boobs bra blammo

today i went to my tattoo guy to start chatting about what i want done to my back. in order to plan this out, josh had to trace my back. which involved me having to take my top off. so i was just in a bra. the WORST. BRA. I. OWN. all full of fabric balls and kind of ill-fitting the type of bra you wear under multiple layers and when there's ZERO chance of having anyone see it. so not only am i showing more skin to a man than i've shown in over six months, i'm showcasing the most nastiest piece of underwear possible.

oh... but what could make it worse? let's expand....

1-i'm wearing pantyhose with sweet control top that almost meet that weak-ass bra at my belly midpoint. so... when josh wasn't wondering why a single 32-year-old woman is wearing the boob clothes of a 50-year-old married woman, he was losing himself in a sea of opaque spanks. when he asks where my back ends and butt begins, i have to point a good 8 inches below where the top of the hose have worked their way into my skin and really, let's be honest, etched themselves into his heart.

2-it seems that my sugar indulgence has finally come back to bite me. i've been sweating like a pig.... like. a. pig. at yoga the other night, i wondered where that smell of onions was coming from and realized it was me. me. me with the sweaty feet that have wet their way through more pairs of socks this week than i'd like to admit. so.... let's add all this together...

ill-fitting boob cover + bea arthur stomach girdle + sweat stained linen dress = total. sex pot. seduction.

and yes.... as i'm standing there in my bra, trying to hold my shoulders back with my hands on the hips pretending i'm super comfortable standing next to my tattoo guy, chatting about the best way to shade cherry blooms when one of us is WAY more naked than the other, i did say "you know, had i known this was going to happen i would have worn a much better bra." and then zipped that dress up up up.

today was not a good day

the word "bitch" is a severe word. it's a word that for different women evoke different emotions: anger, disgust, fear.... it's a word that for me is not easily shaken off. hearing the word "bitch" hollered at me is not something i am unfamiliar with: boys in grade school and high school loved using it because i didn't find their sexually-depraved advances cute or endearing, girls used it because i wasn't afraid to speak my mind during class or elsewhere. it's a word i heard over and over again during those years... and when i wasn't hearing it in the hallways at school, i was hearing it in the hallways at home. so, needless to say, hearing it, even at this age, causes an immediate reaction of anger, but that anger very quickly is replaced by a feeling of apprehension, a fear of not knowing what could possibly happen next... and yes, those feelings have much more to do with events of the past, but convincing myself of that is not an easy thing.

so today.... today, when attempting to take a cell phone from a student, a senior boy student, i was met with resistance not only from him, but from his assembled crew of friends. this gave way very quickly to he and i making our way to the assistant principal's office, with his friends in tow, applauding every attempt he made to tell me what to do, and yelling "bitch" at me as we made our way up the stairs. this darling striving academic eventually took off running once i asked his name and we made our way closer to the office.... because he's a noble and courageous guy like that. so yeah, that sucked. having a large group of large, football player-style men yelling "bitch" at you is not a comfortable place to be. and when i finally made it to my 5th period class and my students asked where i was, the tears welled up and i looked down at the floor and said "something bad happened" and couldn't speak ..... the kids kept asking me what happened, but all i could do is take big breaths and not talk... and when i finally did i said that if i told them the story i was going to start crying. hard. you know you've officially freaked your students out when the super hardcore, tough-as-nails girls you've given 200 detentions to are telling the other kids to shut up and to stop asking crying science teacher questions.....

but that... oh that was not the worst of it.

later that day, after having informed my amazing head of the science department what had happened and i had perused old yearbooks and checked our some possible suspects, the AMAZING head of the department asked me to head to a couple of classrooms to check out some groups of kids. so i did. i knocked on the door of one of the classrooms and looked in. it was full of senior girls. not awesome. they proceeded to shout "don't let the bitch in, don't let the bitch in" and refused to open the door. some poor white kid finally came to the door and let me in, at which point the lovely dainties started yelling "hide your phones, hide your phones! she's out of get everybody." (which was actually funnier than it should have been considering they were kind of saying the lyrics to the "they rapin' everybody up in here" song... "hide your kids, hide your wife").... but the real punch in the face: the teacher was sitting in the back the whole time, heard these flowers of eloquence saying these things to me, and said nothing. nothing. he uttered a "is he in here?" as i took a step in, but reprimanding kids for having phones? nope. responding to the "bitch" comments? nope. holding those girls accountable for speaking that way to a teacher? apparently too much work. THAT was the final insult. having a fellow teacher, a coworker, a peer, allow that type of behavior to occur. and by not saying anything, anything, to these students, he's not only condoning the behavior, he's making sure it continues. and making the jobs of those instructors who work hard to enforce rules and make the school a safe place that much harder.

