I Heart Central Park

Going to Central Park was a giant 180 from the day before. I went in determined to have a good day. I basically decided that no matter what happened, I was going to be positive and cheerful and have a fun day. And it worked! The kids had a great time at the park, and my brother came along and played sports with the kids and I watched them play basketball against another school and we ate lunch and sat in the sun and it was just great. Despite 2 tiny incidents with the NYPD and another with an art student photographer and his blonde model.
 
The cops were all over us. It was a little embarrassing how obvious it was. This cop on a bike sat right behind me while I watched my kids play basketball and circled the fields where our kids were sitting and eating and playing. At one point, Nat was kind of sitting on this fence and bouncing on it which made it bend and I didn't notice until the cop was telling him to get off of it. But this somehow later led to 2 cops accusing our kids of destroying a different segment of fence and how "these types of things" are what leads to schools not being allowed to return. He insisted he saw it happen with his own eyes but could not point out who did it or when they did it, and I had all the boys playing on the courts while it supposedly happened, and he says it was a boy. So whatever.
 
The incident that I thought was far more frustrating occurred when I noticed this lame hipster photographer talking to 2 of my boys on the court and taking their picture with his blonde model friend. I walked over, being a protective Mommy-Teacher, and asked what was going on and they said:
 
"Oh we are art students and it's for our portfolio."
"Well, these children are minors and their parents aren't here to consent you taking their photograph..." [still taking pictures while talking to me]
"Oh that's ok. We aren't publishing them anywhere, just keeping them for ourselves."
"I'm not really comfortable with this--they are just children and you don't have permission."
"Oh don't worry! They wont be seen by anyone."
 
In the meanwhile, they are asking the kids, who are all starting to come over in excitement that there is a "model" here in their midst [she was just this kind of average looking skinny girl with a lot of makeup on] and he's asking them "now I want you to look at her like you think she's really beautiful" and I'm raising my eyebrows and can NOT believe he is still taking the pictures. What a nerve! I just thought the whole thing was kind of objectifying my kids like they were worshiping this girl and it was just icky.
 
I eventually pulled them away and called my co-teacher who was over on the Great Lawn to tell her what happened and she was like WHAT?! and went to talk to them about it and made them promise to discard the photos and got in this whole legal argument with them. They were unbelievable and unlikable all around.
 
Today I told my kids that this is my last year of teaching. The morning class took it ok--they took my work email address and I collected their emails and promised to write them over the summer and visit next year. My homeroom was a little more dramatic. Sharia started clapping when I told her I was going to get my PhD, in this weird like "You Go Girl" kind of way that made me feel kinda silly. Then Wojema told me that some email addresses are "Sconex" emails? Which she explained meant that they were "fake" emails but I just looked up Sconex and it's like a high school MySpace so I have no idea what that's all about.

After work we had our staff End of Year Happy Hour uptown which led to copious staff gossip and my principal talking to me about how he wanted me to work for him in some capacity next year which I think is somewhat appealing but I'm not sure it's going to happen on my end.

Monday we are heading upstate-ish for Field Day in a park. This time I'm bringing sunscreen and keeping Nat away from the coppers.