No final!

So, this semester I am taking a Community Organization class. This class has a unique tradition, in which, frequently, students will use some of the principles taught in this class to protest the ministration of a comprehensive final. In the past, I've heard of classes doing symbolic acts, or petitions, or even showing up to class with signs. The professor has come to expect this every semester, and is generally willing to be flexible... though some classes don't put forth the effort to make the change.
This semester in the class, we've all been anxiously engaged in a large class project meant to benefit the community. This project, among other things, has included a 100 page manual (in English and Spanish), accompanying pamphlets, website, fund-raising, PR work, and eventually presentations to the target population in a couple weeks. This has been a huge task, and has required a lot of time and effort. My main task has been as the head of the writing committee... so chief editing and organization of sections, general formatting, etc fell upon me. I thought this would be a big task... but it ended up to be huge. I spent dozens of hours just formatting and sticking the various sections together, and rewriting large portions just to make it somewhat understandable. Others have been equally diligently involved in their tasks, and it continues to take a lot of time.
For this purpose, we decided to raise the stakes and propose NO final, rather than just a non-comprehensive final. Our effort included a symbolic act (showing up to class in our PJs because we are so tired/worn out), a petition (nearly 600 names), letters written by loved ones (part of Avery's will be posted below- there were about 90 total letters), and a detailed proposal, all aimed at the professor changing the final. The task of writing the written proposal was yours truly. The gist of the proposal to make arguments for why it makes sense to drop the final, and response to his anticipated concerns with such a change.
We flawlessly carried out our plan, and the professor's response on Wednesday was very positive. He was particularly pleased that we addressed many real concerns that he would need to consider. He responded officially yesterday and agreed to every part of our proposal. So... in short, rather than a long written in class final, we are now going to do several levels of peer evaluations, and the short response paper for the project, and the presentations in a couple weeks will now be our final. It is a pretty exciting development. It's weird that this works... but we'll take it!

Here's the whole group in our PJs

Here's me looking pretty darn excited during our pre-class meeting.

Avery's letter and picture (with help from Mommy): If you can't tell, the picture has Mommy, Avery, and Jack and then says "Who is missing?"