Whatever happened to NSYNC?

I can remember NSYNC being the cool thing when I was younger.....I guess you could say younger. "Bye, Bye, Bye" was a personal favorite!

Times have changed though and NSYNC no longer rules the 11-13 yr old female population. All of things I remember as being cool are now unheard of. My kids at school look at me like I'm crazy when I break out in song to Vanilla Ice or Backstreet Boys---I'm not sure if that makes me sad or thankful.

Today in class we were evaluating words to describe characters/events/emotions and the appropriate level of that word. For example....are we happy, elated, ecstatic? Do the characters emotion represent being mad, angry, or outraged?

I decided to use myself as an example and posed the question, "give me one word that you would use to describe me." (I held my breath---my expectation was something like..."caring" "approachable" or even "amusing.")

One very special boy from my 2nd block raised his hand so desperately I thought he would pee his pants if I didn't call on him in that instant (special is another word that teachers use when we want to be positive about a student that may not portray positive characters on a consistent basis).

The boy shouts...."BEASTLY!"

Great.

So I say to the class, "wow-that wasn't exactly what I was hoping for but we can work with it."

The kids could all see the disappointment in my face and all 30 of them began to yell at once...."Beastly means cool Ms.Merkle. It's good to be beastly!!"

Ummmm.....times have changed. I guess words have too!