by Ruffian
Well…the field trip was memorable, to say the least. See if I ever take 90 third graders whale watching ever again. It was a veritable puke fest. All but about a dozen of the 90 8-year-olds vomited at some point, plus a couple of the parent volunteers and even one teacher (fortunately, I wasn't her).
Although the skies were blue and the sun was shining, the seas had yet to recover from yesterday's storm. Someone heard on the radio that we could expect eight- to nine- foot swells. No freakin' kidding. The good news is we did see whales and dolphins - those of us well enough to stand and look - but only about a handful of my students were able to gather up the fortitude to wobble their ways to the railing to see.
I came prepared for seasickness, my scopolamine patch securely in place, but what I didn't prepare for was the power of suggestion. I was feeling fine until Carlos yakked not three feet in front of me, and I became useless for about an hour and a half afterwards. Me and my weak stomach! I told a parent volunteer I wasn't well and had to lay down for, oh, a while. I kept my eyes closed because the movement (and various, um, colorful visuals) made me nauseous; so, great, now everyone's saying I fell asleep. I did not fall asleep! I was just doing what I had to in order to regain control of my body. I did, however really sunburn my face during this recuperation period. Stupid outdoor deck.
The fortunate thing was that, in fact, all of my kids were sick, so I wasn't badly needed. It was amazing. At first the kids thought all the pitching and tossing were fun - and then silence fell upon them so quickly you'd have thought someone had found their mute button. Once I regained my strength, I stumbled down to the lower deck (we, my class, were on the outside upper deck, in the back of the boat) to buy a memento for the classroom and was thoroughly stunned by the carnage I saw. It was like a battlefield hospital-feeble bodies everywhere, moaning for their mothers. All of this was drenched in the partially marinated nachos they’d so eagerly bought when first boarding the boat. My aggravating allergy cold was in my favor - I couldn't smell a thing.
Now, you would think that with all this carnage the captain would have the sense to turn the boat around and take us back to the waveless tranquility of the harbor. But no, we were given all but the last 25 minutes of that blasted three hour tour, and the shocking thing was hearing the captain - after everyone had essentially dropped dead - announce: "Hang on, the boat will pitch and toss a bit; we're going to CIRCLE this pod of whales.” Are you kidding? What kind of sadist are you?!
Then the kids were too sick to eat, so we had to skip lunch (yeah, the milk and the sandwiches would have been a bad idea) and wait until we got back at the classroom - with five minutes left before the last bell rang - to eat. They ended up taking their lunches home with them. I really haven't eaten yet - I couldn't even stomach a SlimFast, although I did munch on some saltine crackers. Ah yes, I was the hero of the trip by bringing those nausea-soothing crackers - a whole box’s worth, and every last one of them was eaten! So, once the weird vertigo feeling leaves me, I'm going to eat something.
Forget this! We're going to the Long Beach Aquarium next year.