Easter: Normal preparations

Unlike the Toyotama second-years, none of my other classes have had Easter with me. That meant I wanted to decorate Easter eggs the way we did it last year, which is the way I did it growing up: boiled eggs, optionally decorated with crayons, then soaked in a solution of water, vinegar, and food coloring. I never got around to getting some boxes of Paas in my trips home last year, but I did buy some tubes of Betty Crocker food coloring gel.

At Toyotama High, I teach two groups of twenty-five first-years. At Tsushima High, I teach eight groups of twenty first-years and one group of ten second-years. (The third-years, graduated and absent since January, already had their Easter activity.) Since I wanted to provide one unblemished egg for each student, plus some for the teachers, plus some extras just in case, I needed about 240 boiled eggs. My boiling technique, while not as sloppy as last year's abysmal 50:50 cracked:uncracked rate, still only gives a reliable 80% uncracked ratio. That means I boiled something closer to 270 eggs in the span of two weeks.

The unused, slightly-cracked-but-still-scrumpdiddlyumptious eggs worked their way into my daily meals: two with breakfast and another with lunch and/or dinner. I would bring the extras to school and offer them to teachers as snacks. However, I'm the most proud of making myself practice making deviled eggs. It's amazing (and somewhat sickening) how tasty egg yolk, salt, pepper, and lots and lots of mayonnaise can be.

Minus the departed third-years, I teach an average of two classes a day, with three classes being my busiest day. That means that every day I hauled 40-60 eggs and a bag of paper cups, paper towels, spoons, food coloring, and vinegar. Every day, first thing in the morning, I would book it to the classroom and set up 2-3 cups each for five colors: red, yellow, orange, green, and blue. (I tried making purple by mixing red and blue dyes... somehow it resulted in a color that was simultaneously red and blue without being purple.) While the gel was dissolving, I would set up my computer, the screen, and the projector, for my Easter presentation. After the last class each day, I would dump out the dye solution, rinse out the cups, pack everything up, and bring it home.

Toyotama was a little trickier, as there isn't a designated oral communications classroom. I did the best I could, stationing everything in an unused classroom just down the hall, setting it up such that all I had to do was lug the stuff the short(er) distance to the classroom.

All the effort was absolutely, 100% it.