by popular demand...

It has been brought to my attention that "The Fool's Progress" is suffering from a lack of author photos. So...here are a few prime shots from a little sayonara party we had last weekend. My friend Pete is going back to Australia to start med school, so in honor of that we decided to kill a few brain cells (he won't really be needing those in med school anyway, will he?) There seems to be a recurring theme with me in the photos...I think I had decided that in order to avoid making what my dear friend Kitty affectionately calls "duck face" in the photos, I should open my mouth as wide as possible. I can't tell if the experiment was a raging success or huge failure...

This is me, the future Dr. Pete, and my friend Jess. We're bringin' the peace sign back (note: Justin Timberlake reference)

I call this one "Ode to Britney" (gum, gaping mouth)

The sign of a good party? Accordians, of course....

Jingle Bells never sounded so good...

Thanks to Mr. Shone (AKA accordian player number2) for the pics!

declarations of love

The level of my pedagogical prowess has reached an all time high. Today in the hall between classes, one of my students said to me (this is a direct quote): "I was born to love you." Well obviously, after he said it I was in complete shock...I mean, he used the passive tense and everything!! And I refuse to believe that he heard the line in some crappy J-pop song...

Anyway, here's a picture of the aforementioned student (second from the right) I've suspected for a while that he has a crush on me...he always tells me that I have "nice hair" when I see him in the hall.

And here are a few more shots of my students just for fun. I am making my English bulletin board for this month...little do these students know that I have taken advantage of their narcissism in mugging for the camera so that I can secretly plaster their faces up in the hallway for the amusement of the rest of the school. This one is especially funny since I took it in the staff room and just as I was about to take the photo, out of nowhere the music teacher leapt over her desk and several trash cans to get in the shot.

Here are some 1st graders...way too cute! Today in class we wrote Christmas cards to teachers and friends. The kid on the far left wrote a card to his friend (the student standing next to him). This was his Xmas wish: "Dear Bob (friend's nickname), I enjoy your stomach. Merry Christmas!"