8th Grade Presentation Re-Cap

In September, we assigned the kids a book project due at the end of the quarter. 
Today, I heard lots of great excuses for why projects weren't ready for presentations. 
"Could I have an extra day? I fell asleep when I was working on it last night"

I told everyone that the only valid excuse would be something like "My whole computer crashed last night and deleted every one of my files."
Right afterwards, a girl who didn't have her project raised her hand...
"My computer crashed last night and deleted all my files."
Suspicious? Yes. 

Great Presentation Moments of 2012:

"He was the son of a lighthouse keeper" (from across the room I hear this kid say to himself..."SON of a LIGHTHOUSE keeper!") 

"This book is by Carl Dicker" (met with giggles, naturally. The written name was actually Carl DEUKER)

Every time I called someone to present, this one kid would shout out "You gotta want it!". You can guess what I found written on the white board later. 

In the middle of presentations... "Can I go to the office? I think I'm about to puke". Now THAT excuse I don't play around with!

One kid presented and I realized he was wearing his shirt backwards. Even 8th graders can't dress themselves. 

The best presentation of the day - 
This kid gets up and starts showing his powerpoint slides. He tells us to imagine what it would be like if we were just diagnosed with a deadly disease. He shows us these dark slides with one question on each. "What would you do if you had a year to live?" "Who would you tell?"... It was deep. Then, a slide that says "a wise man once said" and the following slide:
Y.O.L.O.
And then launched into his actual presentation. It was amazing and hilarious. Future public speaker. 
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On a side note, my 6th graders were talking amongst themselves and I heard them come up with what should be on Obama's Presidential Rubric (they were also wondering if he had one after I told them that even grown ups have rubrics for things). They think he should have a rubric to check if he is:
Funny
Swaggy
Growing his hair like Justin Bieber. 
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Also, I learned about this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Chainz
from some 8th graders when EVERY 2nd period they would say "what period is this?" And then I would say 2 they would yell "2 CHAINZ!". It never got old. For them.