(no subject)

[the_rck]

There was a substitute in the school library today. He wasn't an experienced librarian-- He said he'd subbed for a librarian once before, a few days ago. I got the circulation program up and running. It can be a little challenging to find the school library when one opens Firefox because the librarian's instructions are decidedly vague-- She doesn't even specify which browser to use. I just happened to know it was Firefox and not Safari. At any rate, opening Firefox opens the district web page. From there, one has to go to the directory of schools and find the school website. On the school website, there's a side bar that includes the library as an option. That finally gets one to a screen where one can click 'login' and get into the circulation program.

I am a little concerned that the scanner we use in the library is on its last legs. Usually, one has to click a button to turn it on so that it will scan, but today, it was on all the time. I couldn't turn it off. It scanned fine fortunately, but not shutting off seems to me a bad sign.

There was a lot of shelving when I first arrived at 8:30 (ten minutes before the sub. The school secretary knows me and let me in to start shelving). There were a fair number of winter holiday books that needed to go back on the shelf, and there was about half a shelf each of non-fiction and fiction to shelve. There were fewer picture books, easy readers and early chapter books to shelve, and I did the graphic novels/comic books pretty easily.

Scott's coming down with yet another cold. He hadn't quite recovered from the last one, so he's very frustrated. What with one thing and another, he's been sick since about a week before Christmas. We're not sure where he caught this one. Cordelia and I both have colds, but I'd assumed that we caught them from him. It's possible, of course, that one or both of us caught something from somebody at school. I'm surprised Cordelia and I aren't sick more often. Scott seems to be the one who comes down with the most colds, however.

Tonight is Cordelia's school's winter carnival. It's a big PTO fundraiser. I volunteered to run games for two half hour shifts. I'll be running bingo from 6:30-7:00 and the lollipop tree from 7:30-8:00. I like the lollipop tree because every kid gets either a tootsie pop or a blow pop for each ticket spent. They may also get a prize, but if they don't, they still don't go away disappointed.

Cordelia will probably spend most of her tickets on the lollipop tree and the cake walk. One year, she won the cake walk something like five times, and she keeps hoping she can repeat that and bring home a lot of cupcakes. We're contributing a container of rice krispy treats to the cake walk. Every time this comes up, I think about baking something to donate, and then I don't. This year, it's that Thursdays are too crazy busy for baking, and I didn't trust us (or the mice) to keep cupcakes safe over night.

I'm working on a Girl Scout training module, one on trip planning. I'm finding it overwhelming and more than a little confusing. I think it may be building on training I don't have. I'm doing it because the troop leaders don't have time and so asked me to do it so that somebody has. We have a trip planned for the 16th, and we need to know what we're supposed to do so that all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed. (Of course, I'm hoping to avoid the trip on the 16th. It will be four hours outside, around a campfire, and my coat is not washable, so I'd be stuck with the smoke stink all the rest of the winter. Not to mention that I'm not sure I trust my boots to keep my feet warm for that long.)

My new boots have arrived. They do just what we were hoping they'd do. That is, they're easier to put on and take off than my other boots. I'm going to use them largely for walking Cordelia to school every morning. Any time I need to wear boots longer than that, I'll wear my old boots. They're harder to put on and take off (lace ups), but they're warmer and more comfortable.

Mast Shoes called me last week to tell me that my loafers are back ordered. SAS is behind in production for that particular style, so I'll have to wait four weeks. I'm not pleased about it, but what else am I going to do?

Comments

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

I did the trip planning training a few years ago, and have led lots of Girl Scout trips, so I'm happy to answer questions if any come up.

[the_rck]

I will probably take you up on that. Right now, I'm confused by the Venture Out part of things. The example given is so generic that I can't figure out how to apply it. I'd like a few concrete examples before I try to write my own plan.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Hm. The only thing I remember about Venture Out was that they were saying to pick trips that are age-appropriate, and to start with smaller trips before moving on to big ones. So, for example, you wouldn't take a troop of seven-year-olds to Europe for a week, but they might be ready for an afternoon in the park.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

The things you need to do for the trip are:
1) Have the parents fill in permission slips. You can find blank ones on the GSHOM website -- there's a page with lots of forms. You fill in the trip information on the top half, then circulate it to the parents, who fill in their child's information on the bottom half.
2) Check the book "Safetywise" to find out how many adults you need for the age of kids you are bringing. (I always forgot to do that, but we usually had lots of adults, so it was never really an issue.) I probably have an extra copy of Safetywise if you need one -- though I heard that the Girl Scout organization was planning to rewrite it soon, and if they finally did that then mine would be outdated. The version I have was revised many years ago.
3) Find someone easy-to-reach, who will be at home during the field trip. The idea is that if there's a problem on the trip, people can call that person rather than calling the people who are on the trip. That person's name and phone number goes on the permission slip.
4) Talk to the kids ahead of time about what to expect, and how to behave. Girl Scouts always leave a place cleaner than they found it.
5) Have fun! :)

[the_rck]

I think the troop leaders have Safetywise, but I'm not sure. The outing we have planned will have two adult for about ten girls (officially, our troop has thirteen members, but some of them never show up for anything). I might, if pressed, go too, but it sounds like a really miserable thing to do because it all revolves around preparing food that I can't eat, outside, around a campfire that might set off my asthma (assuming the cold air doesn't). The asthma is a real concern given that I don't have an inhaler (They stopped making the medication I could use. The next best option is incredibly expensive, requires jumping through lots of hoops for the insurance and may still have the side effects I need to avoid. Buying it hasn't been worthwhile when I don't normally need an inhaler at all).

[the_rck]

If I'm reading it right, Venture Out is a series of steps you're supposed to do for every trip. They're as follows:

Look Out
Wonder what this world is like that starts with your doorstep.
Meet Out
Look, listen, feel, smell, and observe the world outside of your meeting place. See trees, birds, buildings. Listen to nature or city sounds. Enjoy games, songs and travel activities. Find ways to protect and improve the environment.
Walk Out
Walk around the block to see what you can see. Walk to a park or playground. Walk around a mall and observe people. Watch for sky spectaculars. Trace neighborhood smells. Touch a tall tree.
Travel Out
Find a new destination. Use a map to plan your route (“You are here ”). Pinpoint pollution problems. Look for tracks, trails, and traces of other living things.
Sleep in
Stay overnight in a building with indoor plumbing and cooking/eating facilities.

The test is to apply these steps to a trip to the zoo, and I'm not sure how to do it. I can't help thinking that we'd have a revolt from the girls if we tried to go through these steps before every trip. Most of the steps make more sense to me as things a troop might do once as part of coming together as a troop. I'm trying to figure out if I'm missing something.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Oh!!! I vaguely remember answering that question in the online test, but I don't remember anymore what my answer was. I don't know of any Girl Scout trip that follows all those steps for each trip. My guess is that if you just write some coherent paragraphs that sound vaguely related to the topic, that'll be good enough. They aren't looking for rocket science, they just want to know that you did the reading.