apple_pathways (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
apple_pathways) wrote2011-03-17 09:26 pm
apple_pathways) wrote2011-03-17 09:26 pm
I'm not Irish, but I'm a damn good kisser...
Still not eating any sweets, despite my father tempting me with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies yesterday.
Still not getting much of anything done. (must finish dark fic must finish dark fic must finish dark fic!)
St. Patrick's Day is a strange holiday. It was never anything special when I was a kid. The only person I can remember really making a big deal out of it was our Irish librarian in elementary school, Mrs. Patrick. I was a library aide, and she gave me a bag of green, white, and orange-colored candies.
Even in college, I don't remember the holiday being that widely celebrated, until I made the move to EMU. For some reason, people there celebrated it as a 24 hour binge drinking session. I remember walking to class at 11 am, and seeing drunks dressed in green stumbling down the streets. I was sitting in my statistics course one year (about 3 o'clock in the afternoon) and this girl in the back row kept whining that the teacher should cancel class because it was St. Patrick's Day and she wanted to go to the bar. I finally got so irritated, I turned around and said, "You do realize that we're adults, and if you wanted to you could leave any time?"
She said she didn't want to miss the notes. Well, shut up then!
Today, most of the little kids I tutor came in with stories of Leprechaun hijinks from school. This is something I really don't remember being a part of St. Patrick's Day celebrations!
It started with the little sister of one of my students. She said to me, "Did you know I found two four-leaf clovers at my school?" (I am always charmed by the storytelling tactics of small children. I was tempted to say, "Why yes I did know. I know everything about you!" but I find it wise to be inappropriate and creepy on my own time.) She then told me a story about finding a Leprechaun on the playground.
Her brother then told me he saw a "Ghost Leprechaun" in the bathroom at school, described as "green footprints walking across the floor". Holy shit, when did St. Pat's Day become such a creepy-ass holiday?!
At another boy's school someone put green dye in the toilets, and in a little girl's classroom a "leprechaun" came in and stole someone's green backpack at lunch.
Now: I am a general non-believer and all-around spoilsport, but does anyone else find this a little odd? I understand a lot of adults have fanciful ideas about the "magic of childhood", but at what point are you just implanting delusions in the minds of impressionable youth?
Still not getting much of anything done. (must finish dark fic must finish dark fic must finish dark fic!)
St. Patrick's Day is a strange holiday. It was never anything special when I was a kid. The only person I can remember really making a big deal out of it was our Irish librarian in elementary school, Mrs. Patrick. I was a library aide, and she gave me a bag of green, white, and orange-colored candies.
Even in college, I don't remember the holiday being that widely celebrated, until I made the move to EMU. For some reason, people there celebrated it as a 24 hour binge drinking session. I remember walking to class at 11 am, and seeing drunks dressed in green stumbling down the streets. I was sitting in my statistics course one year (about 3 o'clock in the afternoon) and this girl in the back row kept whining that the teacher should cancel class because it was St. Patrick's Day and she wanted to go to the bar. I finally got so irritated, I turned around and said, "You do realize that we're adults, and if you wanted to you could leave any time?"
She said she didn't want to miss the notes. Well, shut up then!
Today, most of the little kids I tutor came in with stories of Leprechaun hijinks from school. This is something I really don't remember being a part of St. Patrick's Day celebrations!
It started with the little sister of one of my students. She said to me, "Did you know I found two four-leaf clovers at my school?" (I am always charmed by the storytelling tactics of small children. I was tempted to say, "Why yes I did know. I know everything about you!" but I find it wise to be inappropriate and creepy on my own time.) She then told me a story about finding a Leprechaun on the playground.
Her brother then told me he saw a "Ghost Leprechaun" in the bathroom at school, described as "green footprints walking across the floor". Holy shit, when did St. Pat's Day become such a creepy-ass holiday?!
At another boy's school someone put green dye in the toilets, and in a little girl's classroom a "leprechaun" came in and stole someone's green backpack at lunch.
Now: I am a general non-believer and all-around spoilsport, but does anyone else find this a little odd? I understand a lot of adults have fanciful ideas about the "magic of childhood", but at what point are you just implanting delusions in the minds of impressionable youth?
no subject
As someone who didn't hear about this holiday until I was about 13, St. Pat's Day means only one thing to me: boozing spectacularly. I mean, not to ME personally, but that's what the holiday represents itself as to me.
Your college story was hilarious. We always had spring break during St. Pat's day (but apparently not anymore because UIUC decided to move spring break week after St. Pat's day...hmm). We used to have "Unofficial," which was always two weeks before St. Pat's Day and involved all the students at the uni getting drunk all day. The first two years I luckily missed it because I wasn't on campus. Junior year I was at work in the morning and the rest of the day I spent in the comfort of my apartment. And senior year, I annoyingly had to deal with the drunks on campus. SO IRRITATING.
I never knew the holiday to be so creepy either. People dressed up as leprechauns stealing kids' stuff? Ghost leprechauns? I know leprechauns are supposed to be mischievous but that's just weird.
How old are the kids that you tutor? I'm never amazed by how "old" kids seem these days. We were never like that when we were kids!
no subject
Usually.
I'm always amazed at how confident at articulate the kids are! Most of them are perfectly comfortable carrying on a conversation with me from Day 1, while I was terrified of adults until I was well into my teens. They also dress much more stylishly: I have eight year old girl's whose outfits are much more adult/on trend than mine!
While the idea of dressing in green and going out drinking for St. Patrick's Day seems like fun, I can't remember ever really doing it, largely because it always fell on a week day. I don't have anything against drinking in the middle of the week, but when you work and go to school, it's hard to make it happen.
I have no idea how Nathan came up with the Ghost Leprechaun story, and I didn't ask: CREEPY! But the other leprechaun pranks (obviously perpetrated by the kids' teachers) sounded really cute!