new in the science lab

it's been a busy day of stories in the p.dwarf lab. today i convinced a couple classrooms of students that i was friends with kevin garnett. i then used my photos of professor proton + KG to prove it. granted, i made these photos on photoshop, but ooooohhhhh they fell for it. they're all freaking out: "how do you know him?," "you FOR REAL know him?." and then i told them that KG was also my baby's daddy. and then they laughed super hard but still weren't totally convinced that i didn't know him.

i also told my students that i'm going to start a rumor that i'm pregnant so that people will throw me a party and i'll get blenders and toasters and awesome kitchen stuff. then i'll tell the people it died and i'll get to keep the stuff. i think that whole cuckoo rant may have brought some of the rough, tough kids over to the dr. l side.

635+ angry baltimoreans

today i had jury duty. it was my first time doing so in baltimore, and i was more than a little frightened by the prospect. earlier in the week i told my students that i would be out of class on friday, and please don't destroy the substitute. and at all costs protect the record player in the room from the one icky sub who keeps making comments about taking it. i don't care what it takes: create a diversion, someone fake a seizure, just don't do anything that will get you suspended. i also told them how i was the defense attorney's dream juror: i'm half communist/half marxist, and i hate cops and white people. one class inparticular went nuts when i said that... and one mr. leland exclaimed "aw dr. larson, will you be my mom?" WEIRD. no. no i will not.

i'm happy to say that the process today was much smoother than i had imagined anything linked to baltimore public services could be. granted, it was the most goddamn boring day of my life and the two movies they played for us were "meet the parents" and "happy feet," but i did manage to score the most amazing sequined mini-dress during my lunch break. wait now... they did play another awesome movie during our orientation. it was about the amazingness of the jury system and how we're so much more civilized now because we don't have "trial by ordeal." then the movie provided great visuals to what a trial by ordeal might be like (this one involved throwing a hog-tied guy in water and seeing if he floated (guilty) or sank (innocent)). we all laughed heartily when they threw him in. i was waiting for the movie to flash into the future of the 21st century and go into detail on the "trial by how much money you have" and how we like putting needles in guilty, guilty poor people's arms, but that didn't pop up on the flatscreen.

the eeriest sound i heard today: the clankity-clank of chains as prisoners were escorted past the jury quiet room. clankity-clankity-clank sprinkled with the sound of shuffling feet. so sad and so weird....

electronegativity

how do you make kids remember what electronegativity is? by introducing it near valentine's day and saying that it is an atom's desire for electrons. and when you say desire you say it all deep and breathy (this was done on friday). when i asked students today what it was they answered with surprising accuracy. i then went off on how it's kind of like some seedy, trashy novel with a guy with his hair being blown around and a big burly chest dipping over some scantily-clad electron with heaving cleavage. i think that cleavage rests somewhere in an sp3 orbital.

non-emotional bonding

this week was the start of covalent bonding for my students. i've also started burning incense in my room and when they ask why i tell them they smell like hormones. when they ask what hormones smell like i tell them to smell themselves. anyway, covalent bonding is great and one of my super bright ladies of science came up to me after lecture yesterday and asked if i could give her hard Lewis structures to draw over the weekend. apparently the hard example we did in class (that all the students freaked out about and insisted it wasn't possible because they couldn't figure it out) gave her butterflies of excitement when she figured it out. I LOVE HER. so i wrote down five more hard structures for her and promised her i would post more on my science class blog for her. she was so excited.

this week also marked the return of mr. money. mr. money is a terrible, terrible man who is supposed to get the kids all excited to do fundraising for the school and he wears one of those gross seashell necklaces and looks like a sleezy, icky guy you would see at a bar who would sneak up behind you and try to dry hump you without you noticing. we all had to go down to an assembly to listen to him spew his terrible money-craving propoganda, but this time it got much worse than usual. the teachers were asked to assemble at the front of the gym and he told us we were going to be in a dance contest. (at this point i faked slashed my wrists with my keys for some of my students.) he then starts blaring some terrible techno music and waves around a $20 bill to entice us to dance. i whisper to the teacher next to me that this is dangerously close to something like a stripper would do. the new teacher (mr. mccord) at the end of the line looks like he is going to start crying, and then all of a sudden the teacher i had just talked to freaking BUSTS OUT with some crazy dance moves and takes off his jacket and throws it like a stripper to the 8th grade girls sitting in the front row. i thought the children's heads were going to explode... and i used that moment to sneak off stage. i then watched a terrible man/teacher attempt to be cool by also dancing. he looked like the uncomfortably drunk dancing uncle at a wedding.... and then poor mr. mccord was summoned and he just stood there looking down, turning red, and wanting to die. me too, my friend. me too.

hydrant

today at the dog park a rottweiler peed on me. it was one of those days. children are officially terrible creatures and dogs pee on me. then, of course, since one dog peed one me, all the other dogs started circling me and making the move to leave their mark on me. not awesome. BUT.. i can't be too mad at the dog because it's the same 180-pound machine that took a mitten from a kid sledding a few weeks ago and ran around with it, shaking it like a dead rabbit. also, a fellow dog parker told me that a few days ago, his dog shat out a used condom. THAT'S terrible. how do you explain that away gracefully? "oh coach... you cute little sperm-and-latex-ingesting mutt dog... let's just scoop that away."

kill the wabbit

so today i conducted a little experiment of my own. it was a lab day and the students had to build little conductivity meter (a simple circuit using a battery, some tin foil, tape, and a christmas bulb) to test the ability of different solutions to conduct electricity. instead of grouping both boys and girls together, i made girls-only and boys-only groups. interestingly, only one student actually picked up on it, and that's a super bright little lady who is losing her mind over organic chemistry. the surprising thing was that without fail, the girls-only group got their circuits put together 10-15 minutes before the boys-only groups. i was trying to get a feel for why that was happening and noticed that the boys spent a lot of time arguing over how to do it instead of actually doing it. or they were just goofing around. case in point: soren, tarezz, and nathan's group. while the ladies are taping down batteries and making leads, i hear those three boys giggling like maniacs, singing "kill the wabbit," and fake-stabbing each other with the plastic knives they were supposed to be using to balance the circuit. soon after, they were actually walking around the desk, marching to the "kill the wabbit" tune and laughing hysterically. i would have stopped them if i hadn't enjoyed listening to their giggles so much. they then started thinking of new nicknames for me, included "the larson-ster, the lars-ster, and dr. l." well done, boys.

robots wear hot shoes, too

i'm the first to admit i have a shoe problem. i've had a shoe problem since i was about 3. always parading around in my grandma's sweet pumps as a toddler, trying on my 2nd grade teacher's shoes whenever she would let me, and trying to don the best pastel old bridesmaid dress + satin heel combo my aunt's closet could offer. february is my favorite shoe month in baltimore
because my favorite shoe shop + chocolaterie has their annual sale. i almost forgot about it, but last night one of my student's parents emailed me with a pair of shoes they saw there and immediately though of me. this pair of shoes had black and silver striped heels and was decorated with flying rocket ships. unfortunately, those shoes were not available in my size, but don't think i didn't walk out of there with some freaking amazing zapatos (those would be the photos to the left). i'm not sure whether i like the shoes more or the box one of the pairs came in. it has robots on it and they're shooting laser beams out of their eyes. i'll buy every pair of shoes this company ever comes out with because they're freaking adorable and their packaging appeals to a science-minded chick like myself. and now i need to figure out what two pairs of shoes i am going to donate. that's how i keep myself in check. kind of.

and more delights in education.... i'm the faculty advisor to the 8th grade dance committee. i've got one girl on the committee who thinks herself some sort of dance dictator and is trying to appoint only her friends to be on it and thinks that there is going to be some forest theme or some shit at said booty-shaking event. themes? decorating? hells no. there's going to be a few strands of christmas lights and a ton of smoke and strobe lights. and mark bc going dj crazy. and dr. l. in a pink wig. that's enough for you. there's this weird "footloose" vibe with some of the older teacher who keep insisting we need to watch out for that "terrible overtly sexual dancing those kids are into." weird. i advocated for squirt guns, but as per usual, my suggestions at faculty meetings are not usually given much thought. i also thought the kids should use a "throw a pie at a teacher's face" as a fundraiser, but again... that was met with scowls and frowns. pie faces.

Science Fair

last night was the big science fair. yay. it's done. it was sweaty and lots of 6th grade boys looked at my boobs when i tried asking them what their project was about. the pic to the left are some 7th graders that i have officially deemed the rock stars of the fair. cus they are punky and great.

picture below that features soren and another student of mine, sih. soren bought a pointer for the fair. actually, he said he didn't buy it. it came with a bacci ball set and it seemed like the right thing to use. again... fantastic.

now that the fair is done, i can concentrate on more important things: the kinetic sculpture race. today we had our first meeting and came up with what may be an amazing group name: ella and the elements. yes, there is a girl named ella on the team. initially i had thought that the ele-MENTALS might be good, but then she sort of uttered "ella-mental" and then i said "ella and the elements." like a 60s pop group, but we all get to dress up as an element on top of that. simon immediatley yelled "krypton." simon also spent most of class today reading the ion assignment out loud in a british accent. our kinetic sculpture is going to be some sort of atom/molecule/freaking out piece of science magic.