girls' day

It's almost midterms time! Which will mean I'll have to give a few tests, but essentially I won't have many classes (only afternoon classes!!) and will have lots of free time! Only for a week, but still. Plus, next Wednesday (the worst day of my work week) is voting day, so no classes! It's like my birthday is coming early!

For my graded classes, attendance is 20% of their final grade, and students have to attend a certain % of classes, just to pass. So, when students miss a class, there's hemming and hawing and (as I'm new to uni) stamped notes excusing their absences for various reasons. And this next excuse isn't new to me, I definitely got it when I taught middle school, but getting it as an official stamped excuse (at a university with its very own form!) is pretty fantastic:

The title of the note. I had no idea what this meant, so I took it to the office and asked the first person I saw that I thought knew enough English to explain things. She looked at it, got a scrunched up face and quietly said "girls' day." I wasn't sure if I heard sick or girls' day so I asked her again and she scrambled a bit on her computer, got out her smart phone and looked it up. Then she handed her phone to me and pointed out a phrase: menstruation! I immediately laughed.

In middle school, I had a student talk to my co-teacher about something, then he (yep, male co-teacher and younger than me) explained the situation. "She has magic day." (while making rainbow hand gestures). My response: "magic day???" Lets just cut this story short, menstruation! It's a magic girls' day here, comes complete with its very own excuse form and apparently can get you out of anything. Why didn't I know the full extent of magic day sooner?