waiting ......

Three days of classes, a teacher workday, and then only 11 days to Ireland! Hopefully we will get our passports without having to travel to a passport agency. We applied in mid-March--but the news is full of reports that it is taking longer than expected. Tomorrow will be 10 weeks--and we start the phone calls.
Other than stress on waiting for passports, we are just about ready. the Dublin Writer's Festival has finally posted the program online so we have a good idea of what we want to go and see and hear, but our trip itinerary has changed so we can be in Dublin on Sunday as well--too many good things to experience. We will not be going to Galway as planned, and I'm bummed because of that, but now we will spend the 13th -the 17th in Dublin, take the late train to Limerick, and spend the entire day the 18th in Limerick--we fly home the morning of the 19th. Too short, too short! The trip will be packed!
Still much to plan, and we need to get Brian and Kim blogging as well--so, for now, adieu!

Final Days

The trip is almost upon us. Some plans have changed - the Dublin Writer's Festival finally put out their schedule, and some of the more interesting sessions are on Sunday, so Galway has been cut out of the trip. That's OK, though, since the main purpose of Galway was to experience the internet cafe culture and it looks like we'll get plenty of that in Dublin. Instead, we're planning on staying an extra night in Limerick so we can have a full day to explore the city. Limerick has a very current literary connection because of Angela's Ashes and Frank McCourt and we have plans to take a walking tour of the locations associated with the book.

Other than that, we're simply waiting on passports and making final purchases (walking shoes!) before school is out.

On our way.......

The Fund For Teachers orientation was great. We met several other fellows and spoke with them. The wonderful thing about Fund For Teachers is the diversity of the fellows. We met people who are travling to England, Colorado, China, and Italy. It really is wonderful to see how many educators are working so hard to improve their classrooms and their schools.
My Team is wonderful as well. It's amazing how many people know Brian! He is what Malcom Gladwell would call a "connector" He has the ability to connect with just about anyone. Kim is amazing in her ability to talk to just about anyone. Her excitment and joie de vivre spill over and are infectious to anyone around her. She and Brian are going to be the people magnets at the festival! I love working with these two people--they are so gregarious and fun to be around. I don't know what we'd do without Craig. He's not a part of our grant team, but when he decided to come along, all of our tech worries were suddenly less. I'm lucky to have him as not just a husband, but as a techie geek too--I love him!
We have our technology (how exciting!) and Craig has set up the laptop. He stripped off all of the bloatware and set it up so all of the team members are users. We decided against using MS Office and are using Google Docs instead--it's free and compatible with Word, so we can just copy and past anything that needs to be in a Word format.
The camera is really cool. It's small, lightweight, and as seen on Craig's video, pretty darn clear and user friendly.
Overall, things are well on their way! We're planning on meeting next week to discuss particulars and such--only 5 & 1/2 weeks to go!

The New Camera

Bea playing with the camera zoom while asking Craig his opinions on the new technology.