permission

I had a grundle of students in complete shock today.

"What?! What do you mean we don't have school Thursday and Friday?!"

"It's Thanksgiving, sillies!"

"So, we don't come to school on Thanksgiving?"

"Nope. You go to your grandma's house and eat till you feel like you'll explode."

"Oh, yeah!"

I couldn't believe that the majority of my students had no idea that we didn't have school. Havn't they ever had a Thanksgiving break? Maybe they were playing dumb (something I'm learning to do quite well--" We read in Reading class, Mrs. Hubert, why do we have to read in English?" "You are joking! You read in reading class! That is totally new to me! I guess we'll just have to march down to that reading teacher and complain, 'we want to read in English, too, Mr.!) Tomorrow I am going to do a Native American activity, not necesarily Thanksgiving-y, but more in general about the Native Americans (it goes along with the multi-cultural stuff I've been doing.) I found this really cool Navajoo Code Talking book in the library so after I explain it to them, I'm going to have them write a little message using these codes. Hopefully they can handle it.

Also tomorrow is the doughnut parties for the winners of the "Be-good-for-the-substitute-while-Mrs. Hubert-is-gone" contest. Both 2nd and 7th period will be enjoying some Bamberry doughnuts, curtousy of Ben, who will be making the doughnut run for me bright and early. I had one normally quiet boy in 7th period today raise his hand and offer his own idea: "Maybe instead of doughnuts, we should have a small Thanksgiving feast. You could bring a turkey and rolls, and mashed potatoes." Notice how he said 'you,' meaning me. In another 'playing dumb' moment I said with a grin, "Yes! That's a great idea. I'll just dip into my pocket, since I have SO much money to spare, and purchase Thanksgiving stuffs for each of you and we'll pretend like we're the pilgrims coming to America. And then, I'll stay up late and make pumpkin pie from scratch and we'll take turns throwing them at each other!" I got a few laughs, but mostly just the regular teenage "I'm too cool for you" snort. It was priceless.

I left school early today to go pick up the journalism sweatshirts. I'm so excited to hand them out to the kids tomorrow. I told them today that even if they think the sweatshirts are ugly not to tell me because I would cry. The one lone boy in the class told me after that he'd beat anyone up if they told me they were ugly. Hopefully the four students who still haven't paid will get their money in soon!

In other journalism news: I sent the November paper in to the printer via e-mail on Monday morning at 6am. I asked that it be done and delivered by Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. It's the Thanksgiving issue so I wanted to distribute it before Thanksgiving. I got a phone call today during 7th period from the printer who said no one checked the e-mail yesterday and they have other things to print so they won't be able to deliver it until Monday. So, looks like we'll have a post-Thanksgiving issue full of lame Turkey jokes (what key has legs and walks? a turKEY) and a story on the BYU v U of U game, which happens Saturday. I'm kinda bummed about that, but I suppose the kids won't even pay attention to those sorts of things...heck, they don't even know what Thanksgiving is!

I went into the office this afternoon to get some paperwork and ran into the principal, who thinks I'm amazing for coming in last Friday when I was sick (he's said thank you about 20 times, which makes me feel good, I suppose). He asked me how I was feeling and I joked with him that while I do feel better, I still have a cough and a crackly voice, that the students laugh at because I sound like a boy going through puberty. He smiled and said, "Well, I give you permission to finish things up here tomorrow and then not do any school stuff over the weekend; give yourself a rest." Thanks for the permission. I think I might just take him up on the offer.

A few non-teaching related items:
* Ben and I have a new neice. I haven't seen her yet, but I'm excited she's here! Welcome to Caydi!!! Congrats to Brando and Meaghan!
* My Daddy-o is coming up for Thanksgiving and I'm uber excited. My big brother is coming, too, and that also makes me happy. In general, I'm just fantastically excited about Thanksgiving. It means 3 things: Mom's yummy food, seeing movies with dad, and sleeping in!!!