Florida, In Retrospect....

Okay, I'm back in Oklahoma. Now that I can actually sit in front of a computer for longer than about 15 minutes at a time, I'm going to attempt to describe some of the elements of my trip. As with a previous 'description of a trip' post, I'll use some headings to both guide the reader and the writer....

Scoring AP English Literature Exams
Well, I spent the past seven days reading and scoring English Literature AP exams in Daytona, Florida. Since I've had a few people asking about how the exams are scored, I'll share a little about the process and the experience. First, there were about 1,100 readers there to read and score the exams. (The readers included primarily graduate students, university faculty, and high school AP English teachers.) The 1,100 readers were then divided into three groups (thus that's where I got the 350ish figure that I used in a previous post). Each group was then responsible for reading and scoring all of the essays from a single question of the exam. (In other words, we were all reading essays responding to the same prompt for the entire week.) We read all of the AP English Literature exams that were taken throughout the country (and in American schools overseas). The whole experience was quite interesting, and I learned a lot about the AP program and about student writing. Sometimes the days (particularly the mornings, as I'm not a morning person) felt a bit long, and sometimes I just didn't want to read any more, but, on the whole, the experience was worthwhile (and the check that comes in the mail in a few weeks won't be too bad either). I think I'd do it again....

Playing on the Beach
One of the added perks of the trip was playing on the beach. (Though I should mention that the reading site will change next year due to the available facilities. Next year the reading will be in Louisville, Kentucky.) I spent a lot of time in the water, getting pushed around by the waves. I don't really like to swim, but it was fun to wade out and play. I enjoyed walking on the coast where the water was about ankle deep; I could see my feet through the water and could also see the little fishies swimming close to my toes. I went out looking for sea shells a few times, and I found some pretty little ones. I went out after dark one evening, and I discovered what jellyfish look (and feel!) like....

Today's Travel
Today was my travel day. I got on a bus just before 8am and my last plane landed in Oklahoma just a little after 5pm. While I was hoping for a peaceful travel day, I wasn't quite so fortunate. My bus was scheduled to leave at 8am, so I checked out of my hotel, walked to the convention center, and loaded my stuff on the bus. Since I was nearly 15 minutes early, I decided to run inside and grab some juice and fruit (something resembling breakfast) to eat on the way to the airport. While the bus wasn't scheduled to leave until the top of the hour, the driver decided that they would leave early; fortunately, a very nice lady let him know that I wasn't there and they waited for me. In addition to the near-fiasco with the bus, both of my flights were delayed. The flight out of Orlando wasn't more than 15 minutes late, but my flight out of Houston was very late. The depart time had been moved back about 35 minutes before we ever boarded the plane, and then we were delayed for another 25+ minutes once we got on the plane. (They told us they were having trouble with one of the engines and needed to fix it. While I'm glad they fixed it and we all got home safely, I didn't really need/want to know that the engines on the plane weren't working just before we were scheduled to depart!) Our 5pm arrival in Oklahoma was about an hour later than the anticipated arrival....

I could probably keep writing and rambling, but I'm a bit tired after my travels. Also, I'm bound for Texas tomorrow (it's family reunion weekend), and I'd like to be well-rested for my drive.