I don’t usually like to talk about site updates in my blog, but I really want to mention all the work I’ve done on the smilies page these last couple days. I completely remade the preview images for all the sets, and I also added five new sets. One of the sets is pumpkin-themed for Halloween, and the other four are color variations of my sets of round smilies with bows. I’ve been having a lot of fun making smiley sets lately, so if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them!

I’m pretty excited about Halloween. Even though I thought last year would definitely be my last year of trick-or-treating, I decided to go out in my neighborhood with Jimmy this year. I’m going to dress up as a black cat, and he is going to be a warlock. The two costumes kind of go together, if you think about how a warlock is a male witch, and witches have black cats. I still need to go out to buy a headband with cat ears on it, and then I am going to wear all black, paint my face, and I may or may not come up with a tail somehow. We shall see. I also plan to cut some ribbon and wear it around my neck as a cat collar. I’ll probably post pictures sometime after Halloween.

At my temple, teachers are forbidden to talk about Halloween in their classrooms, since whoever comes up with the rules wants the focus to be on Jewish education, and therefore Jewish holidays. I suppose that makes sense, since Halloween is not a Jewish holiday.

Personally though, I think it’s a silly rule. Obviously it makes sense that a teacher should not bring up the holiday in class, since that would just be weird. However, what about when a student brings it up? The rule does loosely extend to students as well. What is the teacher supposed to do… tell them to stop talking about it? Like that’s going to keep the student from talking about Halloween if he wants to.

I work as an assistant teacher at my temple on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays. At work this past Tuesday, one of the students somehow brought up the topic of Halloween. Not only did the teacher not change the subject to follow the rule, but he actually ended up having a discussion with the class for like twenty minutes about Halloween. Ironically, he even mentioned how at the Jewish school he used to attend, no one was allowed to bring up the topic of Halloween, for the very same reason!

By the way, it was Broken Fall’s first birthday this past Monday. Even though I promised to have a contest of some sort to celebrate, I was too busy to actually do anything. I still feel like hosting a contest at some point, so I am going to start planning a holiday competition for December. I’m excited already!

I leave you with a picture that a three-year-old drew of me.