25 of the World's Thinnest Books

Today we were like hipsters. Thin and ironic. Perhaps I should explain further...

Currently, my kids are chest-deep in some pretty heavy narrative writing. The natives were getting restless, so today I decided to let them step away from their memoirs to play around. This "quick" write turned into a day of laughter, wit, and irony that we all greatly needed.

"A thin book is a book the author has no authority to write or that is an oxymoron. It's thin because there's nothing to put in it. Come up with 10 titles for books that would have to be thin."

Below are 25 of my favorites from the day. Enjoy!

How to Hit Puberty by Justin Bieber

How to be Social by Boo Radley

Rick Ross's Healthy Cookbook

Natural Beauty by K. Kardashian

Emergency Exits by the crew of the Titanic

Freeing Slaves 101 by Joseph Kony

How to Dress Casually by Lady Gaga

Loving People by Jaws

How to Teach Math by Ms. P

Taking Life Seriously by Buddy the Elf

How to Keep a Girl Safe by Chris Brown

World Peace by Al-Qaeda

10 Tips to Be Tan by Edward Cullen

A Happy Place by Satan

How to Keep a Shirt On by Taylor Lautner

A Guide to Crying by James Bond

How to Grow a Full Mustache by Hitler

Dressing to Please the Lord by Christina Aguilera

Get over your Break Up by Bella Swan

Drama-Free Household by the Kardashians

Intelligence by Mike (The Situation)

Days of the Week by Rebecca Black

What to do When There’s a Terrorist on your Plane by Osama bin Laden

The Bright Side of Life by E. A. Poe

How to Be a Responsible Mom by the cast of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant

Yours truly,

Ms. P

Bonus points? Contribute to our list of thin books in the comments section.

"Whatever you do, wear underwear."

Earlier this week, I assigned a quick write that required my students to write a letter of advice to their future dates - particularly advising them on how to survive meeting the family. They didn't hold back. 

Below are some of my favorite excerpts from their letters - just the tip of a very humorous, awkward iceberg. Enjoy!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

“My mom would want you to make right choices and not act like a hooligan. My dad would just like the fact that I got a date.”

“Whatever you do, wear underwear.”

“Don’t let other people tell you you’re not beautiful.”

“My parents aren’t going to let us sit on the loveseat.”

“My brother Chris will be pretty disgusting, so bring a gas mask in case we have beans.”

“You may deny it now, but as soon as I hit five foot, you won’t be able to resist me.”

 “If you break my heart, I’ll be out for blood. Good luck.”

“I hope that you exist. Few people get my jokes, but I hope you would if you exist.”

“Dear please – be – a – Hollister – model boyfriend,”

 “Before I begin, I just wanna let you know that my family is in fact normal. Some of us.”

“Future date, you go on the list along with unicorns and non-stick glitter. So yeah, you’re pretty rare.”

“If you hear us speak in Russian, it’s probably about you…or the food.”

“If, and that’s a very big IF, she lets me date at 16 or 17, she’ll insist on knowing A: Your life’s history, or B: Your entire future.”

“Watch out for flying knives.”

“Don’t share anything with my mother. If you do, she’ll use it against you.”

“My father will probably ask you if you know anything about guns. My grandfather will ask you if you have ever been threatened by a gun. Then tell you that you have just been threatened by a gun as he holds it out in front of you.”

“If my mom asks if I kissed you yet, say no. Or she won’t shut up.”

“My dog will try to protect me from you, but after she gets to know you, she will leave you alone.”

“Don’t get discouraged if my step dad yells at you. That’s just the way he talks.”

“My mom will have you brain dead by the time you leave. She might even give you a math sheet to complete. She might even give you a physical.”

“Your personal bubble will be invaded.”

“You will leave with some kind of animal hair on you.”

“Dear Beyonce, since you are rich, you are paying for dinner. So be ready to spend a lot of money because I like to eat a lot.”

“I want to take you on a fancy date, like to the movies.”

“You might see my mom dancing. She watches Ellen.”

“There might be kitty litter down the hallway. Watch your step.”

 “My mom will just probably stand there and look at you, and it will be weird.”

“I’m writing to make sure you understand the terms of agreement in our relationship. Usually, I just click, ‘I have read and agreed to these terms of agreement’, but you actually need to read these this time.”

