FIRST FRIDAY'S

Everyone loves Friday! This always seems a bit weird to me. The same amount of work is to be done on Friday as is to be done on a Monday. Why do people not just say they like Saturday instead? Why is it that people look forward to Friday more than Saturday where they can be lazy the whole day, not just a bit after work. I don't know, but today was Friday, and I still had to work. No biggie though.

Getting to work is always an adventure in Miami. However, I thought today was really going to be the worst. The first day I was going to have to take public transportation, which is not that big of a deal, I just don't quite know the appropriate amount of time to give the buses to get me to my destination. Today was the one day I did not want to be late, as it was parent meetings. To se

e their students tutor being late on the first real big day just is not acceptable. However, my van was in the shop and my room mates were all gone. After much prayer, I received a text from my coordinator, Heidi Aspinwall, that my van was ready for pick up. This came about 10 minutes after JJ came home with his car. Hallelujah!! What a relief that BOTH things happened, saving me from the bus!

We picked the van up from the shop before I had to leave for work, finding out that the oxygen level readers had gone bad, causing the van to shut off when going at low speeds or standing still. Don't ask me why, I am nothing close to a mechanic, but that is what happened. It works great now, as I drove to work to meet with all the parents for the first time.

It really was great to see all the parents come to support their children, and us as teachers, as we embark on this journey together of helping them with furtheri

ng their education. What a great group of people it was that came out to Yvonne Learning Center tonight. It always is great to see such a fine turn out on a Friday night when I am sure other things could have been recognized as more important. I know I had more important things to do, but this is m job!

After getting home, JJ was eating supper and Julie was at a party for a friend so JJ and I decided to play games together. We did this and watched a few episodes of our favorite shows online until Julie got home around 11:30 P.M. We all discussed our days together until the clock struck midnight. We had been waiting for this moment for a long time as we all wanted to see the shuttle take off. It was supposed to everyday for the past week, however, weather and faulty valves on the ship delayed it until tonight. We ran outside to see nothing in the sky. We talked for a bit thinking that we may have missed it until, rig

ht above the skyscrapers of downtown Miami, something glowed a b

right yellow as it slowly disappeared into the night sky. I had witnessed my first Space

Shu

ttle leaving the Earth's atmosphere in a ball of flames. What an amazing sight!!! Just thinking about what had just happened, while some think of this as unimportant, really is an amazing feat that we as humans have overcome. The fact that we can send

other humans into orbit to work on the International Space Station is awesome! And I got to witness it being done without a camera between me and the rocket ship!

What a perfect end to a great Friday night!....and what better way to end it than waking up with a great, free Saturday ahead of me!

(The picture, while one downloaded from the web, is basically what my room mates and I saw from our street corner. However, it was darker and the shuttle was entering the atmosphere, causing a bright, fiery glow around the whole thing until it disappeared into the atmosphere!)