A Tropical Island & Other Adventures

​I was lucky enough to chaperone the 9th grade trip to the island paradise of Saboga in the Gulf of Panama.  Just 57 ninth graders and me. 

OK, so there were a few other chaperones there as well.

We took an early morning superfast ferry, watching the Panama City skyline fade off in the distance.

ISP’s freshman trip consists of students roughing it by camping and then learning to sail and windsurf.  I participated as needed, but really just hung out and supervised, all while you were slaving away at a real job.

After setting up camp, we walked along the jagged coast to the sailing beach.

Los estudiantes starting out on their sailing studies.

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Eventually it was time for me to give it a try.  

"windsurfing"

Next I went out on a sailboat with some fellow chaperones and decided to try "the trapeze," which is when you hang way off the side of the boat to make it go faster, as long as you don't *almost" capsize your colleagues. ​

Eventually I actually got something right and successfully "tacked" whilst sailing my own one-person sailboat.  ("Tacking" means turning, ya landlubber.  You have to squat down so the boom doesn't hit you.  It's weird.)  

After a hard day of learning, we ate dinner on the beach and continued to enjoy the view. 

That's my red tent on the left. On the right is my own little cove. The Earth isn't weirdly curved, it's just the fish-eye perspective.

My early morning view.

Day two was more of the same, interrupted by some mediocre snorkeling. On the morning of the third day I was tackled by a few of my students...during a beach football game before the  ferry home.

​The timing was a bit funny, because while our school was whisking me away to a tropical island, they were also whisking Sarah away to Buenos Aires for a coaching workshop. As I’ve said before, we lead a tough life. In this specific case the toughness was finding someone to stay with our children and drive them to and from school. Thanks Eduardo and Luis Carlos!

One of the many pictures LC and Eduardo sent us to prove our kids were eating vegetables and exercising.

And what did Sarah think of Buenos Aires?  She sent me pictures like this threatening to stay there forever.

The following week, ISP celebrated the written word during Literature to Life week...

The Big O made his own pen cap hat to dress up like a "frindle" and I read tongue twisters to his class. And this is what smiling means in pictures this week.

Sarah dressed up like Jomny the Aliebn, and no one knew what was going on. (https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-27/how-speak-aliebn-no-thats-not-typo)

... and celebrated family fun at the aptly named Family Fun Fair.

Family fun = sibling bashing

For pi day (and Einstein's birthday, dontcha know) ​I hosted the school's first lunchtime Mathematics Pub Quiz!  It was a total success!  And by that I mean that no food was thrown at the host.

​And we topped it all off with a night out at Eduardo's mandatory wig karaoke birthday party.

This is what I get for asking Sarah to buy me a wig. "We can use it for so many other events!" she says...

Sarah embraced the Little Mermaid wig and performed "Part of Your World," complete with a fork prop. We also sang a mean duet version of Prince's Kiss.

Oh yeah, I also accompanied The Eldest as we bicycled across the continent from one ocean to another in a single day.*  But that's worth its own blog post.

Unrelated to the post. I just thought you should see this.

* technically correct, surprisingly.