so tomorrow? tomorrow i get to watch videotapes of hallways to try to figure out who these knuckleheads are.... and ask mr. flaccid spine why he didn't respond when his students spoke to me that way. and thank my 5th period class for being the best students ever.

best hour of my life

there are lots of words i think are thrown around pretty loosely: "liberal", "organic", "parent", "hero". we can officially now add "master teacher" to that list. when i think "master teacher," a few things come to mind: an old, crinkly teacher wearing a tweed jacket, reminiscing about a time long long ago when students were still afraid of a swinging ruler and there were only 75 elements in the periodic table. this sage of pedagogical wisdom would shower us with secrets of behavior management, fear tactics, and maybe even a few tales of how shook up the science department was when plasma became a state of matter. THAT is what i think of when i hear the words "master teacher."

the reality: a "master teacher" is an educator who has been in the system maybe two years, has enough intelligence to put their pants on in the right direction in the morning, but apparently still makes the ol' classic mistake of "3 x 2 = 10." we've all done it. other things this real-life master teacher might do..... she might go on and on for an hour about how the unit circle was one of the hardest things she's ever had to conquer, how she's sometimes still stumped by adding fractions, and when we mention chemistry, she replies "oh man. dot line. that's all i remember. dot line." the chemistry teacher and i look at each other, having ZERO clue what she's talking about. and she keeps saying it. finally, i draw it (a dot next to a line) and she exclaims "THAT'S IT!" i said "yes... it's an exclamation point." and still... NOT. A. CLUE. so yes... after 8 hours of teenage screaming and nasty nasty girls calling you nasty nasty names, you're right. the thing i'd most love to be doing is getting lectured by a "master teacher" with the intelligence of a roofied boston terrier. i am quite possibly less smart for having spent those 60 minutes with her....

thank you b.r.

there are good weeks and bad weeks.... weeks when you would much rather stay curled up under your sweet, sweet down comforter than venture into a high school full of angsty, stinky teenagers who at times seem focused on making your morning the most miserable possible. mornings when asking a student for his cell phone leads to an eruption of teenage cackling, the student throwing his head back in a roar of defiance, his braces glistening in the fluorescent lights, and sprinting down the hallway. sprinting. down. the. hallway. me left standing there, holding my much-too-teeny coffee, wondering how long it will take before my standing next to his locker every morning drives him to the point of insanity. weeks that could really be made bearable if an attractive, attentive, and lactose-intolerant master chef was waiting for me when i got home. waiting for me with a freshly-baked goat cheese pizza, a fanta, and an insatiable appetite for peter sellers films and making out. until then.... i've got students like brandon that make that terrible week not so terrible. students who, during the last period of the day, as you're on your last leg, questioning every life decision you've made in the past six months, says "you know dr. larson.... you do a really good job." and then i stop, mutter a few somethings or other... and brandon says "you do a good job of getting us interested, dr. larson." and then a big big THANK YOU from me.... with brandon not at all aware of how his seemingly insignificant comment just made my day, my week.... reminded me of how much i dig my students, how powerful simple words can be, and how much i can't wait to stake out douchebag brace face for the rest of the year....

Question of the Day

Just when I feel I can't take another metaphorical punch in the face from the adults I find myself surrounded by on most days, sweet Ralkwon evens everything out by asking me one of the most outrageous questions I've been asked as teacher. Today's lecture was on cells: how small they are, how they have all sorts of different shapes, the types of organelles they have, your standard sort of cell discussion. But, of course, this is my class, so there are pictures of sperm along with transitional epithelium. This of course leads to a lively discussion of sperm/egg/fertilization/how not to get pregnant and so on. As class ends and students are filing out, Ralkwon stops and says..... "Dr. Larson.... so, uh, is vaseline what comes out of your penis when you ejaculate?"

Holy. crap.

I'm usually very good at keeping a straight face and not embarassing kids when they ask me sexy-time questions, but I laughed out loud super duper hard and assured him that no, that is not vaseline. Good god. He exclaimed "SEE! I told you guys!" to his friends in the hallway and continued on to German I. After he left, another male student felt the need to ask me additional questions about nocturnal teenage boy activities... but we'll keep those on the DL. But let's just say I've never heard the word "ejaculate" said so many times by teenage boys. Ever.

two highlights of the day

had to break it to students that no, scientists do not make a lot of money. they drive honda civics from 1984. and don't wear bling but wear lots of plaid. to which zachary exclaimed "then what am i doing here?" i don't know. later alan's retainer flew out of his mouth and onto the floor. i made him look at it for 2 minutes before letting him pick it up.

also part of today's lecture: me: "so DNA is found in every cell of your body. skin cells, liver cells, bone cells, even butt cells." juwan: "you have BUTT CELLS?!" me: "yes... you have butt cells.... but they are technically called derriere cells." kweisi (turned around and speaking to the class): "that's french."

