Wrapping up the year

I just finished my last school visit of the year.

In 2007, I visited 31 schools.

I spoke to approximately 4500 students.

I gave 109 presentations.

I conducted 48 writing workshops.

I said the Pledge of Allegiance 27 times.

While brainstorming ways to show a messy room, I heard "dirty underwear" 73 times.

While brainstorming ways to show that someone feels sick, I heard fantastic barfing noises 84 times.

I waited in line behind 93 school buses.

I drank 17 teeny weeny cartons of milk.

I saw 18,432 chicken nuggets (but didn't eat 1.)

And I loved every minute of every day spent in a school.

Posing with students for the local newspaper at my last school presentation:

Here we are pretending to have a casual conversation about one of my books, as instructed by the photographer. In reality, I had opened the book to a random page so we could pretend to talk about it. On the page was a post-it note that said, "Chicken Hair." (It's a long story, but trust me, this is true). The kids were delighted to be talking about chicken hair.