#549 School field trip day

Neil Pasricha

It all starts with the permission slip.

Yes, when teachers send them home before the bell rings so parents can rubber stamp the bumpy yellow bus trip to the museum, then it’s on, my friends, it’s on.

Soon the days count down and the buzz builds up as the class gets ready for the day away from school. The middle-ages unit wraps up at Medieval Times, paintings are handed in before the art gallery, and everyone mails a friend a letter before the tour of the post office.

On the morning of the big day you wake up with some extra pep in your step because you know we’re all going far away. It’s time to skip the portables, soggy sandwiches, and long afternoons with the Spanish teacher.

It’s time to do something different.

It’s time … to go for a ride.

Yes, whether it’s the petting zoo, chocolate factory, or a long hike in the woods, it’s time to enjoy the school vacation with some of the following perks:

1. Subs in the house. Taking thirty screaming seven-year-olds to the planetarium is a bit much, so most teachers call in backups in the form of parent chaperones. These subs act like a sweet and sweatered army of substitutes and don’t know enough names or have enough power to mess up the fun. Of course, that’s assuming they’re not your mom or dad. If that happens, your day is done.

2. Wheels on the bus. They go round and round on the way there and back. Yeah, we all gang rush into the slippery seatbelt-free seats and enjoy a loud, laughing party on wheels. There are loud screechy songs, secret makeout sessions, and some friendly gestures at passing motorists. This is also when the classroom’s social structure is on display too — from the cool kids at the back to the nerds sitting with the teacher up front. I really did love sitting up front though. I mean, how about that view?

3. Sealing it in. A friend and I were strolling quickly through an art gallery a couple years back when we stumbled on a group of kindergartners holding a rope and looking at splotchy art paintings. I’ll never remember the jaw-dropping look of pure head-tilting amazement from the little boy at the end of the group — eyes twinkling, mittens hanging out his winter coat, and his whirring brain soaking and swallowing up something beautiful on the wall. And it’s true: field trips often help seal in the learning. Chalk one up for school.

So… let’s enjoy the memories, let’s enjoy the moments, and let’s enjoy the parking lot speed bumps. Yes, let’s all love those special days when dusty chalkboards fade away and buses wheel us down the freeway, far away, far away, far away.

AWESOME!

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Photos from: here, here, here, and here

2,210 thoughts to “#549 School field trip day”

  1. Making meaningful eye contact with a beautiful stranger for that oooone extra second…just because you can.
    AWESOME.

  2. Wandering down random streets in your hometown and pretending you’re somewhere new and exotic.

    Hidden gems tucked away, little secondhand bookstores, small neighborhood cafes with the smell of fresh coffee wafting through the crisp morning air, splashing through unknown puddles and meandering down winding lanes.

    AWESOME.

  3. Your first beer of the summer season.

    It’s been a long, dark, gloomy winter. You’ve spent countless hours scraping ice off your windshield, blowing uselessly on your hands in vain attempts to get the feeling back in them, counted the seconds while you’ve waited outside for the bus that never comes, trying to face the right way so the wind doesn’t sting quite so much.

    The memory of the sun is distant and fading and on that first summer day, when the weather is perfect and the day is entirely yours to enjoy, when you can turn off your cellphone and lie back in the hammock, there’s nothing better than popping open that bottle and celebrating your first sip.

    Cheers.

    AWESOME.

  4. Classic films! Is there anything better than an afternoon in your pjs watching Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Maureen O’Hara, James Dean, Deborah Kerr, and company loving, fighting, adventuring, ust plain pouring their hearts out on screen in the golden age of Hollywood and film-making while? I think not!

  5. When you walk home after a long, snowy day to find your roommates making soup and grilled cheese and just starting a movie.

  6. Puppy snuggles because nothing is better than after a long hard day of back-breaking work when your feet are sore, you’re the crankiest person on the planet, you have a killer migraine that may drive you to choke the next person who looks at you sideways and your puppy/dog snuggles right up to you and looks at you with eyes that say “Hey there, I know you had a tough day and I love ya, take a load off and enjoy a little cuddle from me.”

    Straight up AWESOME.

  7. After a period of sickness, suddenly realizing you haven’t coughed in a long while.

    In short, feeling better after sickness = AWESOME!

    1. truth! you never appreciate the benefits of health until you are sick and all you want is to be healthy again!

