Christmas

has pretty much been all about little Ellen.

But we're okay with that.

It burns, it BURNS!

During my sixth hour on Friday, some girl brought the mega sized pixi sticks--the ones made out of plastic and not paper because they're so big--to class for all the children.

In an effort to not completely kill the tangible sense of holiday cheer in the room, I looked the other way and let them suck down as much sugar as possible while taking their quiz on persuasive speaking. (For the record, there WAS a true/false question regarding the intelligence of all Asians.)

It's obvious now that I should have known better than to allow the mega pixis. I'm not sure how I missed the actual act of snorting, but when one of the boys in the back exclaimed, "It burns, it BURNS!" while blue colored snot poured out of his left nostril, eyes streaming with tears, stumbling towards me for a kleenex, I realized the complete and total error of my ways.

I did manage an almost straight faced "serves you right" before shoving the box of kleenex at him.

I'm laughing just thinking about it.

Happy happy holidays, friends.

We just can't make this stuff up

This afternoon we were talking about elements of persuasion and argument in Pubic Speaking. After about a ten minute discussion of logical fallacies and generalizations, one kid raised his hand and said:

"Well, actually, some of them are true. I mean, like, all Asians are smart."

After another five minutes of ridicule and yelling from the other members of the class, this kid backed down with, "Okay fine. Half then. Half of all Asians are smart."

There are days when it's clear that I'm not really making a difference.

It's over. So over.

What a big day.

I was a little worried at my defense when the first question one of the examining professors asked was if I could unpack "a bit" my "notion of third space" and expand on the ways in which I see teachers' monologic scripts butting up against students' counterscripts in class. At that point, the only option I felt available to me was to open my mouth and pray to God that something--anything, really-- would fly out of my mouth sounding smart.

65 minutes later, in what would prove to be the most anticlimactic moment of my graduate school career, I walked out of there with three passing signatures and a completed application to graduate. If all goes as it should, I'll officially graduate on January 31, 2008. I even turned in my library books and had the nice nerdy boy at the counter make sure I didn't have any outstanding books. Woot woot, people.

It's been a long, long road.

Tonight I got to babysit

Cyndy wasn't kidding about this one.

Welcome to the world, Baby Girl

Thursday night around 11:25, my very first niece was born. She weighed in at 7 lbs 11 ounces and was 20.5" long.

I managed to resist asking the nurse what her Apgar score was for about two minutes. I felt vindicated when Dad also asked what her score was and why she was deducted two points. Welcome to the Tholen family, little girl.

If I've learned anything in the last two days, it's that people easily wax poetic about babies and it's hard to keep from getting saccharine about this new little person in the world. The best teacher I ever had once said that babies are so beautiful because they're so fresh from heaven. The fact that the family's first grandchild was born one day after my late grandfather's birthday was lost on no one. We have been overly sentimental about little Ellen Rachel, but it's hard not to be. When you hold someone so little, so light, and so new, it's hard not to wonder at the (sorry about the cliche) complete miracle of her being.

At some point this morning when I was helping Cyndy and Dave pack up the hospital room to bring Ellen home for the first time, I looked at both of them--parents now, for the rest of their lives--and realized that if nothing else, one thing is certain: in the most beautiful way possible, life would never, ever be the same for them.

I was struck speechless, really.

It's no lie, I have excellent sophomores this year. For whatever reason, I struck the jackpot in the kid pool for my classes. They look smart, they act smart, they smile a lot, they thank me on their way out the door and say things about how they're "reading this really great book...not for school, just for fun" and generally, I couldn't be happier with them.

These last few days, the sophs have been researching topics for a class debate in the computer lab next door to my classroom. Any time spent in a computer lab is usually filled with me reminding students to stay on task (wonderful students or not) and redirecting kids back to their work and assignment. I like to fancy myself creative and kind in my redirections and reminders to get back to work. Only twice today did I have to say, "For the love of God, will you at least ACT like you're working on something."

But I was struck speechless, really, when I turned around today to find Molly wearing huge, white sunglasses with reflective lenses, swirling round and round and round and round in her chair while balancing a stuffed toy dragon on the top of her head.

"Molly!" I barked.

Her swirling chair came to a slow stop and honest to God, I could see my reflection in her sunglasses as she said, "What? Why are you LOOKING at me like that?!?"

"Are you kidding?"

"God...it's JUST a dragon."

W. T. F. people. I just did not have a response to that one.