Well kids, things are definitely back to normal around here. I have given my slacker 1st block class an assignment, and most of them are doing it. Two of them, however, are sitting at the back of the cubicle (okay, so some things will never be normal) talking, laughing, glancing my way to make sure I’m not paying attention to them (Hello? News Flash! I’M NOT DEAF, dumbasses!). This is just like it used to be! I’m so thrilled I could hit them hard with a blunt object, because something else that’s just like it used to be is THEY ARE GETTING ON MY NERVES. They must pass my class to earn a credit toward graduation. They must past the exam in my class to become 10th graders. Of these two boys who haven’t even started their work, one has been in high school for four years and has earned six credits total (you can earn up to eight per year, if you’re wondering); the other is taking 9th grade English for the third time. I’m thinking that all the care in the world on my part isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference on theirs. That’s why I’m talking to YOU instead.
Your assignment, and you’d better do it (see above re: blunt object) is to tell me one or all of the following things about yourselves:
1. What is the most outrageous gift you’d give someone for the holidays if you had unlimited funds?
2. What is the most outrageous gift you’d WANT from someone else?
3. What is your family’s weirdest holiday tradition?
one small corner of the universe 
1) IVF/adoption costs covered for all my baby seeking but having problems friends.
2)ditto #1
3)Uhm….my family gives weird/funny gifts, like…boobie growing pills and stuff as small gifts. We’ve mostly grown out of that though.
Damn, J beat me to it. #1, IVF and other needed fertility/adoption interventions for all who need them.
#2 and #3 need some thought. I’ll come back.
1. A one month trip to anywhere in the world all expenses paid
2. the same!!! hahahaa
3. we all have dinner at different places, we are weird..
1. I’d love to give my husband a no-holds-barred shopping spree at Guitar Center.
2. If I were able to give my husband said shopping spree, I’d want a huge house with a completely soundproofed studio for my husband, where I couldn’t hear him playing when I was trying to write or sleep.
3. I can’t think of any particularly weird holiday traditions. Of course, we’re weird all the time, so perhaps that’s why none of our traditions seem weird to me.
My answer came to me on the bus today:
1) to pay for a wedding or a vacation for a friend with no stipulations. They could order any flowers, any food, any location, and I could just say ok. Wouldn’t that be so cool? To be in charge of the purse strings and not to be crazy or weird about it.
2) Not that I wouldn’t want money myself, but I think I would want something that a friend/partner put a bunch of thought in. Like an trip or adventure that we’d have together.
3) No weird traditions, just passive-aggressive conversations and the occassional uncomfortable outburst.