EE-AI-EE-AI-OH

The purpose of my trip is to chaperone our junior high exchange program. My friends, many of whom work with kids of varying ages, questioned my ability to handle this age group given I am mostly responsible for 3 cats. In my defense, some of those cats have medical needs which demands a bit more from me. Nonetheless, the reactions have ranged from "you'll be fine" to "that is the worst age group". I was thankful to have the chance to get to know the kids before we left. We first met with all the parents. We met two times after that without parents. It was great to see the personalities come out. We could start to tell who was outgoing and who was more shy. I felt greatly reassured when the kids made me laugh. This picture is at one of our meetings. The kids were learning how to use chopsticks.

As part of our exchange, the kids must perform something - a song, dance, or some other kind of talent. They will perform this a couple of times during the trip. When the kids come from Japan in March to the U.S. they do the same thing. It was determined that we would change the lyrics to Old McDonald Has A Farm. So we are singing "Bloomington-Normal has ...". The kids picked a few items the B-N has that we will be singing about. Those items are:

• Farms and those farms have corn
• ISU and ISU has Redbirds
• Wesleyan and Wesleyan has Titans
• Steak & Shake and Steak & Shake has steakburgers (B-N trivia: B-N is home to the very first Steak & Shake)
• Abe Lincoln and Abe Lincoln has a top hat

Use your imagination. We are tweaking a few of the words and stretching/shrinking syllables to make it work. We had a good time last week practicing and I think by the time we get there we'll be ready to perform. Hopefully Robert typed up the lyrics. We can use the 14 hour flight to prepare.