The Gift of Giving Good News.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  Bailey's sporting sparkle on her left hand, and a smile as bright as a shining star.  For the full preview, click here...

Anyway, it was back to work today, full of the Christmas spirit, and knowing that even though Bruce was bragging about having finished his Christmas shopping, he now has ONE more family gift to buy, now that Bailey made the list!

Every single minute of the next few weeks will be packed full of preparations, and tying up loose ends before vacation.  (Along with the annual talent show at the high school where the teachers are willing to prove that they are willing to humiliate themselves in the name of entertainment.)  

Good news abounds, and I've taken a page from that good news book and am working to turn frowns upside down wherever I can.

Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines...

We all have deadlines, and we all hate them.  (Or, perhaps, they provide the needed sense of accomplishment and list-crossing-off for the left-brained among us.  You know who you are.)  Looming in the coming weeks are major deadlines for the "BIG PAPER" for my 9th grade Information Literacy students.  Five, count'em FIVE pages, with in text citations and a works cited page.  Sounds like nothing, unless you're a freshman, then it sounds like pure hell.  We've been plugging along all semester at a rate that seemed pretty reasonable, and now, suddenly, we can see vacation in our crosshairs.

And the rough drafts, which I had promised them they would have ample time to finish before Christmas break, leaving them empty arms and backpacks for the holiday break, aren't done.

Now, I firmly believe that a five page, double spaced, research paper, WITH QUOTES, I might add, to take up plenty of space,  to support the thesis, should NOT be that big a deal.  And in a couple of years, they'll shrug them off like a good upperclassman would do.  But that's not the case right now.  So, in my current benevolent dictator state, I announced to them that the actual requirement established for this project by the district is THREE to FIVE pages. 

And I'll accept three.

I may not have a sleigh.  I don't know the whereabouts of the missing eight reinDEER.  But I'm pretty high up on the list of at least 27 freshmen with that holiday gift.