Guess it's Christmas Time

Normally during this time of the year,
its a mad flurry of decorating, baking, frosting, and shopping.
This holiday season so far, it's been a slightly different sort of fantastic crazy :)

Our school is an open campus - as in, there are no hallways to get from room to room. Therefore, you are exposed to the outdoor conditions.  And apparently where I currently live, there is a "rainy season" in the winter time. As you can imagine, this makes for some fun times; yesterday at school, I felt like I was in some other dimension :) Rain was pelting downwards & sideways, the wind was surging & swirling, closed doors were jostling, and lights were flickering... all while I was trying to get my completely non-excitable 2nd grade students to settle down and do their math story problems - indeed, a very NON-successful attempt - HA.

Currently dreaming of
warm & dry galoshes...

Then, whenever we would have to leave our classroom, the EXTREME excitement and frenzy continued with my 25 precious lil ones... AHHHHH!!!! runnnn to Art! AHHHHHHHH!!!! runnn to the cafeteria! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! runnnn back to the classroom!! AHHHHHHHHH! there's puddles in our classroom! AHHHHHH!!! the rain, the wind, AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Last night, my roommate got locked inside her room. I knocked on her door to give her something but couldn't enter. She came to the other side of the door, turned the door handle, and nothing happened. Nothing was actually locked but rather, just a broken gear on the door latch. So we pushed back and forth but still... nothing. An eruption of giggles ensued as we desperately tried to get her out. We unscrewed the door handles on both sides but still... nothing. We considered taking the hinges off the door to completely remove it, but this too was not possible. We called our downstairs neighbor in hopes that he would have magical tools to help in this desperate situation. He came up, just as perplexed. Suddenly, I remembered an old trick a good friend (lotsa love to Woodchuck!) had once taught me in order to break & enter into locked doors: slipping a plastic credit card between the door and frame. See here for further instructions :P And so, my roommate slid the credit card in, our neighbor pushed real hard, and TAH-DAH! the door swung brilliantly wide open :)

All yesterday, all through the night, and continuously into today, it has been raining... really hard. This morning, we bravely tried to make our way to school amidst the downpour and flooded streets. Picking up various other stranded co-workers along the way, we soon had 11 soggy teachers all packed "Grand Taxi"-style into our car. However, as we approached the one and only road leading to our school, we realized it probably wasn't the wisest choice to attempt the situation. We turned around. After a myriad of phone calls, swivel of detours, going up and over road medians, driving on the opposite side of streets to avoid the rising waters, and dodging other commuters/cows, we made it safely back to our apartment.

Whoosh! And according to the tightly reliable communication network of our school (the Facebook statuses of coworkers), we have been notified that school has been closed for the next two days due to flooding on campus. So here I sit snuggly in the damp concrete indoors under lots of slightly-moist-from-humidity blankets :)

Guess it's Chrismas Time!