On the water

Yesterday was filled with lots of information, LOTS. We started out with a meet and greet type thing, where we met our mentors for the year. Our mentors do just that, mentor 1st year teachers, throughout the year. We meet with them several times a year and do mentor/mentee things. My mentor is a 1st grade teacher, but I don't know too much about him yet other than he grows a lot of potatoes and all kinds of garden-y things. He also takes care of the greenhouse at one of the schools I work at 1 day a week.

We spent the morning going over liability, TORT law and High Quality Schools Initiative, which was basically just going over how we need to be accountable and responsible and take preventable measures to ensure our student's safety. We at least have to inform them of potentially harmful things that may happen, but if we tell them first, and they still get hurt it's not really our fault, more or less, in the court of law, blahblahblah.

We took a Dells Duck ride to get to our boat ride after that and went on a tour of the Wisconsin River and docked to see some caverns within an island. Unfortunately, the beautiful path through the rocks leads you to a concession stand/gift shop where you can walk away with a souvenir plastic cup for $6-but refills are only $3. We had lunch on the boat, as well as some Wisconsin Dells trivia which landed me a sweet Dells umbrella. We got gift bags (that even included Wisconsin Dells logo'd tissue paper...) from the Convention Bureau that included a visitor's guide and a $10 gift card.

We got back to the high school (where all the information-getting took place) to hear from the Ho-Chunk Laison, ELL teacher, Business Office Orientation, and hear about the NEA/WEAC organizations. It was a full day!

This was our tour boat for the afternoon - I am originally from Chicago, so I thought the name of our boat was so ironic. It's so wonderful where life can take you!