  8. Sending off the last payment on anything. Be it loan payment, car payment, or credit card, as you put the last check in the mail (or submit payment online in this modern age) you feel free. A huge weight lifts from your shoulders and you feel luxuriously wealthy as you contemplate what you will buy with the extra room in your budget. Not to mention the sense of pride and accomplishment from doing the grown-up thing and crawling out from under one more piece of your debt and close the chapter on it.
    AWESOME

    1. Such a stress reliever! I have a countdown going until the day that my credit cards will be paid off… I can’t wait!

  9. Talking to your friends and realizing that they’re the only ones who would understand the conversation.

    2. this is best in a public place when you realize people around you who may be listening in must be really confused and possibly slightly concerned.

      1. i love that. when i’m walking around campus and just hear like two words of someone’s intense story. it’s the best cuz it’s so random and you can only imagine what they are actually talking about.

  10. This is from my boyfriend Joe:

    “Mathematics! Because it’s beautiful in it’s simplicity and complexity. Awesome”

    He’s getting his PhD in what he calls the “universal language”.

    Being a theatre kid myself I think he’s crazy ;)

  12. Being able to do something you were never able/allowed to do as a child. (Like sledding, which I finally got to do this year :D)

  13. Getting a package in the mail and being able to open it like as if it were Christmas.

  14. A big glass of cold milk. Whether for dunking your favorite girl scout cookie, the beginning of your favorite milk shake/malt, or just for straight sipping- nothing beats that cold creamy taste and lil moustache you sport with pride. Awesome.

  17. When your (boy / girl)friend understands what you’re thinking by simply looking you in the eyes.

    Because there’s a bond between you two that is as strong as a rock that nobody can break!

    Simply AWESOME!

  18. When someone gives you their unused time on ticket where you have to pay for parking.

    You may not have had that extra 2 dollars kicking around in the ashtray. You may have been a bit worried about how you were going to pay because there are no freebies here. Or maybe you already decided that you were going to chance it. Going to beat the pay parking system. They give you 2 hours but you only need 15 minutes; umm not fair and it’s actually kind of a tease.

    Now what you didn’t expect was for someone you don’t know to have your back. Some random person approaching you when you’re about to buy a ticket and saying “Hey human being I don’t know, noticed to might need some parking time well here is a free hour for ya. I’m on my way out anyways. Have at er.”

    No need to give them money. Just a quick smile a earnest “thanks for being amazing” and you’re on your way.

    Now use that free time and pay it forward now or next time or sometime. Go ahead eager beaver make another persons day. Because people looking out for people with something as simple as free parking time only has one word to explain it. Awesome.

  21. when you get to turn the calendar to a new page, sometimes it is the kind where you get to tear the off a page, and you can get it just perfectly without any left over bits still stuck to the top.

    it is only once a month, but it is always nice to see a new page and look forward to a fresh start

  22. Realizing you really miss someone, and THEN realizing you get to see them soon. Your best-friend-since-junior-high moved to another town. You’re a college kid slogging toward the end of the semester. You’ve moved a long way from where you grew up to start your career and raise your family. You’ve been too busy to spend much time with your significant other.

    Whatever the situation is, someone is out of your life for awhile, whether it’s one friend or your whole family. You’re cruising along, perfectly content with the decisions you’ve made, being accomplished and dedicated and taking the world by storm. And then suddenly, something reminds you of that person–a song, or a smell, or a note in the mail. And it hits you like a tidal wave: you miss them! You haven’t seen that BFF, or your siblings, or your parents, or that special someone in days or weeks or months or years and you do not like it one little bit. It’s rough.

    But wait a minute. It’s almost spring break! The deadlines are about to pass and let you ease up on the stress at work! A three-day weekend is coming up and your friend is making a road trip to see you! Something’s going to change for the better, and you get to see that beautiful face and hear that beautiful voice, and it’s going to be even better because you’ve just realized how very much you missed them. AWESOME!

  23. When 1000 Awesome Things decides to let you join in the fun and even gives you a prize for it.

    Or actually, when your favorite website gives away freebies, too.

    I bet some of us all went green with envy when we first stumbled upon 1000 Awesome Things, thinking, hey, I could have thought of doing that! How cool! But we have come back again and again and learned to love the site (and stopped fantasizing it’s ours.).

