Just a Normal Saturday

Yesterday I spent an exhausting day with brilliant teenagers. It made my brain hurt.

Myrtle the Younger is in her high school's version of gifted and talented coursework, called Phoenix. She adores her Phoenix classes because they allow her to think light years out of the box. (And she is pretty darn good at that. I haven't understood a word that child has said since she was hatched.)

Every year the junior and senior classes spend months putting together a Phoenix simulation day for the sophomores and freshman. (The best part...everyone wears a costume.) The hosting classes have a theme (untamed forces) they work around, each with a theme within the theme (greed, dreams, fear, survival instincts, psychology, etc.). Her class theme was social hierarchy so they chose to create a prison complete with gangs and a tattoo parlor. (Isn't that what you think when you hear the phrase 'social heirarchy'?)

So yesterday I proudly send off my baby prison guard with a cute little bun. All I know was she was thrilled to be a prison guard so she could swat people with a foam noodle. (A mother's pride knows no bounds, despite having little understanding of the baby girl's thought processing.) I was assured that no one was hurt by her swats and she had a blast.

Now because I am the supportive parent, I was volunteered to be a chaperone. And upon arrival, I was informed that I was responsible for NOTHING. Yea! This event was completely run by the kids and my role was that of general adult. I can do that! And in return, I get pizza!

So I dutifully follow the three groups I am assigned to and we see the creative results of ten different Phoenix classes including Greed (a giant Monopoly game with robbers), Psychology (a psych ward where the students got to yell "give me my meds!"), Social Movements (a communist spy/blow up the Berlin Wall simulation), Finances (a stock market crash), Natural Disasters (a tornado clean-up), Failure (Amazing Race), Dreams (from happy rainbows and unicorns to LSD-inspired weird stuff to really bad burrito nightmares), and Survival Instincts (plane crashes into the jungle and now the animals are going to eat you). Yes, I have forgotten two, but that was the middle of the day and my brain was on sensory overload. Be assured they were fun and creative.

I came home and took a nap.

Otherwise it was a normal Saturday for me. How about you?
T