It is 7:48 AM, March 10th. I am alive, and semi still a zombie. I went to bed finally at 6 PM March 9 and didn't wake up until now. I thought I would post a reflection of what was the most fun, longest night, I would totally do again, DeLay's 24 hour Skype-a-thon!
I went into the Skype-a-thon really excited and totally sure that everyone was going to hate me by the end of the 24 hours. I had to be at school at 9 AM on the March 7th to help Garza with all the things. I of course didn't get enough sleep because of my excitement, so I went into the morning a little scared. We were totally prepared, had all the food, and all the library set up for our adventure.
My little family was so excited!! They are a bunch of really outgoing and adventurous kiddos (Seth, Yahir, Luis, Brandon, Cristofer, and Kenia). I knew they were ready and I knew they were going to be awesome. We did several group skype calls and even ran our first call.
At about 9:30, I was starting to get tired and so was Kenia. We moved into the hall for some rest. The boys colored and Kenia and I catnapped. By 10:30 the boys were ready to blow off some steam. We got about an hour of gym play time in and the kids loved it. After, that it was skype call after skype call and by 1:30 AM in the middle of a call I was beginning to lose it. I couldn't keep my head up and didn't want to be rude. I moved myself under the table to try to keep it together. My boys were so sweet and covered me with a blanket to make sure I was good.
After that call I knew I needed a nap. Kenia and I set up a pallet and a few of my boys did the same and we passed out. I set an alarm for 2 hours. I was not going to miss a lot of stuff and wanted to make sure I would be good after that.
I will say that 2 hour napped changed my night. I totally needed that. I definitely felt like a truck hit me, but I was ready to take on the rest of the skype calls. I found that I had about 4 kids (Seth, Brandon, Yahir and Luis) still rolling at 4 AM. They hadn't slept!!! We lost Seth and Brandon to sleep shortly after that.
Luis, Yahir and I starting preparing for the next skype calls we were in charge of. I will tell you we were dumb and had most of our calls during the day on Friday. (We learned our lesson). Cristofer woke up around then and joined us. We made our calls into the Friday morning and man I could tell my all nighters, Luis and Yahir, were fading fast. At about 9 AM they went down and man were they out.
All and all everyone was delirious, the teachers especially. We made a ton of I'm sure hilarious confessional videos. I took hilarious selfies with the sleepers and Selz and I kept our "Cartwheel Time" still going strong. We skyped all over the world in 24 hours and I would totally do it all over again. I wish I could say I remember every part of it, but my zombie brain was pretty much mush at a certain point. I went out into the halls to see some of my kiddos/other teachers and what I heard was pretty much what you would expect, "Man, you look tired," "Dang Miss you look pale and I've never seen you without makeup on," or my favorite, to a child asking me a million questions, "Dude, don't talk to her right now she's had 2 hours of sleep and she may kill you!" It's like they know me so well.
All and all it was a great night! I got to spend the night with some of the greatest kids DeLay has right now, with my amazing teaching friends, with my 8th grade basketball coach, and it was all doing what I love to do. Garza is just about as crazy as I am and I'm so glad I went along with her on this journey. I know I was apart of something that these kiddos will NEVER forget.
Until next year...
-Castillo
