Speaking of Easy

Today was another long day — the kind where you feel like you’ve lived three lives before dinner. I was up at 5:30 a.m. grading and prepping for class, and didn’t get home from our Community Debate Team meeting until 8:30 p.m. But, I’m keeping up with my #nablopomo so I’m here and typing!

My day started with an 8 a.m. class, and to my pleasant surprise, I had a solid turnout — thirteen students! After class, I rushed over to my other campus for a 10 a.m. interview, only to be greeted by… a fire drill. Fifteen chilly minutes later, we headed upstairs and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, at 10:15, we called the candidate and left a message. Five minutes later, she called back to say she had accepted another position — and had forgotten to cancel her interview (!).

With the unexpected free time, we chatted about hiring logistics and wrapped up early. I spent the next couple of hours grading and organizing materials for this week’s debates before heading to teach my two afternoon classes.

By 4:15, it was time to pick up my daughter from her after-school job. We made a few quick stops — gas, then Trader Joe’s for ground beef (and, of course, pumpkin Jo-Jos, because how can you not?). Back home, I squeezed in just enough time to make a pot of chili for our Friendsgiving celebration at tonight’s debate meeting. On the way, we stopped at CVS for paper bowls, and I grabbed some candy prizes for our trivia contest.

The meeting itself was a blast — great turnout, lots of laughter, and so much delicious food. As always, I learned new things today, and thought I’d share five of them with you.

1. The game Imposter

I had heard of this game before, but never figured out how it was played. Tonight they played three rounds of it after we ate our shared meal. There are many online generators, but I found Game On Family’s instructions and generator to be helpful. Basically, the online generator assigns everyone a word or the role of imposter. Everyone then gives a verbal hint for the word and the imposter has to try to give one as well based on what everyone else is saying. So, tonight for example, there was category “food” and the word was “gyro” and some of them didn’t know what it was. So, one of them said, “wrap” and another said, “middle eastern” and another said, “white sauce” and the imposter said, “pita”. It goes around the whole circle and then people argue about who they think the imposter is and why. The kids had a blast playing it and I learned something new!

2. “Reading Club” is better than “Book Club”

I’ve been a member of many book clubs and I’ve never particularly liked them. I always feel stressed out about finishing the book on time. It always felt a little judgy if I didn’t like the books that other people liked and vice versa. I never wanted to read the book that was assigned even if I wanted to read it outside of the book club. So, today I was listening to the Hooked podcast and they were talking about starting a “Reading Club” that was from a Lazy Genius podcast (who I also love). It is just people getting together to talk about any book they’ve read recently. No assigned book. No judging people. Just sharing what you’ve read and liked (or disliked) and enjoying each other’s company. Bliss.

3. Trader Joe’s bags will be back this month!

Our cashier at Trader Joe’s today said they will have the minibags back on the 21st or 22nd! We haven’t got any all year, so I was excited to hear this!

4. Bananas Foster on Toasted Baguette is Tasty

One of our debaters brought this to the Friendsgiving tonight and at first I was skeptical. But, it was delicious! It was very fancy for a high school contribution.

5. Trader Joe’s has a new, seasonal candle trio!

And they smell like the season! I had to look up “Foraged Cassis” because I’ve never heard of it, but it smelled divine. It is a liquor made with black currants and now I may want to drink some of it. But, for now, I’ll just have to take in the sweet smell.

So, there are the five new things I learned today. What new things have you learned lately?