“My dad…he already hates you, but we might can change that. If you don’t eat his deer sausage, he’ll be offended. Just do it.”

“Dear Snooki, We will have to escape to Cuba to get away from my dad. We will have to change our names to Chico and Maria. I will be Maria.”

“Meet me at Hooters!”

“If my dad sees a strange guy in the house, he will not hesitate to shoot.”

“If you feel a sharp sting, my brother just shot you with an airsoft gun. He will keep doing it, so grab his arm and twist it. If he says he’ll stop, twist a little more – then he might actually quit.”

             And to sum it all up....

 “You need to take into account that you will have the worst time of your life meeting my family.”

How students are like hostages and bar patrons

Sometimes chuckling at a little irreverent teaching advice is the only thing that can get me through a day of A+ adversity.

"Just yell at your students... Not that they are in trouble, but they are hostages... Beat them with knowledge."

-said by my brilliant friend Bess, who is student teaching, plays in a washboard band, and has a daddy that resembles Mr. Miyagi...a lot

"After lunch the clock moves much slowly than our students do. Your class begins to remind you of a bar full of little drunk people: They want constant attention and often don’t realize how loud they are talking. They have short attention spans; rarely think of the consequences of their actions; and, as you will find out tomorrow, they don’t always remember what happened the day before.” 

-From the brilliant book, "See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers" by Roxanna Elden

Cheekily yours,

Ms. P

The Retrospect Project 3: Beth Kander

That’s What Friends Are For

By Beth Kander

(Read her introduction here.)

Ah, thirteen. The age of secret crushes, awkward body changes galore, and insecurities so pumped up it’s like they’re on ‘roids. Thirteen is basically a year you want to survive, and then erase. What makes the whole survive-and-erase tactic difficult for those of us who number among the Chosen People is the fact that thirteen is also the year of the Bat (or Bar) Mitzvah. Thus, in my middle school years, many hours were spent studying for my own Bat Mitzvah, and attending the B-Mitzvah ceremonies of my handful of Jewish friends. I had Torah verses to learn, orthodontia to work around, and inevitably, an epic crush on one of my Hebrew School classmates.  

He had a biblical name; for purposes of anonymity, let’s say it was Abel. (It wasn’t. No one is named Abel.) He had giant glasses and perfect teeth – the lucky bastard! – and sandy-colored hair that fell onto his horn-rimmed frames. He wore Cosby sweaters and a watch. He looked like a miniature grown-up. The consistent cracking of his voice did mar the illusion, but only a little. 

While the other two boys in our class drew boobs on the matriarchs in our textbooks and looked up swear-words in the Hebrew dictionary, Abel sat with the other brainy girl (let’s call her Peninah, because how many Peninahs do you know?) and me, and the three of us actually went over the prayers we were supposed to be learning. We were the Goody-Goods, but it was more than that: we each carried some extra adolescent baggage. Abel was bullied at school; Peninah was painfully shy; I was enrolled in an “alternative distance learning” program (aka hippie version of homeschooling). In other words, we were the hard core nerds.

Once, for a class project, we had to film a news segment covering “Breaking News of the Bible.” Of course, Peninah, Abel and I worked together. We borrowed a giant old camcorder the approximate size and weight of Texas, created a set for the news desk of WJEW (I wish I were kidding), and filmed our segment. I don’t remember what Breaking Biblical News we covered. I do remember that Abel and I were the news anchors, and when we sat down behind the desk, he complimented my haircut. It was the early 90s; I had just gotten The Rachel; I thanked God and “Friends” that Abel finally noticed something about me beyond my mad Hebrew skills.

December 10, 1994: Abel’s Bar Mitzvah.  His was the first in our class. We all attended the service, watching in terror, knowing we were next. He wore a bright red suit with a black tie. I’d never seen anyone but Santa wear a red suit before, and I seriously doubted that Santa attended many Bar Mitzvahs. Still, Abel pulled off the red suit with aplomb. His voice cracked its way through the service and he did all his nerd friends proud. After the luncheon, there was a recess; his party wasn’t starting until dinnertime, so I went over to Peninah’s to hang out for the afternoon. We curled each other’s hair, put on our fanciest dresses (hers had sequins, mine probably incorporated a vest of some kind), and she assured me over and over that Abel would DEFINITELY ask me to slow-dance at his Bar Mitzvah party. 

