R.L Stine, Adventure Woods, and Morning Beers

Exchange City is a great way to offer fifth grade students the opportunity to perform duties found in common careers - policemen, firemen, businessmen, restaurant owners, etc. Essentially, EC creates a mini city for one day for a particular group of students. When I had the distinguished opportunity to attend this magical city for a day back in 1994, I was chosen as the Post Office Treasurer; probably the most boring of all the jobs offered at EC. In fact, I was so embarrassed by this job that when other fellow Exchange Citians asked me what my job was I told them, without hesitation, "Have you read the new Goosebumps book? R.L. Stine is one of the greatest authors of our time. Am I right?" The usual response that followed was a "huh", which gave me plenty of time to get back to the Post Office where I was safe from ridicule.

Once I got into high school the pressure was turned up a bit when we attended Adventure Woods. I'm sure many of you have attended this place where not only your team work and leadership abilities were put to the test, but more importantly your physical abilities were exposed as being inadequate and somewhat humorous. If you like to fall backwards with your eyes closed, climb a wall without a rope, or try to fit 14 sweaty people on top of a small 2x2x2 foot square then I'm guessing you'll enjoy Adventure Woods.

With these two wonderful experiences in mind, my expectations going into Friday's field trip at Santa Maria were scattered across the board. I was thinking of my old field trips at Exchange City and Adventure Woods, but I was also intrigued by the opportunity of experiencing a school sponsored trip in a foreign country. I've heard stories about service trips to exotic jungle towns and even a week service project at Machu Picchu, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.
Once I got word of the place - the beach - then all I had left to figure out was the agenda. We would be taking the whole freshmen class on this trip (about 100 students), along with 8 teachers including myself. I was trying to imagine team-building activities on the beach, or even individual spiritual development in the presence of the vast oceanfront.

So, Friday morning comes and I confirm that I have the two most important items for the beach - my SPF 1,000 sun screen and my Dora the Explorer beach towell. All the freshmen line up in front of school around 8am patiently awaiting the arrival of the 4 buses that will transport us to our destination. The buses arrive, we drive to the beach which is about an hour away, and finally get to our destination to start the day.

Half of the students immediately run to the ocean and start body boarding. The other half make themselves comfortable next to the pool, which is next to the bar, which is where I find all of my fellow professors already settled in for the day. I walk over to the other teachers and say in my best Spanish, "Well, what now?" They tell me to, "...sit down, relax, have a cold one, and enjoy the benefits of a Santa Maria field trip."

My first thought is, cold one? Really? It's 9am in the morning people. Does working at Santa Maria bring your spirits down so much that the only thing that will help is, well, spirits? I give them a polite, "Gracias, pero, no gracias." and continue to veg-out on the beach until 11:30. 11:30 is special because its the only scheduled event of the day - the teachers versus students water polo game. Talk about mismatch. I felt like Michael Scott on The Office getting his sales team fired up to play the warehouse guys at the DunderMifflin basketball game. We lost before we even stepped foot into the pool, but it was a good chance for my skin to feel the rath of the sun so I guess there was some kind of benefit.

As the day came to an end, and the student's comments about my ever-changing skin color were increasing, I felt like I had successfully experienced my first field trip as a teacher. We loaded everyone on the buses around 4pm and headed home.

If I think about my experiences with Exchange City, Adventure Woods, and now the Peru Beach Excursion I can think of many similarities and differences. I couldn't begin to rank them though, that might be asking too much. Each destination offers its own learning experiences and memorable moments, even if some of those experiences are at the expense of my own ego. Every opportunity is a chance to learn something new, so no matter what opportunity I am presented with next, I will try to represent all Post Office Treasurers to the best of my ability.

I miss you. You know who you are.

-BJM