it's the weekend

Only one more week of teaching. Mon.-Wed. are finals, Thursday is field day, and Friday is just clean out lockers, etc. day.
Last night we had the High school Awards Ceremony. This was our first year doing it at the school instead of going to a restaurant. We served the students and parents dinner outside on the commons, but the flies were horrible, so I don't know how much everyone enjoyed their dinner. After dinner, everyone retired to the auditorium where the awards were presented. Nate and Jenny had thought up a super-hero award with a description that matched each student's personality. They also put together a slide show with the student's head photo shopped onto their "superhero". It was really funny. For instance, one kid was "Spiderman", so there was a picture of his head on Spiderman's body. The kids loved it.
Another award that was recognized was the National Merit Scholarship program. Out of our thirty-some student high school, we had THREE students who were named National Merit Semifinalist. Here is a description of the National Merit Scholarship Program........

The National Merit Scholarship Program benefits students scoring extremely well on the PSAT taken during the junior year of high school.
The first step of the program is based entirely on PSAT scores - juniors with the highest PSAT scores (ranked by state) are named National Merit Semifinalists. A national total of 16,000 Semifinalists are chosen in this way, although the state-by-state rankings means that there are state PSAT cutoffs but no definitive national cutoff.
The next step of the National Merit Scholarship Program is to name about 15,0000 National Merit Finalists. While this phase of the process involves school records, SAT scores, and an application, most Semifinalists are also named Finalists. Exceptions are those with weak grades, poor records, or other issues.
National Merit Scholars (who receive aid and awards) are picked from the pool of National Merit Finalists.

We really do have an incredible student body. Most of them are extremely smart and work really hard. It's so interesting to have such a small student body with so many brilliant minds. Most of us teachers feel quite dumb in comparison to some of our students.

We are getting ready to go into town to meet up with one of Nate's new friends. A few weeks ago, Nate was at Starbucks and met the Starbucks' Distract Manager. He had just moved here from Boston. Nate has met up with him a few times for lunch in the past weeks. Today, we are meeting him at Pizza Hut. (quick note: Pizza Hut in China is a very nice, sit-down restaurant :).

Okay, I am starving, so I am going to go eat some breakfast.