Mardi Gras and Cinco de Mayo

Since today was Cinco de Mayo, we started off class today with me asking the kids if they knew what Cinco de Mayo celebrated (a little-known battle between the French and the Mexicans) and who it was important to (the US), and what it has become (an excuse to drink while celebrating someone else's cultural heritage). One of my classes was asking questions about other cultural celebrations, such as St. Patrick's day, Oktoberfest, and Mardi Gras. They asked what Mardi Gras was (Remember, we are in Seattle here...there is no Mardi Gras celebration) and what the beads were for. There were a few kids (especially the ELL kids) who didn't know what we were talking about, so we were explaining how women will flash their breasts to get beads thrown to them from floats. One of the kids asked what the beads looked like, and without thinking I said, "well I got some one time, but I don't know what I did with them." Oops. The class totally started laughing. So then I tried to fix it: "no, I mean I got some beads from one of my students...." And that made it even worse. I finally just gave up and went on to the powerpoint over WWI. Some days you just wake up with your foot in your mouth.