First day of school

I've been up before dawn the past two days to go cover the first day of school (first, elementary, then high school). Not sure how great these stories are, but there were some moments in each that I like. All in all, I met some very adorable students.


My time at the elementary school included this little scene:

Mrs. Walsh isn't good at remembering names -- "I try really hard, but it takes me a while," she said -- so she gave each child a nametag and asked his or her favorite color. Blue and red easily won out, though a handful of girls chose purple.

Talia Tauti stood up to take her tag. She wore a pink shirt, pink pants and pink high top sneakers.

"My favorite color is turquoise," she said.

"Really?" Walsh asked. "I would have guessed pink because you're wearing so much pink."

"My mom begged me to," Talia said.



And my time at the high school featured this:

Mrs. Trakselis spotted a cell phone on Karimyar's desk and motioned for him to put it away.

"Gotta put away your technology, man," Pope told him. "You know what Coach Casey says about that? He says it's ruining society."

Pope isn't much of a technology man himself. He only joined Facebook this summer. "But I like immediately had 900 friends," he said. "Whew."