Things that make you go "awww"

 Well, today had a surprisingly nice end to it. After a fairly depressing week of much work stress, Bush actually being elected President and the unfortunate loss (and subsequent sore muscles) of the staff netball team (I was WD first half and GD second half), today ended really nicely.

It was my last English lesson with the sixth formers before they leave for their exams. A bit sad but also a bit of a relief, as I will never teach that particular class again.

I had told them that we would quickly review their study homework and then play games seeing as it was the last lesson on a Friday. I brought in some lollipops thinking it would be a nice treat to the kiddies as most of them have worked pretty hard this year.

At the beginning of the lesson I was a bit concerned as four of the naughtier boys* were hanging around in the corridor. I feared some sort of miscreant behaviour involving fireworks might be afoot. I went over to drag them into class threatening detention when they slowly wandered in and gave me a big wrapped-up present. I was a little nervous as these chaps had played a few pranks on me throughout the year** but when I unwrapped it, it was a 3D puzzle of Minas Tirith. Yay! Cool and geeky. So thoughtful and sweet. Then the students all played our various card games. It was cool because they all really liked them and got into the humour. They seemed to appreciate the 80's cop shows references. I played one game with them but lost in a big way as they all repeatedly slapped 'Drug habits' on me (I had four at the end!). I gave them a copy of COP to share.

After class another group of students came up and gave me a card. It was SO GOOD! These students knew about my Cosplaying and regularly write Buffy quotes on the whiteboad. Very cool. The card had a personalised Teen Girl Squad cartoon for me, some cool Pratchett pictures and English related Buffy quotes. Awesome! Here are a couple of the panels of the TGS page:

* A couple of them have recently taken to calling me 'Miss Dungeon-master' since they discovered I was a roleplayer.

** Pranks ranged from the thought-out and cleverly executed to the lame and obscene (putting a drawing of a penis on the OHP).