7:30 PM - 42 degrees and dark when I started. Went to the track. Today was a very eventful day. My lessons went awesome. I didn't know what to expect, considering I had two activities planned, the first on Civil War Espionage and ciphering (aka coding), and then the second which was on Civil War Medicine (an intro to it). All five periods went really well today, despite the rushed 35 minute schedules! I really like the 8th graders and I am going to miss them when I switch to the next school at the end of the month. One of the highlights I had today was when a kid named Austin came in after lunch to borrow one of the cipher disks to work on his homework. He ended up writing his own coded message for me to decode, and I did decode it. It read, "Mr. Griffin Rocks". I told him thanks! and made him autograph it for me. I put it in my binder to save. It truly meant a lot to me.
My observation went really well. The coordinator from St. Rose, Hazel said all my lessons are really well done, and then she said, "you really make my job easy! You just... get it!" I was grinning ear to ear. After my observation, I grabbed lunch quick (selzter and pb&j on whole wheat with a banana), then helped some stragglers with the work from class since we didn't get to finish it. 8th period brought its own fun. We had the opportunity as a district (K-12) to hop on a "trail" around the school for 25 minutes and walk. It was truly something to see all 1200 students and faculty going outside and walking around the nature trails, track and school. I think we covered about 1.5 miles in all. I could really tell the kids loved it.
Highlights of the walk: Saw the eagle mascot (found out it was one of my 8th graders, KC Hersey who is like 6'3" and was a super good sport). Then saw Obama on the playground waving to us. Then the RiverRats (local hockey team) mascot who is a rat. Also coming up the hill at the end of the walk I see this old guy with a blonde wig and sunglasses on jamming out on a guitar. 100+ kids are gathered around him, and he's jamming out to Beatles Rock Band. The kiddos like groupees yelling, "One more song! One more song!" I get up close and the 8th graders I'm with go, "Hey, Mr. G? Isn't that your DAD?!". HAHAHA! It was truly amazing, and I wasn't too ashamed to say, "Yup! That is my good ol' dad!" He truly has the best job in the world as an elementary principal!
Tonight after doing a bunch of homework and unit plan stuff, I went to the track. I wasn't the only one there though surprisingly! The guy that drives the 18-wheeler showed up right about when I did. We ran in the same direction, me in outside lane 6, he on the inside lane 1. No race. Just jogging. Each time I passed him (about once per mile-mile and a half) we would talk a bit. I laughed when he said, "Phew! At least I'm not the only nut out here running in the dark!" I told him it makes me feel fast running in the dark. He laughed too. Never realized how obnoxious headlights were until they kept shining in our faces as people took second and third looks seeing two night runners running in circles. They must have thought we were lost and maybe seeing the light would save us. Haha. Splits tonight were good for a recovery run:
- Mile 1: 9:02
- Mile 2: 8:59
- Mile 3: 8:55
- Mile 4: 8:38
- Mile 5: 8:23
- Mile 6: 8:55
Total Time: 52:56 Total Distance: 6.00 miles Average Pace: 8:49 | 
