JOSH MILLER
The Principal Chronicles continue ...
2026 is here, and we have entered the second half of the year. This is when everything hits fast forward, and the days just fly by. Next thing you know, we will be talking about the end of the school year. It was so nice to see the students again after winter break. Tuesday we saw new outfits, got lots of hugs, and started back up again with the daily routines. January is always a pretty good month for teaching.
For me, this time of year brings mid-year conversations for all of our staff members, followed by data conversations so we can really buckle down for the second half of the year. I really like these conversations, as I rarely get to chat with teachers 1:1 for an extended period of time. In addition, I like the idea of planning ahead using data from our most recent diagnostic. Anything we can do to make our students more prepared and ready to tackle any problem.
On the home front, it was nice to have my daughter home for a while. To be honest, it was a bit strange. She is definitely a full-on college student. She worked a lot, then went out with friends, and slept pretty much every single day until noon. What a life. I made several trips to the mall to see her at work, since any time she was at home, she was either getting ready for work or she was asleep. We did manage to get through Stranger Things, which, apparently, according to her, was "her generation's show." In the final episode, she legit cried for an hour straight and had to call me the next day to discuss her "thoughts" on the final episode and her theories.
Besides that, she somehow managed to spend every single dollar she made at work within 15 minutes of her getting the paycheck deposited in her account. It is amazing how fast she can spend money. In looking at her bank account, it'll be $27 at Taco Bell, $55 at Aerie, and $104 at Buc-ees. I know what you are thinking: "Who spends $27 at Taco Bell of all places, and what would you possibly want to buy at Buc-ees for $104?" Seriously? Not only that, but why would you drive from Lone Tree all the way to Buc-ees at 10:30 at night? Her answer? We were bored. Oh, to be 18 again.
On a different note, we went to dinner on New Year's Eve at Fogo De Chao. We thought it would be an interesting place to go, but I had no idea what to expect. First of all, I had no idea that many different versions of red meat even existed. If you have never been ... basically: you come in and sit down, pay a large sum of money (see why my daughter thought it would be fun?), and then you can eat until you either leave or explode (whichever comes first). You start with a "salad bar" which has all sorts of Brazilian fruits, vegetables, and of course, meat. They also give you these small rolls for some strange reason, but they were pretty good. They also give you this frisbee-looking thing to put on your table - one side is green, and the other is red - as long as your frisbee has the green side up, the 72,934 waiters walking around with huge meat slabs on swords consistently come to your table. When they come to your table, they stab the sword into the table and ask if you want a hunk of the meat they have on their sword. If you do, they take out another sword and cut off a smaller hunk of meat that drops on your plate.
About 10 minutes after we flipped to green, I needed to flip back to red because my plate looked like a bulldozer had come by and dumped a pile of meat. Besides the constant flood of carnivorism, they also had this guy coming around with a big bowl of what looked like pineapple water. The gentleman wheeled his jug over to our table and asked me if I wanted some. Stupid me thought this was a free juice drink because it was New Year's Eve. Turned out: #1) it wasn't free. It was actually $12 for about three eye drops worth of liquid. #2) It DEFINITELY was NOT pineapple water. Although there were tons of pineapples in the water, the "water" was a mixture of rocket fuel and death. I nearly died.
After four million calories and one sip of the pineapple-drink-of-death, we headed home. Since we were so full, we decided to watch Stranger Things. About 10 minutes into Stranger Things, both my daughter and I started to get really hot and sweaty. Eventually, we figured out that we had the "meat sweats," which is a real thing, after I googled all of our symptoms. It has been a very long time since I have been that uncomfortable. I might have set a world record for most tablets of TUMS consumed in a 24-hour period. Note to self: if I ever go back to Fogo De Chao, no "free" drinks, pace myself with the meats, and save my money for at least two years before going.
That is it for this week's episode, stay tuned for next week when the Principal Chronicles continues.....
