to play off of brett's augusta entry, riding with brett is anything but a lesson in music appreciation. he has very interesting tastes, but alas the only cds in his console were veggie tales and the wiggles. so we listened to whatever radio stations were in range and got some interesting selections. we didn't get iced in while in savannah, but we got "ice ice baby" on the way there.
davis was following us, and needed gas so we stopped off at a bp on the way out of town. brett got a chicken finger basket that was probably cooked 3 hours earlier, and i had the pleasure of teaching a young man how to operate a newspaper box. the guy was probably my age or a little younger. i was waiting on brett and davis to pay for their food and gas. the victim pulled up in his ford explorer, music thumping, cigarette in his mouth, and 2 quarters in his hand. he put them into the slot on the machine then pushed the coin return button. "maybe he doesn't want the paper after all," i thought. he did it again. and again. and again. then started talking to himself, saying things like "this thing don't work." finally after putting his money in and getting it back a few more times, he said "hey man, you know how this thing work?" i said, "yeah, you just pull the blue part." (the coin return is black, and you push it, this should be sufficient directions, right?) money in, push coin return. "no, no, you pull it." two more times. finally i walked up to him and the special ed teacher finally kicked in. he had failed enough on his own. he put the money in and i said "stop, don't do anything. see where it says 'PULL' right here. it's the door, pull that and it will open." he finally got it. "thanks folk" he said as he retreated to his ride, now playing a new song. i tried not to laugh but it was amusing to me that he was getting so frustrated. guess i wasn't much of a special ed teacher after all. i laughed.
other notables on the way to savannah included, but were not limited to:
- a large tree in the median of I-16 decorated like a Christmas tree
- an older couple parked on the side of I-16 picking up walnuts off the ground
- the "everything's better in metter" billboard (i lived in metter until i was 2)
- the "pruning" of crepe myrtle trees in the median (they whacked them off until they were only about 2 feet of trunk)
- a bumper sticker that read "say no to drugs: don't eat imported shrimp." (i don't get it either)
(notice we got 2 of the same picture)
and after an almost nap, met davis outside to head to the executive board meeting. it was the shortest one that i've ever been to (3 hours) and i told davis (now the student president) not to get used to it. after the meeting we grabbed some checkers and i hung out with the juniors staying at our hotel for a while, brett and i helped davis write a speech, and went to bed. friday came too early and the students worked their butts off to make the conference run smoothly. i had soaked through my dress shirt from running around and carrying heavy things, so i didn't take my suit jacket off. after lunch we had a guest speaker. i'm not really sure what he talked about because he was long winded and i never got past the introduction because i wanted to set up for the student business meeting and make sure i had everything lined up because i was a little nervous. the speaker went an hour over, so it became my mission to make the meeting really short. i managed to squeeze in all the reports, goal making, and elections into 30 minutes. i passed the gavel on to davis and my presidency ended. i was happy.
went back to the hotel, showered, put on some jeans, tennis shoes and my nike hoodie (all luxury items after wearing a suit all day) and waited for the girls (lyndsay, kristina, and emilie) to pick us up to go out to eat. the trip to river street was adventurous 'cause none of us were that sure how to get there, and savannah has a tendency to get ghetto very quickly. after sitting down at the pirate's house and everyone agreeing that we didn't want to pay that much for dinner, we went down to spanky's and had some of the best chicken fingers i've ever had. after bargaining for a haunted trolley tour and getting the price dropped from $25 to $10, maybe even $3 a person, we decided it would be too late and we wanted to go to bed at a decent hour since lyndsay and i were presenting at 8 a.m.
saturday's presentation came
and there were only 2 people there at 8:10. we recruited about 10 juniors and 2 other non-GCSUers showed up. we warmed everyone up with a sound and motion story,
bui talked about masks, we did role playing with 4 groups presenting various scenes from charlotte's web,
and i talked about puppets and how to use them. i checked my watch, saw that it was 8:48 and started my conclusion. presentations were scheduled every hour, and i was wrapping ours up so that we could fix the room back to the way it was (we cleared it out to give us room to play). i looked at the door, and ashley has a really panicked look on her face. then she moves off to the side and a not so gentle man swipes his hand across his neck to say "cut" as in "end your presentation." i nodded and went back to wrapping things up, pointing the participants to some books that were good resources for further reading, asking for questions. bui went to talk to the man to tell him we were wrapping up. i heard him say "y'all are on my time now" (it was 8:49, his time was from 9-10.) then he walks into the room, while i'm still talking and announces "y'all have to stop, i have to set up."
i was in shock, my group members were in shock, the audience's jaws collectively fell open, and ashley's look said "i'm so sorry, i have no idea what to do with this guy, please don't be mad at me jason, what in the world can i do, i can't believe he did that." i didn't say anything, just stared back at him and then resumed my conclusion as he bustled around in the the doorway. when it was over, bui, being the bigger man that he is, sincerely asked the not so gentle man how he wanted the room arranged and what else we could to for him. kill him with kindness, thattaway bui. we straightened the room, left, and i just kept my mouth shut about the whole thing. all of the participants in the session complained enough for me. i heard he apologized later, which i was glad to hear, but in all honesty, it didn't bother me personally. i was mad, just more in shock that it happened, not really offended. i don't know if it's his business man tenacity (he was presenting his product that he was selling at the conference) was the reason or what, but hopefully our response to it taught him a little something.
i did a few other misc. things the rest of the day, including getting an applause for showing a lady how to make her laptop send a signal to the projector and supporting katie rann in her presentation. took a brief break from the conference to get some lunch with lyndsay and kristina because lyndsay couldn't eat what was being served. the awards ceremony was fun to watch, the highlight being a student at the georgia school for the blind and his tearjerking success story of advocating for himself and getting out of an abusive home. brett, bui, and i left pretty quickly after lunch. about an hour into the trip home, brett asked bui to drive because he was falling asleep (i had come really close to napping, i'm not sure if i fell asleep or not). after about an hour of cruising down I-16 at 90 mph, bui met a deputy from treutlen county. this guy was so impressive, he pulled over bui and a pickup truck at the same time. bui got his yellow slip for 19 over (sound familiar?), and we were back on the road after being told to set the cruise control on 80. "no one around here will bother you for doing that," the deputy advised.
i'm gonna jump in the shower, head to athens, see my puppy, and do some laundry. 1 more week of class then it's back to creekside for 10 weeks of student teaching. i'm excited.
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