cheating douchebag ugh gross

this is when my naivete really shows itself. i really really do not think that real life people cheat on their boyfriends or girlfriends or wives or anybody. sure.... perhaps i've heard a story of infidelity long after it has happened, but i've never been face-to-face with an icky cheater. OR, as events have unfolded in the past 24 hours, found myself in the position where someone who would like to be cheating is propositioning yours truly to be the other woman. not only do i find this gross because i just find it gross.... i find it ESPECIALLY nauseating because:

1. i work with this guy.
2. he's married.
3. he has a MONTH OLD BABY. a month. a month old. can barely open his eyes to look into his gross-ass dad's face.
4. we both frequent the same dog park, i with my dog, he with his FAMILY. that woman he made a life committment to and his genetic spawn.
5. his proposition came via email. now... there's stupid and there' really really freaking "i try jamming my fist into my mouth during lunch breaks" and "i like to leave paper trails of my attempts to stick my penis in other women" stupid.

i got the email last night and screamed/vomited all over myself and proton for an hour. then called people to try to figure out what the hecks to do. and let me just say, it's not as though this douchebag and i have shared longing looks over the nitrates in the lab room, or wrestled with our feelings as we're figuring out our seating charts. NOTHING. there's been nothing except me thinking that perhaps mr. grosso is perhaps a bit too interested in what i'm doing and visiting my room maybe a little too much. but NO WAY did i think i would get a freaking email titled "your call" letting me know what he feels he needs to let me know. well great. guess i'm taking myself out of the fucking garden club. and blocking you on facebook and making sure that you aren't reading this blog by sending my friends personal invitations.

i have the day off of work today, but tomorrow is going to be day 1 of nasty mcbalding's introduction to the cool, cold, removed side of dr. l. oh no.... we are not discussing lesson plans, or global warming, or where the paper towels are, or anything at all. suck it. i don't even want to be in the same room as you.

shake it

students need to bring me a form signed by them and their parents/guardians indicating that they have read over the syllabus. there are three students in one of my classes that have not handed it in yet. the beginning of class for them went something like this...

"rakwon, alisha, devin.... raise your hands."
they raise their hands.
"ok everybody... everybody look at these guys."
everyone in the class looks at them.
"you guys need to get your signed forms in so you can do the lab on friday. now everybody shake your head to show your disappointment."
and then we all shook our heads back and forth as though we were seriously unimpressed with these three students. they best be bringing their forms tomorrow.

first and second days.... done and done

yesterday's antics with new students included: 1- a student doing magic tricks during my discussion of the expectations i have for students, 2- another student introducing me to the word "awesomenatic," 3- and a student's question making me laugh so hard i had to look at the floor and think about something super sad and terrible to maintain some semblance of professionalism. that story....

i'm talking to students about how they are going to be reading selected passages from Fast Food Nation and we will be discussing how fast food is made and the chemistry of it and effects on our body systems. i ask how many kids eat fast food and about 90% raise their hands... i then tell them that i don't eat it any more, but if i did happen to sit down and eat a "hamburger" from McDonald's i would definitely "pee acid out my butt." yes. that exactly. they laugh a kind of freaked out, who the hell is this crazy science lady kind of laugh, then start asking questions. "but what about if you eat parfait" "how about salad? that's healthy." i quashed those silly silly notions by saying "sure, but if you eat that straight for 30 days you're probably going to poop acid out your butt." kid in the front row kind of furrows his brow, then raises his hand. ooohhhhhh sweet. what is this question going to be??? "um.... so a minute ago you said peeing acid out your butt. but just now you said pooping out your butt. are those the same things?"

OH. MY. GOD.

put my head down, took a couple breaths, told him i appreciated his attention to detail, then forced myself to think of drowning puppies and prisoners of war and restriction enzymes left out at room temperature and continued on. it's one thing to realize i say ridiculous things in class by watching the mouths of my friends form gaping holes when telling them stories, but it's another thing to realize it by hearing a student say back to you what you've just said to a class. peeing acid out your butt.

some of today's highlights: a student calling me "gansta" because i don't give points for incomplete homework, another kid falling asleep, me slamming my fist down on his desk to wake him up only to have him try cheating off a paper five minutes later, and being asked whether blood left at a crime scene could be traced back to a person. i assured that student that unless he was in the system already he'd be fine. he seemed really happy about that.

