Mardi Gras Kickoff

This last weekend was extremely outrageous. I stayed in Baton Rouge and they had 3 Mardi Gras parades to kick it off. It was so much fun! The floats are all double decker and the costumes are out of this world. They are extremely elaborate. They had around 15 floats, and in between each float local high school bands, dance companies, and even a few different roller derbies were involved. People will walk right up to the floats in order to get the really good stuff (lit up swords and sticks) and they threw light up rings, plush toys, candy, and of course beads. Lots and lots of beads. I even got cajun seasoning from a really nice older man on a horse that noticed me admiring her in the horse group part of the parade. I had a blast. My roommate and I ended up parking next to some really nice middle aged couples that were all federal agents and lawyers that would catch all the good stuff and pass it to us since they knew people on the floats. They were even nice enough to invite us to the parking lot they will be renting out for the parade next weekend for a cook out and everything.
    Each parade was named after a Greek mythology character and the floats were really random. Friday night we went and saw the "Krewe of Artemis", Saturday afternoon was "Krewe Mystique de la Capitale" and Saturday night was "Krewe of Orion". That parade had really random floats including an "Al Capone" themed one and a "Stalin/Soviet Union" one. I really enjoyed myself and it was a fun, once in a life time experience. I have definitely never seen anything like this. So here is a picture overload from the 3 parades!
Krewe of Artemis

 At this point, I was really excited and thought I had a lot of beads.

 Each parade has a King and Queen, this is the Queen

 There's the King

 There's me by the end of the parade the first time. Elizabeth and I parked further away and decided to go to the beginning of the parade since it's a long route and wanted to make sure we got things. By the time we walked back to the car, the beginning of the parade had gotten into the area, so we had to sit through it again in order to leave. It ended up being a lot of fun watching it twice!

 My pile of goodies after the parade

 Me and my roommate Elizabeth after the parade

 Getting ready to head out on Saturday! We got into the 70s, so I decided once I was done with homework going out a little early to get lunch before the parades. People I work with at the school told me about a local bar and grill called "Chimes" that has a lot of different seafood burgers and sandwiches. Below is what I got. It is a fresh shrimp (breaded) poboy. Poboys are sandwiches on french bread with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and mayo if you want it. It also came with seasoned fries. It was so delicious! We're almost to crawfish season. I'm really excited to try it!

 Chimes is a really busy place and right off LSU's campus. I had to park on campus and parked next to a lot of really gorgeous Magnolia trees. The blooms are so big and pretty. They've been my favorite thing to look at here so far.

 Krewe of the Mystique

 Some of the beads are really neat. Most parades through commemorative beads that are a lot nicer and not as cheap. These beads the bat is actually wood, and the ball and mitt are actual leather and legit. By far my favorite beads I got. I also got some commemorative beads too.

 Got to see the ghostbusters

 My take home from the afternoon parade including Cajun seasoning, beads, and Mardi Gras cups

 Krewe of Orion

 Orion #1 float

 The queen

 The king

 Darth Maul and his group. The costumes were the most legit I've ever seen

 We had a crew of corvettes drive through and I was in heaven

 The Al Capone float (don't ask me why he's in it, I have no clue)

 The Stalin float (I still have no clue why he's in it)

 Julius Caesar

 Atila the Hun

 Final Orion Float

My weekend was a ton of fun. On Sunday I had to ride on the bus to help pick up kids on the New Orleans route. I got some more pictures that are a bit better than last time. Here is Smoothie King stadium, where the Pelicans play.

 Really neat bridge over the Mississippi

 Really neat bridge going over the Mississippi with the cruise ships

 And here's some swampland that a lot of my area looks like.

   The bus ride was fun. I always enjoy getting a chance to look at New Orleans. I can't wait to go visit there. I did have an interesting bus experience. We made a stop where a little 4 year old got on. He cried and cried when he got on the bus. Luckily his dad is Deaf and could sign to him at the bus window up until we had to leave. It broke my heart to see such a little one have to get sent off the school to live for a week. I know it's the best place for him to be, and there are circumstances that pop up that make it impossible for the parents to live closer to the school (this area is decently poor). I don't know if I'd ever have the strength to do the right thing like that. You could see that that dad hated to do what he was doing. Thank goodness we had Madagascar on to get him distracted and he was fine after a bit. 

      After a weekend like this weekend, it made it really difficult want to go back to school today. It's always hard on Monday too because half of our students do live at the school and they always tend to be more cranky on Mondays. Today was the hardest day I've had here yet. I'm admitting my dirty little secret right now. Today made me absolutely loathe middle school. The students were defiant and wouldn't respect me as seniority, none of them would even try with their work, we had many fights during lunch break (we had to write up reports and everything) and my students even complained when I went to a class I'm not even responsible for to do a fun, hands on, art like activity with them. (mind you, this activity was on the spot). I was so close to calling my supervisor and telling her, "you move me into an elementary class right now or I'm heading home". 

   After school we found out the middle school girls had an away basketball game and I've been helping out with coaching a bit there. We decided to go along with them to fill the rest of our volunteer hours for the week. I was extremely tired, and fed up with the students and wanted to quit. Until later in the night one of my students came up to me (7th grader) and put her head on my shoulder, sighed, and got back up to play some more basketball. I realized that even though these kids give me grief during the day sometimes, I matter at least a tiny bit to them. I just have to keep that little tidbit in my mind. Even though it's not the most ideal situation, there is still always little rays of sunshine in the rain.