Ok.

I've had a pretty full couple of days, and I'm freaking exhausted, but you must know all the details.

Tuesday we had a staff meeting, which was fine but totally kills your after school prep time and makes you have to do stuff at home, which I like to keep to a minimum. Wednesday was meet the teacher night, where the parents come and run through all their child's classes and meet us all, get a welcome from the principal etc. More on that in a minute.

Yesterday, my 4th period class, grade 9s, were all giggly. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. I checked my teeth and face, and made sure I didn't have anything sticking to or hanging off me, and I was in fact clean. Very odd. I asked one of my (supposedly) more reliable students what everyone was laughing at. She says, very sincerely, 'I don't know!'. I say, 'really?, she assures me that yes, she has no idea. Ok. It was also Hawaiian day, we're doing spirit week. Today was 80s day, tomorrow is PJ day, but I'm getting off track. Anyway, because it was Hawaiian day, I had flowers on my desk. One of my students was up getting a pencil out of the cup on my desk where I keep pencils, markers, and pens for them to borrow. She says, I thought, 'is that a real flower?'. I say, no, it's fake, and go to pick it up to show her. She says 'no, is that a real frog?'

I look in my pen cup, and sure enough, there is a frog in there. I say to her, 'I don't think so, somebody must have put it in there for a joke!'.

Then I notice it is breathing.

I am surprised, but I don't scream or anything. I just say 'oh! it is real!' and then turn to my class and ask who did it, tell them nobody is leaving until I find out who it was, and that I am upset with them because the poor frog had been sitting in the cup for like 15 minutes before anyone noticed it.

I made them feel pretty bad, then took the poor frog outside. I had a feeling I knew who it was, but couldn't be sure, but I knew that at least half the class knew because they had all been giggling for the whole time, and had burst out laughing when I found it.

One of my students told me who it was, but I didn't confront him on it, I just let it go to see what would happen. I always give them a few minutes to clean up before the bell, and as they were doing that, one of my other students came up to me and told me that the boy who did it had written me a note and left it on my desk, and wanted me to read it. I said ok, the bell rang, and said boy stayed behind and waited for everyone to leave, and delivered what seemed to be a very sincere apology. I thanked him for coming clean and told him not to even think about doing it again. After the frog, since I didn't freak out, they were all like, 'well how do you feel about snakes?/spiders?/moose?'. I said I'm not afraid of anything that's not going to hurt me, and good luck getting a moose in here. They were reaching at that point.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. The note he wrote me was very sweet, I kept it and it reads something to the effect of, 'Dear Mrs S., I am really very sorry for what I did, and I promise it will never happen again. Sincerely, x'.

The topper to all this is that this boy's mother came in for meet the teacher, and I just sort of laughed, because she asked me how he was in class. I said we had a couple of rough spots but he's a good kid in a class of kids who when they get together just bounce off the walls. I didn't tell her about the frog, and I feel good about that. I think I made my point; I didn't need to get him in trouble. She said she's glad he's behaving (ha) because he told her he just *loves* my class. Very sweet. One of my other male students told me this boy has a crush on me. He has a funny way of showing it, but he is a 14 year old boy, so who knows.

Anyway, this is an insanely long post, so off I go! Birthday tomorrow, I have to bring my own cake, and I don't think I feel like making one as I had planned, so I think I'll buy a Superstore pound cake, they're delicous and have real butter icing. We bring our own cakes on our birthdays, because that way if you don't want people to know, they won't know. I like everyone to know, as you may have guessed based on the banner up yonder.

ok, off I go, for real.