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YAY! Second entry time. My school's in a pseudo-lockdown state now for most of the day. Some idiot said he would blow up the school June 1st ("BOOM! BOOM! Everybody's dead June 1" was the exact message) so now our friendly neighborhood Mountie is going to destroy any bags left unattended, classrooms are locked. Come to think of it, it's a little like an airport now. I tried (unsuccessfully, might I add) to get this Nazi-ish guy I know to dress up as bin Laden in order to see what would happen to him, but he wouldn't. Too bad for the rest of us. He then proceeded to grab my lucky hat.

In further news, my lucky hat has gone missing. This may not seem like a big deal, but it's my lucky hat! It's probably on my dresser under some laundry, though, so I'll be all right. Seeing as you'll probably want to see my lucky hat, here I am wearing it:

Hmm...perhaps I better not wear it in Miami, come to think of it. Oh wait! I remember where I put it now. Good thing too. Anyway, most of the music department took a trip to Cuba over spring break and that's where I picked it up (it still smells like salt and bug spray!). Naturally, though, we couldn't stay at a resort because we were there to actually do stuff. It was cool: we went to a few schools and hung out with some young music students, dropped by a school for music teachers for a quick Cuban music 101 class, played there (and sang), learned some dancing, did one performance in Vinales, some of us got to play with a pro salsa band (including my teacher one of my friends). Come to think of it, the decent-but-not-too-fancy accomadations set us up for one of the weirder moments of the trip: getting off the bus for a half-day at a touristy beach in Veradero, and being surprised to see so many fat, pasty-looking people. I mean, seriously, it was weird to hear English spoken by groups of people walking past.

In other news, the student teacher we had this year is going into the wide, wide world to become underpaid and disrespected (welcome to the wonderful world of public school teaching!), so we're chipping in $2-3 each to buy her a gift. With a music dept. some 100 students strong (in a school of less than 900) that should get something nice. As a bonus, two of the basses in choir have volunteered to give sweaty hugs to anyone who ponies up. One of them suggested that if that gets you a hug, imagine what $10 will do. He has a very manly name, too (Jason Castro), so who could resist his masculine charms? You gotta love those two mrgreen
PS Please don't hurt me about that photo! It was a joke! I'm not really Fidel's clone in drag! AAAAAAAARRRRRRHHHHH!!! BAD MENTAL IMAGE!!! eek