Tongue Tattoos

Well folks, in case anyone is worried, I still love my job. This is not to say that negative things never happen. (Look at my last post for hard evidence of that.) But truth be told, it is important to not let the negative get you down for long, and to focus on the positive. Because the facts of the case are that the positives in my job far outweigh the negative, so it is silly to dwell on hard things for very long. What point is there to be miserable for long when you can be happy? So in the spirit of what many of us heard at a recent convention, I'm happy. And full of joy.

And I have plenty to be happy about. And laugh about. This includes "blondeness" in some of my students. For example, today I had an upper level U.S. History student raise her hand and ask me what "champion states" are. Not sure what she meant, I had her point out to me in the textbook the passage she was referring to. There it talked about people who wanted to "champion states' rights." This provided me with one of those opportunities, so common for teachers, to exercise a fair amount of patience. Some of you hard hearted readers might have burst into mocking laughter. But not me. As a highly trained--and highly paid--professional educator, I withheld my laughter and calmly told her to look at the rest of the sentence, that champion means "proclaiming" or "arguing for" states' rights.

More fun moments today. They revolved around tongue tattoos. I got some in this pack of Trix yogurt I happened to buy. They're these Halloween things you put on your tongue, kind of like really thin fruit rollups, and if you show people your tongue before the two minutes or so it takes for the saliva to dissolve it completely, it looks a little like a real tatoo. Only a little, mind you. Nevertheless, I put one on shortly before three of my classes today. I then told them I wouldn't be doing much talking, as I had just gotten my tongue tattooed, and it didn't come out too well. I then stuck out my tongue. Some students didn't know quite what to think. A couple actually believed me for a short period of time. Sound like fun? It was.