First day of 2007? Not so sucky

I figured that the first day back at school after a long break would be, shall we say, slightly stressful, and I wasn’t let down on that expectation. But two awesome things happened:

First, I gave my 8th grade monsters a worksheet, which prompted a fit of complaining wherein they came up with a hilariously creative metaphor of me being Hitler come again, complete with concentration camps where I made them break their fingers writing 10,000 sentences daily, and devised ingenious punishments for each mistake made (“No, in present perfect! Two mistakes, I beat you four hours! Five mistakes, I shoot you!”). Although I know I should be insulted, I could only laugh myself to tears, raise my hands to god and chant, “Oh, if only!”

Second, my 6th graders had such fun with an activity (making up their own board games and playing them) that both they and I completely lost track of time and actually went overtime. A-maz-ing.

Third, non-school related, but something I realized in the, oh, six hours it took me to finish this post: new year equals new shows on tv. And in my tv-based life, this is huge.