Time to Get on My Soapbox

Yes, I admit it -- I'm nothing but a big kid, and I'm SUPER EXCITED for Halloween! Today's been a day of putting the finishing touches on our Halloween display (we put on a "haunted house" for the neighborhood kids each year), getting my costume together, and carving jack o'lanterns.

Working at a school, I was able to see firsthand how the youngest generation celebrates (or doesn't celebrate, as turned out to be the case at our school). Halloween parties and the wearing of costumes are no longer acceptable in the school district where I work (perhaps because I live in the so-called "Bible Belt"), and it's ... well, it's sad, really. In a pathetic acknowledgement of the holiday, the past week was "spirit week", which meant the students got to wear crazy socks and a school t-shirt.

When I was a child, we had costume parades, a party complete with treats, decorations, and celebratory music, and even a bobbing for apples contest at school. I personally don't see what's harmful about letting children celebrate an ancient Celtic holiday that's fun and harmless... though I have no trouble seeing the harm that can be caused by convincing children that those who celebrate the holiday are spreading "evil".

For what it's worth, I wish each and every one of you a fiendishly delightful Halloween, full of spooks and treats, games and fun!

Testing, Testing

Yes -- today I am testing. Checking out the new Add this button ... here goes nothing!

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'Tis the Season...

To get sick! School's started, and with the kids crowded into classrooms upwards of eight hours per day, the germs are beginning their annual resurgence into the human species.

As a new teacher's aide, I've found myself battling the bugs that come with the territory that is elementary school. A simple cold found its way from some surface -- a hand, a pencil, or perhaps even a book -- into my body, and from there it was a losing battle. I have a weakened immune system thanks to a genetic condition I was lucky enough to inherit, but had been trying to ward off the worst of the germs with vitamins -- but the germs were having none of it. Within a week of the first sniffle, I had full-blown pneumonia.

Pneumonia isn't an illness to mess with. The cough was excruciatingly painful and persistent; the fever high and disorienting; the chills enough to send a girl after the warmest blanket in her closet -- only to throw it to the ground as the heat became unbearable. Almost three weeks into this debilitating illness, and it's still hanging around, not content to simply let me be.

I know I can't be the only person out there who tends to develop illness easily, and it's on behalf of those people and myself that I implore you -- PLEASE wash your hands!!! PLEASE teach your kids to wash their hands! With cold weather preparing to settle in for a long spell, there's never been a better time to reiterate the lessons of good hygiene.

Here's hoping we all have a happy, healthy winter! :)