winter break is wonderful, a three day weekend afterwards? even better

it's been difficult to get back into the swing of working full time--but trivial to remember why I chose this particular job. My first day back, I was reminded of how much I love just interacting with the students. Once we'd all woken up a bit (about second period), we had one of the best discussions of the year on Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day."
For those who haven't read it, the basic premise of the short story is that, on Venus, it rains. A lot. In fact, it rains so much that the sun is out only once every seven years. This one aspect was enough for at least twenty minutes of discussion--the students were fascinated with the idea that something so basic, the sun, could be absent from most of their lives. One of the best parts of the discussion were their inventive responses to what may have to change with this sort of weather pattern. On the popular side, possibly less P.E., on the less popular side was possibly less, you know, sun. Several of the students were worried about plants that needed the heat to grow and some of the more perceptive wondered if it would "make everyone sad all the time."
This wasn't the end of the conversation (we ran out of time!),but it was nice to come back to school and dive directly into such a great conversation.
Of course, I won't say no to the three-day MLK holiday the next week.