The party was in the synagogue’s social hall. Red and black balloons, matching Abel’s distinctive suit, crowded every table. There was pizza, there were glow sticks, and there was a deejay with a ridiculously big moustache, who was playing Ace of Base like they were going out of style. (They were.)

The slow dances were few and far between – and though Abel enthusiastically bounced around the dance floor flailing his glow sticks during the fast numbers, he seemed to disappear for the slow ones. Finally, it was midnight, December 11, 1994: my thirteenth birthday. Peninah came up to tell me that her parents were ready to leave – and they were my ride, so I had to go, too. We went to find Abel to say one last mazel tov. Right as we walked up to him, something magical happened.

“Let’s slow it down for a minute,” said the deejay, smiling beneath the ‘stache. 

“Want to dance?” Abel asked me.

I looked wildly at Peninah. She nodded, go for it! Her parents would wait! This was THE MOMENT!  Abel put his hands on my waist. I put my hands on his red-suited shoulders. There was definitely plenty of room between us. We began to sway, stiffly, moving rather like migrating penguins. I wanted to tell him I liked him. That I LIKED-HIM liked-him. Instead, I said: “It’s my birthday.”

“It is? I didn’t know today was your birthday,” Abel said.

“Not today – I mean, tonight – like, right now –  because, y’know, it’s after midnight – and my birthday is the eleventh, so technically I’m thirteen now…” Dear heaven above, why do I sound so stupid?

“Oh, I gotcha,” said Abel. “Well. Happy birthday, Beth.”

I pictured a birthday kiss, a confession of his love, my own first moment as a teenager somehow managing to transcend the requisite angst and instead be a moment of something beautiful. But there was nothing; he just smiled at me, I smiled back, and we continued our awkward-penguins routine until the last notes of the song. Then I ran off to find Peninah so we could get into her parents’ mini-van and begin dissecting every moment of what had just happened.

I never did tell Abel how I felt about him, which wound up being okay, because a few years later, he told the world how he felt about men: turns out, he felt like sleeping with them. That would be true of many of my closest male friends in the coming years – but luckily, after Abel, I only fell for guys who were actually interested in persons of my gender. And now, looking back at my awkward unrequited love, I have to smile. The song Abel and I danced to that night was “That’s What Friends Are For.” I mean, seriously. The truth was right in front of my eyes, jumping around with glow sticks, wearing a bright red suit. Thirteen-year-old-me would have been humiliated to learn that my epic crush was probably checking out the guys snorting Faygo at the table behind us as we danced. But almost-thirty-year-old me is glad that we nerds had each other … even if we didn’t really know who we were yet. 

"Like" Beth's professional Facebook page for a chance to win a free copy of her book.

Eyebrow Emergency: What They Don't Teach You in School

The following post is probably the single-most blog-worthy moment to happen to me since this whole self-indulgent charade began. Let me tell you. It is good. Hold on to your eyebrows.

What Had Happened Was.....

I am not one of those teachers who wakes up at 5:00 AM to walk the dog, do the crossword, and perform twelve sun salutations before making my way to school. I am much more akin to one of my high school Lit survey teachers who occasionally found herself blow drying her hair behind the desk as class began. It's just my way.

Because of this, I recently found myself loaded down with fresh copies and tearing around the corner of the 7th grade hall precisely ten minutes before the morning's first bell. There I ran into a boy who will be referred to Spock. The nickname will click later. 

A little back story....

Spock is the only student that I've ever run into at a roller derby bout. He's less Justin Bieber. More Marilyn Manson. He is less Southern Baptist. More Wiccan. He's more likely to be caught in knee-high, lace-up Converse than Wallabees. He is the only student who's ever asked me, "Ms. P, do you think I could get away with elbow-length fishnet gloves here?" He's less Twilight.  And more Tim Burton. In a word, he's unexpected - as was his coming request.

"Oh, Ms. P, I am SOOOO glad to see you!" he wailed, with an exhale befitting a marathoner crossing the finish line.

As he normally errs on the dramatic side, I continued my hustle to the classroom barely making eye contact. "Okay, what's up? What do you need, Spock?"

"Okay, seriously, this is an emergency. Do you have any eyeliner?"

Aware of his musical leanings and fashion experiments, a certain image flashed through my mind before I continued...

