A Private School Teacher

You are a 30 year old school teacher who teaches a small Philosophy class at an All-Girls Private School. Your class is very exclusive and student's must audition in order to be accepted. You teach only 10 of the school's smartest students.

One evening when getting your outfit ready for the next day of school, you find a strange notebook you've never seen before at the bottom of your closet underneath your shoes. You pick it up. It has a yellow cover with a large N inscribed. You've done enough studying in your life to know what this is, though you can hardly believe it.

You take the notebook to your desk and, being a scholar, conduct your first experiment. You get a pencil, knowing that pen too irrevocably writes the rules of the world, and you conduct your first experiment.

You write down "it is normal for everyone in my city to sing Happy Birthday as loud as possible all throughout the night." Just as your pencil completes the sentence you hear the nocturnal chorus of voices singing Happy Birthday from every direction. You look out the window to see people in the street gathered about, singing the song in unison. As soon as they finish one round of the song they begin again.

You smile. As you suspected this is the mythical Notebook of Normality. What fun you will have.

You erase the sentence you wrote for your first experiment. The singing of "Happy Birthday" ceases, and the people in the streets return to their homes. You vow to yourself to only ever write in pencil (though a whisper in the back of your head dreams of the permanence of pen.)

First thing in the morning you will be teaching your class of senior girls in philosophy. Every girl in the class is eighteen, so there is no reason not to have some fun. You will think in detail of new rules after class, after you decide to hold one student behind for experimentation. But before that deeper dive, you might as well establish a new social norm for the way that senior girls great their philosophy teacher.

What new social norm do you set for the girls when they enter the classroom? Your pencil is poised.