On Crime Considered as One of the Fine Arts

The highlights of today:

• We took the Geography quiz, and from the looks of what I saw being turned in, they looked pretty good. I think next we're going to be moving on to Asia, but that won't be until next week sometime.
• Blue, the giant horse and Colts mascot, came to the school today. Mercifully, he came at the end of the day, and not toward the beginning. I got to wear a laundry basket on my head while Hunter tossed plastic vegetables into it. At least I got a size medium T-shirt out of the deal. I was unable to convince my students that Blue is an actual, well-trained horse.
  
• The kids did seem to have some good ideas for the Rube Goldberg project today as they had their first earnest work time on it.
  
• Tomorrow we'll be doing some notecard time for the research project. This has been put off for two days now, so they'll have ample time tomorrow. The calendar is already pretty far off course.
  
• I told the kids today that the Spelling assignment was changed from 3x each ABC order to merely 3x each. ABC order does nothing to teach the kids the meanings of the words. It only took me nine and a half years to realize this.
• We finished the second book of the Two-Minute Mysteries today. We all love the stories of mastermind world-traveling sleuth Dr. Haldejian and his cast of crime fighters, scumbags, dignitaries, heirs, and poor Lady Octavia, his girlfriend who only wants to order her dinner, but can't because of his tales of his detective prowess. The kids have a theory that he's the killer since he always seems to be around whenever there's a murder. Personally, I think he's a lot like the Most Interesting Man in the World from those commercials, you know?