"Now, Spock, you know I'm here for you, but I'm not your cool aunt! I can't give you eyeliner. Talk to your parents about it."

Exasperated, he responded, "Oh, Ms. P, it is SO not like that. This is an emergency." Suddenly, he grabbed my arm with one hand and, with the other, pointed to his eyebrow - or should I say, where his eyebrow had once been. 

                                        

What remained was a sort of half-eyebrow. The remainder ran from the top of his nose to where the arch had once began. The effect left him looking permanently befuddled. It was social suicide. 

Like Lauren Conrad faced with a life-or-death fashion emergency, I cringed. 

I dropped my purse and set my copies down, dragging him into my classroom. "What DID you DO? Did you wax it? Where did you get wax? What was your goal? Were you BORED?!" I fired a barrage of endless questions at him.

He cut through my curiosity with basic brutal truth, "Ms. P, I really can't go into it. No, not wax. I shaved it. But the point is this...I'm 13. I'm in middle school. I cannot, will not go to class with half an eyebrow, or I will never be anyone but the boy with one and a half eyebrows."

He had me there. 

"You're right. But look, Spock. I don't have eyeliner on me. However, I do have something else." I pulled him to the back of my classroom where I have an organizer full of school supplies. I rummaged around and pulled out two Magic Markers. Black and Brown. "Take your pick, buddy."

When they said "preferred by teachers," I'm pretty sure they didn't have this in mind.

Ever the goth, he chose black. 

"Hold still," I demanded, summoning all the eyebrow-sculpting advice I had ever read in beauty magazines. I uncapped the marker, warned him against laughing, and went to town.

In that moment, I thought: No education college in the land could ever prepare its graduates for such a time as this. They really don't teach you everything in The Art and Science of Teaching.

And let me tell you, as I stepped back to admire my handiwork, I realized that I had drawn him an eyebrow that would make a drag queen proud.

With that and a warning to not scratch, itch, or even think about sweating, I sent him off to homeroom. At lunch when he saw me, he pointed excitedly to my masterpiece and asked, "Is it still there?!"

The next morning, he walked proudly into school with a fresh brow, drawn with eyeliner. I grinned and asked, "Oh! Did your mom give in? Or did you walk to the drugstore to buy it yourself?"

He shrugged, "When I came home yesterday looking like I did, she offered to fix it for me until it grows back in."

Apparently Mama Spock didn't appreciate my fine handiwork. 

Conflicting Feelings of Nyeeehh

Lately, my students have been writing persuasive essays on these topics. While they've been doing an incredible job writing persuasive anecdotes to sprinkle throughout their arguments, they have had trouble stating their opinions with conviction. 


For instance, I've gotten a lot of sentences that start like this:


"It's possible that..."
"One might think..."
"It could happen..."
"I can't promise..."

I want to scream the famous (within my family at least) line from the Brady Bunch, "SAY WHAT YOU MEAN, GREG BRADY!"

Why are they afraid to write with conviction? If they're not convinced, their readers will never be. Luckily, people exist who are more eloquent than me. One of them is Taylor Mali.  

Poet and Teacher Taylor Mali

If you are a teacher, a poet, a thinker, a breather, he and his words are going to be your new best friends. He wrote an incredible poem entitled, "Totally, Like, Whatever" that beautifully illustrates the point that I want to make to my students about using convicting language. 

Watch it here:





Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.


Perhaps, watching and discussing this video tomorrow will help us eliminate those invisible question marks, ya know? Hopefully, his words will encourage them (and me!) to be, like, personally invested in our own opinions.


And if that doesn't work, then I'm going to have to hang this poster on my classroom door. I am SO not above it.

I would be remiss if, as a teacher blogger,  I did not direct you to Taylor's most notorious poem "What Teachers Make." You can watch it below. His words and delivery will have you laughing appreciatively and nodding in agreement. 

"Be honest. What do you make?"

And I wish he hadn't done that 

(asked me to be honest) 

because, you see, I have a policy 

about honesty and ass-kicking: 

if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.

If you are a teacher and happen upon a down day, watch this and get rejuvenated. Take account of all the important things you do that cannot be measured or quantified.

Power to the poets,

Ms. P

Drunk Ladies and Expired Licenses

The kids were funny today. Really funny. 

