Paperclip Fashion

I have to wake up at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow to run a 5K.  6:00 a.m. on a Saturday.  Can there be a crueler punishment?  Well, I guess 5:00 a.m would be more cruel. 

Today I had these random, unsolicited surges of happiness.  Does that ever happen to you; where you wake up in the morning and just feel nothing but pure unadulterated joy?  Or is it just the manic in me?  At any rate, it was pretty ridiculous.  The lunch lady gave me a tiny Easter basket with chocolates, and I practically jumped over the counter to hug her, and of course I told her how much I loved her (it's okay though, she's used to it and loves me too).  Then when Mr. A. got in line behind me, I warned him that I was in one of my "happy" moods and he might want to keep his distance before I smothered him with affection too.  His response was to inquire what drug I was using, because he wanted in on it. 

Two other anecdotes from this week.  First, one of the class pets escaped and was running loose in my classroom all night.  I didn't know this until the next morning.  I was sitting at my desk, going through my e-mails, when I felt something tickling my foot.  I ignored it for a few minutes, thinking it was just the bottom of my pant leg tickling my ankle (it was Pajama Day), but then the tickling turned into a tugging.  That's when I realized there was a critter down there on my foot, but for a few suspenseful seconds I didn't know what kind of critter.  I slowly pushed my chair back, and there she was, Ms. Frisbee, trying to get my attention.  I'm just hoping she didn't chew anything during her overnight adventure.  For the most part it looks like she just ran around on the floor, but I'm still waiting for my microwave to explode.

The other thing is much smaller.  Today during fourth period I discovered something in my hair (don't worry, it was nothing alive).  A beautiful ring of colorful paperclips was wrapped perfectly around the very top of my pony tail.  They even had a pretty pattern to them.  The only problem is....I didn't put them there.  When I made this discovery, I immediately jumped up from my desk, pulled the clips out of my hair (I had to carefully unclasp the circle first), and shouted "What the hell is this?!"  Some students in the class started cracking up, and one student in particular (one of my favorites) was having a hard time making eye-contact with me.  I'm pretty sure he was responsible.  I'm just trying to decide whether I should feel impressed or disturbed.  How does a student manage to clip an entire circle of paperclips almost decoratively into his teacher's hair without being caught?  That's ninja right there. 

Going to try to get to bed early tonight so I'll be fresh for tomorrow's break-of-dawn torture.  Quick shout-out to my follower from Germany--welcome back to the states (again)!