Pinatas

The annual making-of-the-pinatas has commenced! We skipped science today (I figured it'd be okay since they've been taking lots of tests lately and we haven't been doing art much recently).  Pastor dropped off two tarps for us this morning before school.  When the time came, we pushed all the desks back and unrolled them.  One is huge and had room for three groups!  That was good, because the second tarp was a bit, shall we say, smelly?  One of their sons is big into hunting and I'm pretty sure the weird marks on the tarp are "leftovers" from a hunting expedition.  That one we kept folded in half so the leaves and other potentially gross things wouldn't fall onto the carpet.  It's still smelling up the room a bit, but we might need to put another layer on the pinatas, so I don't want to roll it up yet... I think I might stick it in the coat room tonight so it doesn't stink up the classroom overnight.

Some groups were really good about being neat and putting their strips on the balloons.  Others didn't want to get their hands dirty and drug out the process.  Most of those groups, when they did get going, slapped on huge pieces of newspaper in chunks instead of strips.  They never put enough layers on... the more layers, the sturdier the pinata will be.  Now they say they don't care, but I guarantee when it comes time to whack the pinatas (and it cracks open right away), they'll be singing a different tune.

Speaking of breaking things... the timer that runs Joe's light is broken.  His daytime light wasn't on, and I replaced the bulb somewhat recently, so I messed with the plug ins, and yep, when not attached to the timer, the light works.  So until I can get to town to buy another one (or have someone handy with electrical things take a look at the broken one), I need to remember to turn on and turn off his daytime light every day.  ...I'm not too optimistic about me remembering...

The other thing that's most likely probably broken is my flashdrive.  Ugh! I thought flashdrives never go bad but apparently they do!!!  This morning I tried to save a new document on my flashdrive, but it kept saying I had to turn off the "write protection" first.  I never turned it on in the first place.  The IT guys actually answered right away when I called them, but he said I'll probably have to get a new one because this one is bad.  Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but this is one of the more expensive flashdrives (it has more space to store files), so I don't really want to buy a new one.  Sigh.  I'm going to try a few things at home tonight; hopefully my laptop will make all the troubles go away... yeah, I don't believe that either.  But at least I can backup my files.  Then the IT guys can try wiping the drive and starting over.  Sometimes starting over can make things work again.  We'll see I guess...  I also need to find the receipt; it may be under warranty.  And if so, the company can send me a replacement disk.  Oh please, oh please, be under warranty!!!