Exhibit A: Pre-writing for persuasive essays

Student 1: Ms. P, can we start persuasive essays with a short narrative that makes a point?

Me: Sounds like a pretty good idea. Use your creative license.

Student 2: (mutters) Mine expired last month.

Exhibit B: Working on similes

Me: I'll write the beginning of a simile, and you write the end. Okay, let's see...."The endless dripping noise was as irritating as...."

Student: ....a drunk lady at a golf tournament!

He does have a point.

The Retrospect Project, 2: Hunter Harris's Story

For a little background on The Retrospect Project, read this.

To read the introduction to today's author and his story, go here.

Without further ado...Hunter Harris's hilarious retrospective moment, which I'd like to call...

"The Boy with the Green Hair"

"I’ll be honest—I was not the coolest kid in middle school. In seventh grade, I was 6’4”, and I weighed barely 170 pounds. Needless to say, I was already fairly noticeable. Add large-frame glasses to that equation, and you have a unique combination of nerd. As a gangly, awkward being, I desperately needed an opportunity to put forward the “correct” image that my classmates (namely the girls) could appreciate.

See that kiddo with the goofy grin? Yeah, that would be him.

I had two musical inspirations for my new look. First, boy bands were still popular, though they were starting to decline. Now, I did not personally care for them, but girls loved them. I noted that they especially appreciated the blonde band members like Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter, and Lance Bass (in hindsight, how ironic). 

Backpacks, lunchboxes, and t-shirts with various quartets dominated the hallways. The boys knew that we had to at least pretend to appreciate the boy band genre if we were going to stand as sensitive, caring guys. 

Secondly, Eminem had just released The Marshall Mathers LP. If Eminem is popular now, he was almost god-like in the early 2000s. You had 0 street cred unless you could rap “The Way I Am” or “The Real Slim Shady.” Considering I went to a middle school that had an African American population that equaled upwards of eighty percent, Eminem gave the “white boys” a chance to be cool. I reveled in the opportunity. I had white t-shirts and black, baggy jeans, but I just couldn’t yet pay proper homage. 

As a brunette, I knew that Mother Nature had not blessed me with golden locks at that age, so, like millions of people each year, I planned to bleach my hair. Unfortunately, I had a mother with enough sense to forbid me to do something so ridiculous (I eventually wore her down next year, but that’s an entirely different, ridiculous story). Without the courage to disobey her or the finances to purchase blonde hair dye, I was left with very little opportunity to improve my lot in life. “Fortunately” for me, I was a fairly resourceful kid. I remembered that my brother and I had been given sidewalk chalk the previous Christmas.

Per my logic, yellow sidewalk chalk was just a slight downgrade from peroxide. Without testing how the chalk looked in my hair, I scraped the chalk all over my scalp before strutting to the school bus. Had my bus driver not been so apathetic that he actually looked at the students that rode his bus, my expressionist journey might have ended there. Also, my family lived in a rural area, so I was the oldest student to ride the bus, thus making me automatically cool to the elementary kids. With both of these factors in my favor, I felt like a king by the time we pulled onto campus. 

To make the story a bit more concise, I’ll just say that my hair was a huge hit—just not in the way I expected. When my peers saw my hair during our pre-class congregation, they did not become instantly jealous or attracted, as I hoped. No, they laughed. Uncontrollably. Our assistant principal (thank God for small mercies), hearing the cackling of my friends, found me, and quickly escorted me to the boys’ bathroom. I knew I only had one option to save myself from detention—head dunking. Left alone to my shameful enterprise, I noticed my hair for the first time in the mirror above one of the sinks. Instead of the crisp, golden base I expected, my hair was closer to a lime-green hue. 

Instead of Eminem or Mr. Timberlake, I looked more akin to Joey Fatone. Joey was not cool; Joey was never cool. If the shame wasn’t enough, I had to go to the rest of my classes with the helmet that grows from my wet, unbrushed hair. 

I learned that day that I was better off just accepting my own nerd-dom, rather than trying to cultivate a non-organic persona. Though it was a long road, I learned to appreciate my potential, rather than prop up my deficiencies. And, years later, I found friends, even potential dates, that could appreciate the nerd in me."

I really don't think I could have topped that story. And what a fantastic "moral." Do you have a story to share? If so, email it to Ms. P at bestinclassblog@gmail.com.