    It’s one thing to wake up one morning and realize, hey, something in my life is awesome. But to actually find a place where someone collects all the awesome stuff and puts it all together for everyone to see how awesome their lives are?

    Awesome!

    This is not a suck-up post, with me thinking, oh I’ll just tell that person, your Awesome site is awesome, dude! But my eyes were jumping in their orbits when I found out we get to submit and there gets to be two winners. That in itself is great enough. And they give away books? (And that they’re sending anywhere in the world, and it’s not just limited to that person’s neighborhood?)

    Awesome-er!

    I’ve read the other submissions and had a blast. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for each other.

  24. When you’re very very hungry and you know someone is cooking you something you really like.

    :)

    AWESOME !

  25. Those random nights in college.

    Tonight I found myself in my car with two friends driving around Fayetville AR, listening to whatever the Ipod chose for us, driving no where, just driving, finding parks, random lakes, scary houses, and big lit up crosses, because that’s what college kids do on Sunday nights.

    You’re in the prime of your life so why not do whatever the heck you want when you have class at 2:30?!

  26. Having someone to massage your feet for you

    Whether your feet are actually sore or that someone just wants to be nice, the receiving end of a foot massage can never be a bad thing. How good does it feel to have someone massage your feet after a long day at work or after dancing the night away? Foot massages are especially great when nothing is expected from you in return. Sit back, relax, let them go to work, and don’t forget to say thanks. Another great type is the surprise foot massage, in which case you have your feet within reaching distance and they start rubbing them when you least expect it!

    It could be your lover or your mother, but someone who can deal with your feet smelling a little and some lint between your toes just to give you a few minutes of pure bliss must be someone who really cares.

    AWESOME!

  27. Being a few dimes short of buying something and then desperately rummaging all your pockets for stray coins and finding a lint-covered piece of treasure.

    Awesome.

  28. Jumping over ridiculously large puddles:

    Seriously.. you take the same path to work/school every day, but today is different; it rained the night before and suddenly you’re in a –obstacle course– (link to: “When you pretend your floor is hot lava”)

    Thanks to the jerks that don’t know where to install sewer holes, there are now ridiculous lakes that get in the way of your usual walking path. When you first realize this, two things may happen.

    1) you’re feeling too lazy so you decide to backtrack and find a path to avoid said puddle. Or maybe you don’t want to get your shoes wet: the kind of shoes that soak up water like a sponge. In this case you just –take out your cell phone, pretend that someone is texting you, and backtrack awkwardly.– (link to: “When you look at your cellphone in an awkward situation”)

    or

    2) You think to yourself
    “I can jump that!!”

    Maybe it was the coffee in the morning, or maybe its the really cool song playing in your iPod. But today for whatever reason, you think that you can long jump 2 meters like a track and field athlete. (or at least like you did in elementary school)

    So everything starts to slow down…
    Your walking pace hits high gear…
    You reach the puddle and leap!

    and guess what! you cleared it!!

    forget about feeling insecure in case anyone saw that, cause right now you are..

    AWESOME!!

    (insert picture of track and fielder making a long jump)

  29. When you go out of the dentist after the usual pain of injections and drillings, you feel soooo relieved and light like a feather: awesome!

  30. Handing in an essay/assignment that you’ve been working on for ages.

    Awesome!

    N.B. reaches new levels of awesome if it was your final assignment and you never have to study that subject again!

  31. Its awesome to finally hear what others take for granted for the first time. Realizing that lighting has sound not to viberation. But the ultimate awesome of all hearing my mothers sweet voice after 28 years all because I chose to get a cochlear implant. I love how awesome the world is no longer silenced for me and how beautifull it sounds.

  32. waking up to a fresh blanket of snow perfectly covering every tree branch, truck bed, and roof and seeing the beauty of the earth is awesome.

  34. awesome: when you grab a stack of freshly copied papers and they’re still warm, so you hold them to your chest.

  37. Skipping your favorite TV shows to watch a movie with your friends, knowing that you can just catch the shows tomorrow on Hulu.

  42. Looking at your best friend and you both knowing exactly what is going through each other’s minds.

  43. Being best friends with siblings again after a nasty fight the day before, as if it never even happened.

  44. Staying up late and sleeping through class because sleeping during the night and staying awake through a boring class isn’t LIVING

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