i'm the one the song is about.

when i was 15, my friends wrote a song about me. it made references to my dark lipstick and soft heart. 7 years later, a boy i was dating wrote a symphony for me. it had a french name i could never translate but i loved it because it switched tempo 7 times - from adagio to allegretto to vivace, and back again a few times. it let me know that he understood me. years later, i told my boyfriend of a year, as we broke up, that i was hurt because he'd never written a song for me. when he showed up at my front door months after that, he strummed the lonely otter love song, and it worked like a charm.

today, 3 of my boys wrote me a song. and they practiced it, and they preformed it.

you're really missing something without their dance moves and chanting, but these were the lyrics:

miss farmer is the best teacher in the world she gives us chocolate and candy she is always very nice to us. she likes to be a teacher but she is trusting in God to put her where he wants her to be. she is the best, oh ya.

i nearly cried. and i hugged them. and i pointed out that i'm not always nice; in fact, i'm usually not. they said they loved me anyway.

and no one will ever write me a more beautiful song.

i will miss (some of) this.

i said i'd post andre's poem. here it is.

a candy store
by andre

i heard the door go ding
the boys and girls screamed
in the candy store
the cash register went
cha-cha-cha-ching
i bought a sweet-meat-treat
jelly beans, jolly ranchers

in the rest of the the third-grade world, today was the last day of real work. i turn in grades early tomorrow morning, which means i should be doing report cards right now, not writing. oh, well.

i gave them their last Bible test today. some choice responses:

why were adam and eve cast out of the garden of eden? because they ate some bad fruit.

what is hell? (i had stressed that hell is a place of eternal seperation from God. you can say "hell" if you're talking about the place. otherwise, don't say it. some people's dads, apparently, say "H-E-double hockey stick".) h-e-(he drew two hockey sticks) is a fierery pit.

can you get to heaven by being really good or trying really hard? no. huh-unh, no.

where in the Bible are the ten commandments? a good place.



there have been lots of things, even just today, that i'm reminded i won't miss about teaching, or teaching here, in particular, but the kids, and thier funny statements, i'll miss.