Monday, May. 29, 2006
The Trip.
Another academic year is over.
We had 20 kids graduate last week. Twenty! Pretty nice. Although, to be honest, I didn't expect some of them to make it. About half of them didn't take their SATs or college applications seriously. They really thought that we (the program) could magically get them into their school of their choice, even if they missed the deadlines or got extremely low scores. The looks on some of their faces after they got their rejections was sad, but they brought it on themselves. And now they're pissed because they have to go the local community college, which isn't bad at all (it's a great school).
Saturday was student presentation night. It was tough, especially considering that most of the projects were completed Saturday afternoon, and no one had gotten a chance to rehearse. But, like every year, we somehow manage to pull things off.
But in true Museum fashion, someone in the main office managed to fuck things up.
There's a local improv group that uses the Museum theater every weekend for their shows. Twice a year, the theater is supposed to be reserved for our program. We book all our rooms about a year in advance to avoid any problems. Yet, there are ALWAYS problems because those involved with the bookings seem to think that when a room is reserved by us, it's not important and they can just give it away or do whatever they want with the room.
Well, during our presentations on Saturday, the improv group showed up. No one had bothered to tell them that they would have to start their show at 10:00 pm, not 8.
We booked the theater in August. We sent another reminder in January when we noticed the calendar wasn't updated. Then we reminded them again in March. And earlier last week we sent an email to double check that everything had been taken care of for the event.
Of course, nothing had been done. But the people who screwed up this time are going to be in some deep shit come Tuesday. Why? The president of the Museum was there! She was the only upper management to come to see our student's presentations. And she was pissed that a mistake this big could happen on such an important night.
Can you imagine how embarrassing it was for us to have to move our presentations, all our students and their families/friends, to another smaller location so that the improv people could have the theater? That was the one night when everything should have been near perfect. And I'm glad that the president was there to see how the rest of the museum treats us first hand.
--
My trip to Cali was fun. I just wish I had gone with different people. My boss is such a first class, two-faced bitch, that all she did the entire trip was talk shit about everyone, everything from their personal lives to their work ethics, which is a laugh, considering she's never there to see what people do. She would say shit about people and then try to pull info out of me and I would just say, "I don't know" or not say anything at all. I don't even want to know what she says about me when I'm not around. But enough about her.
So we fly into LA Monday morning. Our flight was at 8, which meant that we had to be at the airport at 6. I woke up at 4:30 to pack and shower and what not. My boss, who lives about 8 miles from me, didn't even bother to offer me a ride to the airport. Whatever. When the plane started to board passengers, she hadn't even gotten to the airport yet. I was like, well I'm not waiting for her; I'm fucking going to California! I didn't even know what hotel we were staying in, but I would have found soemthing to do for four days. I got on the damn plane. Lucky for her, she was the last person to board. The other lady who was to go on the trip actually missed the plane completely and had to take a later flight. You'd think she'd call one of us and leave a message saying she wasn't on the plane. But that would make too much sense.
We get to LA and it's 10:30 am. This is my first experience with jet lag (it's 2:30 Miami time). I am exhausted! But we can't go to the hotel because we have to go meet the guy in charge of the C@lifornia Science Center Museum Scho0l.
The school was awesome! It's K-5, and it's run in conjunction with the Museum. It works with LA's inner city kids and it focuses on science. All their other classes, including math, history, art, and PE are tied into whatever they are doing in their science class. And those kids seem so happy that they get to go to this school.
Our Musuem wants to do something similar. And since this place has had such great success, they want to model it. But I don't think they'll be able to pull it off as well. Everyone at my museum is so damn lazy and unorganized that it just wouldn't happen.
We spent that first afternoon there as well as all of the next day, when we got to meet the teachers and students.
Our hotel in LA was insane. It was the Biltmore Mi11enium. It was gorgeous! It was also the place where the 0scars were first held, before it was a televised production, when it was just an industry dinner. It was really cool. It's funny how my boss is always telling us that we have no money, but when she goes on trips, she always manages to stay in 5-star hotels.
Tuesday night, we left LA for San Fran. At LAX, I rubbed shoulders with Jeff Goldblum ! A celebrity I actually like. Awesome!
San Fran was absolutely beautiful! Everything about it was great. And we wre in another 5-star hotel that was right on the bay next to fisherman's wharf (and if your hotel room had a view of the water, you were staring right at Alcatraz!).
On Wednesday, we visited the Expl0ratorium. A really cool museum. Lots of small stand-alone exhibits that covered tons of different subjects. Very nice. And that's all we did there, besides driving around and sight seeing and stuff.
One of my friends lives in San Fran so I got to hang out with him one night. He took me around and we had the greatest Mexican food and margharita's ever!! It was also nice to be around people my age.
Thursday, we flew back to Miami. My boss made us late to the airport because she wanted to do all this stuff in the space of an hour and a half. We almost missed our flight. When we got back into town, in true bitch style, once she got off the plane, she just took off, didn't bother to say goodbye, didn't even bother to offer a ride (her husband was there to pick her up). She really showed her true colors on this trip. I caught a cab home by myself at 11 at night. I had to call people to keep me company on the phone just in case.
Besides my boss being a mega bitch and the insane jet lag, I had a good time. I liked Cali (although it was a bit too cold for me...in the 50s). I could see myself living there. It was beautiful. I just don't think I could deal with the freezing cold ocean or the breezes.
And that's it, ar at least what I could remember.
summerroll at 2:00 p.m.