Halloween Candy

My mom told me she was mailing a package with some Halloween candy in it. I was not expecting the 12 pound crate that arrived at my door on Tuesday. So today, I trucked it to school to the rejoicing of many kids. Free candy is unsurprisingly a big hit, but I found it amusing that the majority of the kids told me they liked the candy, even though they thought it was too sweet.

What kind of kid finds something too sweet? A kid that isn't addicted to sugar.

***

I'm kind of a lazy teacher in the sense that I don't like doing activities that involve lots of prep work. I also don't want to spend money on the class. So I make do with what's available in the schools and that suits my needs just fine. When Halloween comes around, lots of elementary teachers do lots of crazy activities. My predecessor, for example, held a Halloween festival each year where the kids bobbed for apples and did various arts and crafts. That's awesome, and I might even consider doing something like that if I was at one school. But if I do it at one, I have to do it at the other three, and can I really be blamed for not wanting to do that?

However, last year, one of the vice-principals went on base and bought two pumpkins, in which I showed the 5th and 6th graders how to carve. It was a lot of fun, but this year, we have a different vice-principal who did not go on base and buy pumpkins. In fact, I had completely forgotten about the last one doing it. When the now-5th grade came into class, however, they asked me if we were going to carve pumpkins, and got sad when I told them we weren't.

I felt a little bad, but then I shrugged, belted out a "しょうがない！", and kancho-ed the kid who complained.

***

I wish either English was an elective in elementary, or even better, I had the power to pick who was in my class. Most of my class are awesome and run very smoothly. However, there is one kid, at one school, in one class, who seems to be able to throw the entire class in chaos. Basically, he doesn't stop talking, and when we play games, he cheats. The teacher yells at him, the kids yell at him, I glare, and none of that has any effect on him.

He has an older brother, who is also a brat, but he's in the 6th grade class with the nazi teacher. At first I hated this nazi teacher, but now I have a profound respect for her. She runs a class ruled by fear, and while I theoretically disagree with what she does, I have to admit, it is the most well-behaved class out of all my schools.