tales of engagement

I had absolutely no idea how wonderful getting engaged would be.  I mean, I knew it would be a pretty fabulous event in the lives of H and I, but I neglected to imagine just how excited everyone else would be for us.  There was a whole lot of congratulations, hugging, screaming, and even some happy crying going on.  If you combine all that with the whole actually being engaged (!) thing, yeah, pretty awesome.

One group of people who I didn't expect to be excited or even really care was my students.  I knew some of the girls would be excited, but as a whole I just assumed my engagement would go largely unnoticed.  Boy was I wrong.

It was adorable.  My grade 10s had already heard from another teacher, and they entered class Wednesday practically dying of curiosity.  Student after student entered offering congratulations and wanting to know all about it.  Even the boys were totally interested in all the details.  They wanted to know all about H, all about our wedding/life plans (I was continually reminding them that we had just gotten engaged, and no, have not planned out the next 5 years of our life), all about colours, dresses, family, you name it.

At some point in the conversation they asked me if I was going to change my name.  I answered that yes, I was planning on changing my name (groans all around at the prospect of having to call me something different).  So of course they wanted to know what my new name would be.  I told them.  Another questions was asked, and then one boy put up his hand and very sheepishly asked

"Mme, what kind is he?"

I just about fell off my chair laughing, as did the rest of the class.  Several students admitted they were trying to think of a polite way to ask the exact same question.  After I stopped laughing we had a mini history lesson on H's family history, which concluded with another kid exclaiming in an exasperated tone,

"You guys, he's brown!"

I suggested they maybe needed to request some supplementary vocabulary from their history teacher as it's clear it's lacking...  Then I remembered who their history teacher was, and could imagine myself having this exact same conversation with him so, I suppose that explains a lot!