I may have caught a cold. Or, I just seriously strained my throat by shouting today. Either way, my throat is killing me. And I keep going through bouts of feeling extraordinarily cold. It was damn cold outside today at the water sanitation plant. The wind was blowing and it was foggy. And when I say it was foggy, I don't just mean a little foggy, I mean it was so foggy that it took us ten minutes to realize there was a great blue heron sitting directly in front of us across the water. It was so foggy I missed my damn exit and got lost, and then thankfully found my way back, after three or four wrong turns. I can't blame the fog entirely, though. I was distracted by my own exuberant shouting of, "Celebrities whose names end with B!" at my car radio. There was a reason behind that madness, but I won't bore you with the details.

And no, that shouting was not the pain-causing shouting. The pain-causing shouting came from the fact that I had to lead a tour of the sanitation plant, a station I've never done by myself before. Hoo boy, that was crazy! Although, I was happy when one girl said, "This was the BEST station!" That made my day!

Also, be cautioned: they are making kids more hyper these days. Someone should alert the manufacturers. I mean, really. They're defective. Some of those boys were about to spontaneously combust. Those boys' energy did set up the funniest moment of the day, though, when one little girl sighed and told one of the teachers, "It's always like this..."

Anyway, trying to project your voice to 15 ten year olds at a time, especially when they're talking and not listening, is really a strain on one's voice. Especially when there are three groups like that in a row. I had to correct a bunch of kids. The last group was the worst. They were ALL talking at once. I yelled, "OKAY!" and that's when everyone decided to yell with me, which was so uncool. I then shouted at the top of my lungs, "You must all be quiet by the time I count down from five, or you're LEAVING. Fivefourthreetwoone!" And then I pointed at the last girl who was talking and she stopped. That's a pretty cool trick, I thought. Counting down. I never imagined I'd be the one doing that...

My favorite part of the day was grossing the kids out. I have this little demo I do with water and sand in jars, which represent the different parts of the treatment plant. The water I've got is yellow, dyed from food coloring. It's supposed to represent the dirty, urine filled water (this is a waste water treatment plant, by the way!). So EVERY time I take it out to do my demo, the kids ask, "Is that real pee?!" So I just started telling them yes. "Yeah, it is," I say. And they all go, "REALLY?!" And they freak out when I open the jar.

"No, not really!" I say. "Are you kidding me? Would I be handling it??"

My other highlight of the day is when I came up with a new way to gross them out. When we look at the biofilter, part of the tour is to pick up one of the rocks (with a GLOVED hand) and show them all the snails and worms crawling on the rocks. We also talk about how there's bacteria present and that the bacteria are helping to turn the ammonia into nitrates, and they're cleaning the water. So these rocks are nasty. They are totally covered in black slime and dirt, and snails. It doesn't really bother me too much anymore. The kids always freak. Some kids come too close and I have to tell them to back off. But one particular group today was so grossed out, they all backed up. So what do I say? "Okay, so I'm going to pass this around now!" and I put the rock closer to them, while they all jumped back and screamed. I got a kick out of that. So did the chaperones. Ah, good times.

Anyway, the group was so insane and it was so cold and we were so ready to go home that we shortened the last station by ten minutes and then our closing was, "Okay, thanks, bye!" Usually, it's a 40 minute wrap up. I love having the leniency of being a field trip teacher. I don't know how teachers can stand doing the mundane classroom thing day in and day out. At least kids want to be on field trips. I like being a museum teacher!

So yeah, projecting my voice, yelling at the annoying kids, such phrases as, "Okay, stop it!" and "WALK, please!" was really exhausting. Especially in cold, yet humid air.

I came home, got into my pajamas and my robe, and haven't done a damn thing for the rest of the day.

Sometimes, those are the best kinds of days.