Still Haven't Bought Pencils

Which meant one 5th grader filled out his literacy assessment in orange gel pen. Such is life.
Because it did not snow today, auditions continued as usual after school today, until 6:30. There were a few very strong contenders, but you can imagine my annoyance when My Little Pony girl (so called because we once had to take a My Little Pony away from her during chorus, because yes, she was a 6th grader playing with a My Little Pony), was first up and had no idea what she was doing. She had never looked at the song or the dialogue--which we knew because she actually said that to us. We also had a girl whose mother had emailed earlier in the day saying she had forgotten to remind her daughter her audition was that day, and she had her permission to stay after. Turns out, her daughter was never signed up for an audition at all and had absolutely nothing prepared. Or there was the girl who had a complete nervous breakdown while waiting and had to be coaxed into the room like a dog learning how to go up the stairs. And then she had a lovely voice and was a pretty good actress. One of my favorites was our very first audition, yesterday morning. He had written that he wanted to play John because "I have the most in common with John, except that I'm Asian and a little bit fatter in the face." Bless all their dear souls.
A story from the past: I think on my 6th or 7th birthday, Doug told me about this thing called "college." He said that when you got older you would move away from your family for four years and go to college, which I found very upsetting. Especially since it was my birthday, which meant I was getting older and therefore that much closer to going to college.
I have to remind myself when I am teaching the younger grades that there are things like this that they still have idea about and might be fearful of, just like I was. For instance, when I wore my glasses for the first day this year, they were all fascinated. I told them that when I don't wear my glasses I am wearing contacts, which are little pieces of plastic you put right on your eyeball. They were amazed, and the next time I saw them (not wearing my glasses), one kid asked if I had "that glass in your eye?" I was confused at first, but eventually realized he was asking if I was wearing my contacts. It comes up every now and then still-they are just so curious. One day as a first grade class was leaving, one of them grabbed me and told me she was afraid. Afraid of the little glasses, my little glasses. This particular student is kind of a space cadet, so I thought she might just be saying things out of her imaginary little world, when I realized she was talking about contacts. She wears glasses already, and it is quite possible that this makes the idea of contacts much more immediate to her, and the thought of having to put things in your eyes as a first grader would be pretty terrifying. I tried to reassure her that everything was okay, and she wandered off to class.