Graduate Students Still Enjoy Show and Tell

Geoff and I were given a homework assignment by the 6th-grade teacher that we volunteer for. Have I mentioned the tight ship she runs in that class? Man, those kids get yelled at for everything. In fact, even Geoff got yelled at today. I'm almost more nervous in that class than I am in most of my law classes these days.

Our assignment was to bring a "Me Bag" to share with the class--this is a bag that contains five items that say something about yourself.

Those kids are hilarious. One of Geoff's items was a necklace from his girlfriend, Jessica. Time for questions and comments--almost every kid's hand shot up: "What's her name?"--"How long have you been together?"--"Where does she live?"--"Are you going to get married?"

My "Me Bag" contained pictures of Shad and my family; Black's Law Dictionary; a pin-cushion; a cookbook; and my passport. The kids were interested in my love of sewing and crafts. "Will you sew something for me?"--"Did you sew that outfit you're wearing?"--"Will you show me how to sew?"

But the best question was from Antonio, a great kid I tutor one-on-one when we do our reading fluency tests. He asked: "Why don't you wear your wedding ring?" Uhhhhhhhhh... What? Why would a 12-year-old notice that? My standard answer to that is "It's too big." Which is part of the truth in that the band is thick and especially in the winter it dries my skin out. But that's always a weird answer, because it invariably comes out sounding like I have a huge expensive diamond or something. The other half of the explanation is that I don't like to wear jewelery, but I couldn't really say that either since I've been going through a weird big-dangly-earrings phase over the last few months and was wearing earrings today. I guess I'm just not used to wearing jewelery and I feel weird having something so expensive on my finger. Is that so bad? Some people act like it's the weirdest thing in the world. I don't think it's weird at all.