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the air feels clear at home today. i think the moodiness yesterday, as i thought, had nothing to do with me. it was a little bit of post-chick grief i think.

this entire week at school has been totally fucked. it's been one thing after the other... disorganization, change of plans, we don't know what's happening half the time. there's also this really bad habit of making 5 or 6 announcements per period... just in the middle of stuff, someone comes on the PA and says something. sometimes it's relevant for someone in the room, usually it is not. it is a real disruption to the flow of the classroom.

today i had art with the 12s. because of this bizarre organizational week, it was our first period together of the week! but i had a few thoughts for them that they really seemed to get excited about, both concerning their graduation. the first thing you need to know is that grad here is huge. massive. the biggest deal EVER. they have planned that they want to do a trip to Costa Rica, and they need to raise all the money themselves. we've ballparked it at around 40K. that is a lot of money to come out of a small town.

so the ideas:

first one comes from the little retirement do we had yesterday afternoon for an old janitor. there are no cards available in town in the native language, only imported cards written in English. So for a fundraiser, students will be designing and printing cards: birthday, anniversary, mother's day, christmas, valentines.. etc for sale around the community. but the cards will be in the native syllabics instead of english. figure 3-4 bucks a card, materials from the school so no cost... they could make a profit.

second, the final project (which i have had planned for quite some time) is a self-portrait. not just like a water colour or pencil sketch or oil painting of their face on a canvas, but a real representation of how they see themselves. interests, personality, experiences... all those should play a role in the portrait. haha... i guess 'portrait' is a word we will be using sort of loosely. so we will be learning to use a whole bunch of media up until christmas, until they find one they really like. and then for the last big chunk of the semester, they will be working on their self-p. they will need to justify some aspects of the self-p and technique for their chosen medium as part of the project. but then, at the end, all the self-p's will be displayed at their graduation ceremony in June.