Conference!

This past weekend I had the great opportunity to "vacation" in my hometown of St. Louis. Along with 8 of my journalism students, we attended the Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association fall national conference at the convention center/Renaissance Grand Hotel.

Over 5,000 attended, and of that number, over 4,000 were high school students with some middle school students added to the mix. We attended breakout sessions, all day workshops and bonded by going to lunch and a fancy dinner at Kemoll's (yum!).

The cool thing is they come back to school on Monday and they are all revved up and ready to go. Me, I was tired. Saturday night I had a yearbook company dinner. We got to tour Busch Stadium and eat dinner in the Stadium Club. Stadium Club seats cost around $15,000 a year, so being in the "club" even though there was no ballgame was a real treat--and the food was delicious. After dinner, instead of hanging out with friends, I was tucked into my bed and fast asleep. I didn't even hear my roommate Susan when she came back in later that night.

I haven't done much writing, but as of later today, I hope to squeeze out some time as I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with the yearbook initial deadlines. Today I'm getting all the seniors who haven't already had their picture taken for the yearbook out of class and sitting them in front of the photographer, who is coming to our school just for them. That way they aren't left out. But today marks the end--we will have finished senior ad submissions, senior photos, club photos, cookie dough sales/credits, and picture retakes for underclassmen. We put out our third edition of the school newspaper yesterday. Whew. Amazingly enough, the December 1 we are at school for a 13 hour day, closing out the December issue of the paper.

Since I don't blog again until after Turkey Day, I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving! I plan on getting some sleep, and writing.

Michele