It's Halloween! It's also 7:30 and the sun still hasn't cleared the mountains yet. Though it's not something I'm consciously doing, I've been daily protesting this whole extended daylight savings time thing. Simply put, I'm not exactly fond of the extension. I like my days long, but really, what were those folks thinking when they declared that we could "save energy" by postponing the turning back of our clocks? Like, maybe we could keep the earth from spinning on its axis, or something. But the days keep getting shorter anyway. As in: we have just as many hours of light as we do without changing our clocks. Could it be because it's fall? To be honest, I don't have strong feelings one way or the other for changing the clocks twice a year. I'm passionate, though, when it comes to having to wake up early in the morning. I generally have to get up every morning around 6:00 or so, in order to get to work on time. I consider any wake-up time prior to 7:30 to be cruel and unusual punishment, and best avoided if at all possible. I'm willing to make an exception (not that my job gives me much choice), with one caveat: I want the sun to be coming up. If I wake up and it's still dark outside, I'm probably going back to sleep. Let me also point out that it's generally my subconscious making such decisions, so who am I to argue?

This year, Halloween has new significance for me. First, it's been an exciting holiday, and fun. It's Robert's and my second Halloween together, but the first one I've actually done right. Last year I had some crazy theater stuff going on, so I missed it. Second, today is the last day of October, and this year I decided to have a go at National Novel Writing Month. I'm a little intimidated at the moment. On the one hand, given all that I write for work, and all that I've been working on for a graduate school application, I think it'll be feasible. On the other hand, given all that I write for work, and all that i've been working on for a graduate school application, I wonder whether I'll even have any energy to put into a novel.

But that starts tomorrow, so I can't worry too much about that yet. First I have to get through the workday, sans students. Because all the students at my school have the day off. Because apparently, Halloween has become so controversial in this city (and maybe elsewhere, I don't know) that, rather than use the opportunity to teach some history and culture and new and open-minded perspectives on how to celebrate such a cool holiday, they'd rather kids have the day off and learn nothing about the world. Oy vay.