So, today, I went on the first field trip for school that I will take this year. While all field trips are awesome, none can compare to the one I will take from March 27- April 4: GREECE. Yeah, you right. I'm going to Greece. I was supposed to take 7/8 to Puerto Rico. Then 7th grade moved out of the high school. There weren't enough 8th graders to support the trip. They canceled my trip and moved me to the Greece trip the 9th-12th graders are taking. They are going to allow the 8th graders to travel to Greece IF they have a parent accompany them.
Anyway, we saw "Hurricane on the Bayou" at the IMAX. Perhaps this was not a good week for me to go. I silently cried my eyes out and half expected my contacts to float away. I thought it was all just about the wetlands conservation just in case the big one ever came (they started filming three months before Katrina), with an afterthought of the big one having almost hit. Yeah, people not from here, she was not THE big one. She hit Mississippi dead on. We could have been much, much worse.
I would have been a little okay, but seeing aerial footage of the city pre-K was hard. I immediately flashed back to what life was like back then.
THEN, they followed little Amanda Shaw, the violinist, as she evacuated, watched the news, went to her destroyed home, reunited with her grandfather who was rescued from his roof....and Tab Benoit as he found his destroyed home on the bayou.
Did I mention the footage of the baby alligators blowing away from their mother? 50-60 babies, down to 1 after the storm.
Did I mention all of the footage, some real, some news clips, some weather channel clips, some probably recreated CGI? Oh, and what about that transition scene where they showed the Dome with the Dominion Tower and the Hyatt (the two places where I stayed during the storm, if you remember...), while the roof blew off the Dome, and a piece of it slammed the camera lens?
Or how about, when the visuals got to be too much, so I closed my eyes, but there was no way to block out the audio, and it was just like the real thing, all over again, when I was laying in the ad office, trying to sleep, as windows broke and water drenched the rug, and we had to move to a more inward location of the radio station?
Is this what it's like after 'Nam for soldiers?
I could have left, but that would have dropped the student/teacher ratio. I could have left, but I didn't want anyone worrying about me. SO I sat down, and stayed, and cried in silent hysterics.
Didn't experience the storm? Want to? Go see this.
What about the kids? Well, none of them seemed upset, but they were in 4th and 5th grade when it all happened. They moved on. They don't remember. This is both good and bad. As much as I don't want to remember, I don't want to forget or be forgotten.
Why did I go? I was available, they needed help, I wouldn't need a sub, and I teach Louisiana History. I figured I HAD to. Now I wish I hadn't.
Bad week to go. Bad, bad, bad week to go.
2 comments:
Even a worse week with the fourth anniversary looming. :(
*hugs* This has to suck.
This has been a crazy busy month getting ready to move so I haven't read your blog in a while. I decided to take a minute and catch up before my internet gets disconnected for a few days. As I was reading this posting, it stuck me how similar your thoughts about not wanting to remember but not wanting to forget were to mine after the death of my cousin years ago. It felt so absolutely terrible to remember, yet I felt guilty when it didn't hurt because I was moving on and possibly forgetting him. As the years have passed, it no longer hurts for me, but I no longer live in the same town surrounded by the same people and landmarks. I wonder how it feels for my brother and other cousins who still live there. Are they still surrounded by memories? I don't know. I don't ask because I don't want to feel the pain again.
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