raison d' etre

Is this our "raison' d etre"?

The world needs two scoops of understanding.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Vacation Starts, Let's Get To Work

My first day of vacation was greeted by the highest close of oil futures in history, just shy of $140 per barrel. The stock market dropped and unemployment increased by.5%, the largest one month increase in some time. I went and filled up the truck with gas and it cost $70.00. On top of that I still had to go to my classroom to bring some things back home so I could work on them over the summer. After all of this, maybe I shouldn't have vacation. That is quite a bit all at once.

A lot of people think that once the end of school comes and summer vacation starts that teachers live a life of leisure. I guess that some do. Many, many others teach summer school, prepare for next school year by planning, rewriting curriculum, going to classes to catch up on latest research, prepare things for their classroom, etc. Summer is not necessarily a vacation for teachers.

I started my summer (All right, I know that the Summer Solstice doesn't officially arrive until June 20th.) by heading to school and cleaning out my classroom; dusting, rearranging, cleaning out, and minimizing. I will spend quite a bit of time organizing things, preparing learning centers, and generally planing the upcoming school year. Oops, I forgot about my reading books. You see, some of the students can get a little rough with the story books so I have to bring them home a play "Story Book Hospital" and repair many of them. This next school year our campus will be downsizing the Kindergarten from 4 classrooms to 3.

The best thing about summer is the lack of deadlines. That means if I don't feel like taping up books this morning I can do them later. Of course, If I want to do it all tonight I could, highly unlikely but I could if I wanted.

Later this summer I will be taking 57 hours of training for this next school year. Fortunately, 30 hours will qualify for a $200 stipend. That leaves 27 hours. If I can take another 3 hours I will qualify for another stipend of $500. That' $11.67 per hour. It could be better but at least I have a job for next year. Unfortunately, there are many that can't say that.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
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Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

D-Day, June 6, 1944

Today is June 6, 2008. It was 64 years ago on this date that the Allied nations sacrificed so much in order to begin the end of the war in Europe. Below are a few things I have collected from around the web for you to share today. I have also provided links to other sites for you to visit.

Circular written by General Dwight D. Eisenhower explaining the importance of the Normandy invasion on winning the war. These were distributed to every member of the attacking force the night prior to the D-Day landings. Sergeant J. Robert "Bob" Slaughter, a Guard member of Virginia's Company D, 116th Infantry, passed his copy around among the members of Company D to get their signatures (front and back) as they waited to load aboard the landing craft that would take them to Omaha Beach. By nightfall of June 6, about half of these men were dead or wounded. Courtesy John R. Slaughter

The German pillbox sited on Omaha Beach with the National Guard Association Monument atop of it, 1969. National Guard Education Foundation

The above posters are courtesy of the US Army. These and 2 more posters can be viewed at the their poster gallery. You may also go to their D-Day site for much more good information.
Other sites worth looking at are:

The National D-Day Memorial Foundation

The D-Day Fact Sheet from the Kansas Heritage Server

The D-Day Museum

Eisenhower Archives

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

To the many who paid the ultimate price for all of us to live in freedom, I am forever thankful and grateful. Because of them we live in the greatest country on earth. And to those who are currently defending our freedom on foreign shores, THANK YOU so much for your sacrifices. Our prayers are with you and your families.

© 2008 Barry T Horst

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Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

The End of An Era-Sort Of

Yesterday was the culmination of something that began 282 calendar days ago; August 28th to be exact. Yesterday was the last day of school for the students in Waco ISD. They attended 177 days of school this year. During this time my class went on 5 field trips. We went to the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University twice, the Hippodrome Theatre once, Cameron Park Zoo once, and to Skate World. For each of these field trips we were able to go to Cameron Park to play and have a picnic lunch. We had a grand year and it was hard to see it end.

Several of the students at school yesterday must have thought that school was already out. We had several running in the lower hall this morning. I had to remind several Kindergartner's and 1st graders that we still had rules to follow in school. After that they all settled down and were pretty good. Considering that it was the last day of school my class was very good today.

I did notice though that over the past several days many of my students that I have had for the past 2 years were being especially "clingy." I overheard one of the girls reminiscing about the things we did in Pre-K last year. It's really interesting to hear a 6 year old reminiscing about "old times."

Tuesday afternoon at dismissal I had 2 of my girls left. I had both in Pre-K last school year. I asked them both what they were going to do next year since they would have a different teacher instead of me. Almost immediately they both said, "Be bad." Hmmmm!!! I hope they misunderstood and thought I asked, "How will next year be without me?"

© 2008 Barry T Horst
This work is licensed under a
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Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

A Few Good Things

While researching the pictures that I used on my Memorial Day post I came across some interesting photos. The photos below show some of the good things that our young boys in the military are doing in Iraq. These things are seldom discussed or even mentioned in the news. Since I am finishing up the school year I thought it would be nice to share these with you. Below each picture is a description and proper credit for the photographer.

An Iraqi boy stands near U.S. Army Cpl. Christopher Paukei from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division outside a park area in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, on May 3, 2008. Coalition and Iraqi forces patrol the area in an effort to determine if new barriers around the city are making the residents feel safe. DoD photo by Tech Sgt. Cohen A. Young, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Aaron Bunting, a medic from 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, provides dental care to an Iraqi girl as her mother looks on at a combined medical engagement in Ney, Diyala Province, Iraq, on April 7, 2008. DoD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Sean Mulligan, U.S. Navy. (Released)

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. David Hernandez and Tech. Sgt. Joseph Vergona, both contingency aeromedical staging facility medical technicians with the 332nd Expeditionary Aeromedical Squadron, load an Iraqi trauma patient onto an Iraqi air force Huey II helicopter at Balad Air Base, Iraq, on May 14, 2008. Iraqi airmen will transport the patient to the U.S. Army's 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq. The mission will be the first medical evacuation mission flown by the Iraqi air force. DoD photo by Senior Airman Julianne Showalter, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

Navy Lt. Robert F. Render (left), Battalion Surgeon, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, examines a woman's eyes at the Al Jazeera Elementary School in Northern Ramadi, Iraq, on May 6, 2008. Marines and sailors are at the school to pass out food and provide medical treatment to students and adults. DoD photo by Sgt. Jeremy M. Giacomino, U.S. Marine Corps. (Released)
© 2008 Barry T Horst


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SWAIN or a Story Without An Interesting Name

Not much of a post today. We're winding down at school and I was busy last night going to the store to buy the necessary cupcake preparation supplies and later preparing a slide show for the class today. The slide show was the various pictures taken throughout the year of the students, field trips, etc.

When I sat down to begin work on it I discovered that the program I normally used for preparing slide shows had been lost when the hard drive went south. Sooo, I had to scour the Internet really quick for a program that I could use to make one. I first went to PC World and looked for a free download. Nothing I liked. I journeyed to CNET Downloads. Same result. I decided to bite the bullet and download a program on trial and then possibly buy it if I liked the interface and the results I got.

THEN, I had a brain storm. Well, maybe it was just a brain burp. Anyway, before I download any program on trial I decided to head to Microsoft and look. And there it was, Photo Story 3 for Windows. It was FREE and it was a quick download. I downloaded, I installed, and then I created a great slide show; all within 15 minutes.

That gave me time to finish the faux diplomas (Really just a graduation poem) to hand out to the children at the Awards Assembly later today. While I was doing this Chris was helping by making the cupcakes for my class to have after the assembly. THANKS Chris!

And somewhere in the middle of all this I found time to go out and water the garden in front. All the flowers are looking good and getting better everyday. I will update all on the garden in a later post.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.