser thing.  We were told he did lasers for both Michael Jackson and Elton John.  How can I get to be a big laser guy?

The dance was fun.  I like to limit my dancing to a few times a year, or else it gets old.  It was a great time, watching groups of grade six students flailing wildly, younger staff getting down, awkward sophomore boys jumping and cheering for each other, and older staff couples dancing with each other.  A few of the junior boys took to creating coreography with each other, a few shy middle school students ran off to avoid embarrassment, and a few teachers sought out embarrassment by showing off moves to the students.

I am proud to say that I outlasted most other staff and quite a few students.  By the time the music ended, I was exhausted.  The day began at 7 am with Friday morning Bible study, I taught five classes in the day, ushered my advisory to the gym, sat through speeches, stuffed myself with free food, and danced for three hours.  I got home at 10:50.  Despite all the busyness, it was a great time.  I hope we can open some new building like this every semester.

Hodgepodge

I know, it's been a bit.  The past few weeks have been full and exhausting, which is not necessarily a bad combination.  Last weekend was the RE retreat, which needs a better name.  It's the high school voluntary Christian retreat, which I helped lead a bit.  The theme was "no fear" and we looked at faith, hope and love as the opposites of fear.  I teamed up with another adult to talk about faith.  My main part was to reason out with the kids what we have faith in and why.  The second part was looking at the Christmas story and the crucifixion to see when Mary's faith was tested.  That weekend, we also went on a short short hike to Flag Hill, a hill closeby where lots of local Buddhists hang their prayer flags. 

Maybe the most interesting part of the weekend was what happened after lights out.  The RE retreat has a bit of notoriety for being a weekend with less supervision for couples.  I've heard stories... As everyone was settling down, I noticed a few guys and girls desperately trying to talk and whisper with each other before bed.  When I stopped this, they got clever.  A few girls came over to the guys' side to "get water," one guy gave me a hug and mouthed things over my shoulder as I tried to push him away, and finally, things were yelled in Korean for another student to pass the message on.  Unable to see any other resolution, I grabbed a blanket and posted myself on the floor outside of the guys' room until about 2AM.  They felt guilty, as they should have, but I don't THINK anything happened.  I told the guys that I can stay up later and wake up earlier than they can.  Probably not the truth, but intimidation is important on Christian retreats...

Another thing I've been working on is the student talent show.  I did this last year, so I'm trying to impart my meager wisdom on the students in charge.  My main role is auditions, being the moral monitor and making sure we don't have a bloated show.  It's going alright- we had a few good acts, and no horrible acts so far.

Hopefully my life can slow down a bit over the next couple weeks.  I'm almost caught up on grading, auditions are almost over, and I don't think I have any big events coming up.  I might even get a whole weekend to relax!  I don't think I've had one so far this year.

Ciao.