3 Things: Mental Vacation Edition

The weather is still unseasonably warm over here and it feels like vacation is just around the corner when in reality Aiden has over a month left of school. That's just....inconvenient.  He has testing for most of the week and a field trip smack in the middle, with various other activities and projects happening also. With everything going on right now it's not a great time to mentally check out so I'm really trying to keep my game face on...but I'll be honest, it's hard. I mean, come on, it was even Cinco de Mayo this week! I call for everyone to put down the number 2 pencils and pick up tacos. And maybe a margarita. 

                         
               
                                                       My brain the past five days

Here's what we've been into this week.

Reading:

I'm finishing up The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. I started reading this book, I kid you not, three year ago. Yeah. It creeped me out so bad that I had to hide it behind all the other books on my night stand. It's not even what I'd consider a typical horror book, no guns or knives or anything of that nature. Just a creepy tale of a mysterious old castle and the odd elderly sisters who live there. I am a really huge chicken so you may not find this as goose bump inducing as I did but it's still quite good.

Watching: 
 We've been watching this clip from Last Week Tonight all about standardized testing. When Common Core was first introduced, and everyone was losing their heads over it, I kept reading about the overarching goals of the program and it seemed like a good idea. I get the whole concept. Now that I have a child in school I also see how monumentally awful the implementation has been. There is frustration and confusion all around. Students hate it, teachers hate it and I am certainly not a big fan. I still think we need to hold students to a higher standard if we want to compete globally, but that means the objectives need to be clear and there needs to be a clear cut way to achieve them. That's the part that's lacking. We can tell students they're not measuring up but how do we help them move ahead? Anyway, John Oliver manages to make the whole thing a little more entertaining: John Oliver on Standardized tests.

Listening: 
My best friend texted me a song by Brandon Flowers and it was really good. Brandon Flowers is the lead singer from The Killers, and Sean and I love The Killers. We listened to them a lot when we were first dating and their album Sam's Town was on repeat while I was pregnant with Aiden. I went going back and was listening to some of their music when I came across a whole slew of songs I'd never heard. I realize they were released in 2012 and, well, that whole year is a blur so that may be why I don't remember them. I really liked "Shot At The Night" so here that is: