Will This Week Never End?!

The first big news of today is that I now have two twelfth grade students who are engaged. The one who got engaged today is M.R.'s sister. The entire school is very excited.
Second big issue of the day.
During literature we read about a man who had lost his wife and gotten remarried. Now seventh graders have a tendency to come up with the weirdest questions, and with R.H. in the class, you are guaranteed to get more than the average share.
She wanted to know if the new wife had been married before.
I told her that I had honestly no idea.
So she continued to ask me why someone who hadn't been married before would want to marry a person who was so to speak, "damaged."
I had the entire class shut their books as I spoke about this issue.
The truth is, it's only an issue in the community where I live. If a man was divorced, or if a girl was sick as a child, they are considered in effect, "damaged." They are classified into their own category, and usually, a "regular" person would never consider marrying in.
Now I consider it a very flawed system, and every time I have the chance I try to speak up against it.
I don't only think it flawed because I happened to have had cancer as a child. I think it's flawed because people's insides are so much more important that what people perceive their "outsides" to be.
Personally, I did not feel I had to compromise when it came to my marriage to my husband. What we had gone through in our lives made us and continues to make us stronger and more special. I feel that I have a soul mate in my husband that I could never have achieved with someone who hasn't experienced the hard side of life.
No one believes that I am only 18 years old. I look act and sound much older than my years. Being sick did that to me.
But that's really too personal for this blog.
I tried to explain to the class, that this unfortunately is the system we live by today. The students in their naive idealism kept saying it was unfair.
I told them that their lives and marriages would probably be ruled by the same social system, but it was up to them to start making the difference.
Of course, it didn't mean that they all had to go out and marry divorcees, but I got them to understand that they had to look at a person a hundred times before they judged their insides.
The messaged was deep, and I hope I don't get into trouble for it, but I am sure that some girls will keep this lesson in mind for the future.
It was actually a teacher of mine who influenced me to think this way. -Before I got sick.
You never know.
The newspaper girls came over to me to ask me when they were supposed to have a newspaper meeting as they were told they had to get an issue in print before Purim.
Purim is 10 days away. They're dreaming.
I went to talk to the principal about scheduling a newspaper meeting for Sunday, and we got into a little conversation, (ok, that's the nice way of putting it) about my job as a mentor for the paper.
I guess I made enough faces for my message to get across. I have no time, nerves, or patience to be on this paper.
She asked me to head it just for this month and then we'll see about going further.
I didn't agree, but I didn't say anything else either, so she took it as a yes. I'll have to give this issue some serious thought.
She spent some time criticizing everything I did for the past 99 years of my life, and then I escaped to class.
I had brought in a really out of style "biz" skirt to illustrate the Elastic Clause to the 7a class. It was a great lesson.
12th grade was on a high because of their "kallah," but I got them settled as we listened to a great speech.
It's not quite finished yet, so I have another couple of speech classes left.
I'm really excited that the weekend is finally here, but I have some matters to attend to first.
The secretary had dumped the task of attendance on my head. I'm behind in my attendance book, so she made me take home the school's records so that I can fill it in.
Their long claws clutch at me even during the weekend.....
My co called me all upset.
She had finally taken my advice to just make the girls make up their own work when they were too rowdy for her to finish her lesson.
She felt bad doing it because the girls took it very hard.
I felt bad too, but I really think the 7b class needed that discipline. They're upset now, but they'll hopefully get the message.
And now let's post and say hello the the weekend!