learning to say no...or tickets to the symphony

For some reason I just cannot tell people no!
my last job:
"Will you stay at work late because I need to leave early?" OK, fine.
"Will you come in early, I can't make it on time?" Ok, sure.
New job:
"Will you be a chaperone for the 6th grade trip"...(aka spend 54 hrs with over 50 11 & 12 yr olds)? Yes, of course I will (ok, that one did get me out of teaching for a few days).
"Will you take ALL of the failing middle school kids after school for tutorials (and not get paid extra)four days a week?" Yeah, ok.
"Can I have your free teacher ticket to the fair?" Um...I'm not sure, I think I would like to go. "My wife & I want to take our grandkids. Here, I have 2 tickets to the symphony that my wife and I cannot use. You can have them and let me know about that fair ticket tomorrow." ok... dang it. What am I going to do with tickets to the symphony?! Maybe I will actually go even though it's not my kinda thing, but the fair sounds a lot more fun. I will not be manipulated anymore! After tomorrow when I'm supposed to give away my ticket to the fair.

life with 7th graders

i'm guessing i might have some stories to share now that i'm around 6th & 7th graders all day. soo here's my first one. yesterday i put several magazine pictures up on the board and made them choose a picture and write 2 paragraphs about it. they also had to use 5 of our vocab words for the week somewhere in the paragraphs... which is what made them funny cause the words really had nothing to do with the pictures at all. one of my students chose the picture of a huge chocolate chip cookie. this is what he wrote...without any punctuation at all (vocab words in caps):

I love cookies I think it's a good thing they can't be BISECTED I'd rather DUPLICATE it is much better awatked(?!) by a massive MONOLITH that was when I found a house it was the biggest DUPLEX ever I walked into the House

I saw a king I said are you the MONARCH he said yes Im the monarch then I killed him and took his cookies

hahahah. i love the last paragraph...but i obviously have a long way to go with these 7th graders if they don't even know to use punctuation.