First Day of Eighth Grade

Here we are at the first day of school again, and this time the break seemed to have started forever ago.  We knew this day would come, and there's been a lot of controversy about it from various factions.  Some say we shouldn't be out doing anything at all, and others are saying we should ignore any rules and just let this virus take its course.  Those are two extremes of course.  Madison wanted to go to school, rather than take the online classes as some of her friends are doing.  We weighed it all out, and actually took some time to come to a decision, but in the end, she's got her mask and she's at school today, her first day of eighth grade.

Here's the traditional picture we take each day before school, and suddenly we're back in this routine again, setting the alarm, getting breakfast, packing, brushing teeth, taking a picture and saying our prayers together on the couch.  Even the part where Madison pushes me back down after prayers.  Then, it's time to get into the car, wave to Mommy, and we're off down the road, passing the new high school still being built, and on the way to school.

There were cheerleaders out front - I'm not sure if they'll have any games to cheer at or how that's all going to work.  I haven't looked into sports yet. But as for the classes and school, it was quite a different experience.

You can see all the kids are spaced apart, walking down the halls on these little paths marked with tape and arrows, somewhat like the lines they have in the movie we just saw again, "Wall-E."

There are new systems in place, and Madison would do a much better job explaining all of it, but there are quite a few new rules in place to keep everyone separated.  The getting to and from classes sounds like it's a bit crazy:  if you pass by your classroom, you'll have to go around the whole circle again.  Mommy was telling us about an experience like this in her old school, and it sounded crazy back then.  The school didn't want too many kids congregating in the center of the hallway because they were afraid the floor would collapse.  Read that again.  Anyway, their answer was not a more sound structure, but instead, just let the kids in there, but make sure they do the exact same thing that Madison is doing now, walking the halls on these narrow pathways at the edge.

Locker visits will be figured out next week, but right now, they were going through the new routines of getting to and from, and sitting in class, and getting to the lunchroom and back.  They eat in classrooms now.  Half the class goes to the lunchroom to get food in order to bring back to the classroom.  Fortunately, Madison is able to go from class to class, rather than have all the teachers rotate or something wild like that.

Anyway, it's going to be a great year.  Madison was a little nervous about a few things, and how great that Edge ATA put up this advertisement on their social media sites today:

It's the word "CONFIDENCE," and Madison has a lot of that.  She'll do well this year, but as you can see from the very brief description of what this "new normal" is like, it will be quite an unusual year.  Nevertheless, we're all very glad to be starting again.

This is a picture of what I did later on today with a lot of other volunteers.  It's a food hand-out.  Calvin, Jovanna and I reunited a bit of KidPak there, dressing up as characters and handing out book bags and an insane amount of chicken.  Boxes and boxes of chicken.  We handed out so many meals today.  Hundreds of cars.  This line goes up to the church, and then to the right and around the back of the church, and then all the way down to the chapel, and then back again to the front of the church, and then back out again.  And it is two lanes of cars too!  This line was ginormous, and it took over three hours to cycle through everyone.  We had so much chicken that there were boxes leftover, and we were actually able to take some home with us.  We dropped by Nana and Ye-Ye's house to give them a few boxes, and then their neighbors too.  And we got ourselves a couple boxes as well.  We've got chicken for a good while now.

While I was doing this, Madison was able to make it to the new schedule of taekwondo, which you could see above.  That picture was taken earlier.  Mommy was with Madison for two back-to-back classes, which is the new thing for Thursday. We can't make the Friday time due to scheduling of school.  But there is a leadership class on Thursday, and of course the normal class as well.  

We didn't have much time for anything upon getting home.  It's a school night - remember those?  We prayed, and we read from our devotional as well.  We've been reading a superhero themed one that I've written.  But I was asking Madison if she could think of any devotional ideas for the characters of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., just throwing that out there if she wanted to try any ideas.  IMMEDIATELY, she had ideas about things to write for the characters.  I think you'll see those here soon enough.

Anyway, we prayed tonight for Ba-Ba, and for Daddy and our nation.  And there were the other routines, but yes, we were in bed earlier tonight.  Got to get up earlier!  It's going to be a great school year!