Hormones are in the air...

We are now only a few days into the month of February but already it has begun to live up to its international reputation as the month of love... or at least hormones.

Tuesdays are M2 days, if you'll remember M2 students parallel the 8th grade US age-group. This means they're loud, rambunctious, and certainly...hormonal.

Strips of red and white paper are beginning to line the walls of the classroom and today I was given a cut-out heart by a student and told to put down my thoughts on 'love'. The event still lies almost 2 weeks away and yet my little darlings have stars in their eyes as they dream of Valentine's Day.

Mercy.

As amusing as it was to see the girls glide through the classroom with thoughts of their crushes on their minds, it was all the more so when it came to the boys. The classrooms were filled with shrieks of girls being chased around. It recalled my own 8th grade experience to watch boys throw pieces of paper and erasers at girls (at this age, their primary means of alerting the girls of choice to their status as 'objects of affection').

By my final class, I was almost heady with the effects of this hormonal-induced craze. My hands were full trying to keep love-struck boys from pulling on the pigtails of their beloveds as well as pushing away curious fingers of boys getting too close to the pink-and-cream skirt I oh-so-unfortunately decided to wear today... each push receiving an unsolicited and certainly unwanted 'Teacher Star, I love you' in reply.

But then finally, there it was... SMACK! It rang across the entire class room and put a quick stop to the hormonal madness. There stood Code, who, just then, suffered the consequences of leaning too far over the desk of one of the girls...his 13 year old lips unpleasantly headed towards her face. I could still see the traces of her fingertips staining his left-cheek, her face drawn into a smug smile as she picked up her books and began to walk towards her own classroom. But as she did so, her eyes met mine and I could see the unwritten question in her eyes, "Am I in trouble?"

I shrugged a no and let her pass... I figure, that's what you get when you put your lips in someone else's business.