bare minimum

it never fails to amaze me..... the complacency of so many teachers, that is. the failure of teachers to recognize the potential of students, or to push, and really PUSH, students in deepening their understanding of just about anything.... . this week has been a week of preparation at school, and today i was once again reminded of the insanely frustrating and limiting viewpoint that permeates so much of education... the language of so many teachers makes it all the clearer to me that yes, indeed, i need to keep reminding myself that challenging students in their level of comprehension is not going to come from every teacher... and that i need to work extra hard to get these kids exposed to things that sure, might be a little bit advanced and probably not something they're expected to know, but are also exceptionally awesome and will blow their minds. and is something that they can all do! one topic that a teacher told me was too complicated for high schoolers was the same topic i taught my 8th graders. and they loved it and got it and could explain it and yes... the only thing limiting in that situation was my own ability to present the information to them. those same 8th graders were doing work i did not do until my junior year of high school... and these students were not exceptions. i just expected a hell of a lot of them and they understood that i had complete confidence in their ability to succeed. and never mind the fact that the labs being scheduled are the same sorts of things boyle would have done in his makeshift laboratory. potatoes? algae? really? can't we get a little bit more awesome? science is AMAZING and things should be glowing and exploding and boggling the mind of every student in the room. not lulling them to sleep.

and i guess a testament to fighting against the boring teaching machine would be hearing from a former senior at my new school (and now off to MIT) that the work ethic of my former students was out of control awesome.... and then when he asked the students how they were so prepared for the amount of work they had in high school they told him that yours truly gave them the same amount and expected them to kick ass on it. THAT makes me happy... kids are unbelievable and amazing and incredibly capable and the more information you throw at them the more they lap it up... i CAN'T WAIT to blow their little science worlds up....

seriously

really proton? do we really need to continue this game of dog escape from the backyard + sweating dog owner running through the streets of baltimore screaming out the name of a subatomic particle? yes... yes we do.

yesterday i was in the backyard with prof. proton, tending to the pumpkins and cucumbers and flowers, not paying too much attention to the fact the professor was doing a terrible job weeding because all of his energy was going to plotting his escape. escape from a terrible life of comfortable beds and loads of dog treats and trips to wonderful places. but apparently not as wonderful as the particulars of baltimore alleys. i turn my back for 1.3 seconds and out of the corner of my eye notice the dart of gray blasting through the back gate. "proton?.... proton?" DAMN IT. sure enough, open the door and there he is. 15 feet away, staring at me. i take one step toward him saying "good boy! good boy!" and then he's gone. running like a freaking maniac down the alley, turning around every few seconds to make sure i'm still chasing him. then he peels onto the main street and runs by the group of kids hanging out on the stoop. at least seven of them, not one of them interested in helping the sweaty white lady get her scruffy-ass dog under control. as i run by one of them says "hey lady... your dog is loose." really? thanks ace... i doubt i'll have you in class this fall, but one can hope for small miracles. one lone ranger of compassion saddled up on his dirt bike and took off with me to try to wrangle the beast... and about 10 minutes later, as proton made his way toward a major baltimore street and i was screaming his name in a much more panicked and frightened way, we finally got the hairy moron until control. and then i had to carry his ass past the stoop boys (who were kind enough to comment "hey... you got your dog." ) and to my apartment, where the hose had been left running and was now causing a minor floor in the alley. perfect. and may i add that this little escape jaunt happened AFTER i let him run amuck in a dog park for 1.5 hours. perhaps this is his own way of shifting my mind's attention from lost loves to lost dogs.... in that case, FANTASTIC strategy. let's plan a daily runaway escapade.

10 inches lighter

i cut 10 inches off my hair. every clothing purchase from here on out will go to my passing as a resident of the 1930s. or the bastard love child of louise brooks... someone find me a black tutu.

little things

babies are awesome. not because they're small and cute and squishy and smell nice... although those attributes definitely add to their overall awesomeness. they're awesome because they are legitimately amazed by things that us cynical adults don't give a moment's thought to. the color blue, the cat having whiskers, their own fingernails... everything is fantastic and wonderful and awe-inspiring and another reason to be excited about being wherever they are. i went to visit my friend's chunky bebunky baby and spent most of the time laying on my back, with chunkster on my stomach, and yours truly making outrageous snoring noises and spitting sounds. chunkster was BLOWN AWAY by the sounds and set out to determine how exactly i was making those magical notes by placing her hands on top of my face and giggling incessently whenever i forced noises through those little paws. i spent 20 minutes doing this and that was without a doubt the best 20 minutes of my week. i am never living as much in the moment as i am when letting myself enjoy every second i spend with chunky mcawesome..... and those moments are the best reminder of how important it is to KEEP being amazed by the small things... by the way pumpkin plants grow, by the way my bird feeder is empty 10 minutes after filling it, by proton and a squirrel having a 30 second staring contest, by how good lentil soup is, and every other small, completely significant thing that makes life fantastic.....

seduction step 1

another day of domestic bliss: cutting up herbs to make sweet little herb ice cubes, baking homemade bread that i am having an incredibly difficult time not pounding into my face every 5 minutes, looking up haircuts from the 1930s so i can figure out how much to get chopped off tomorrow. and, ah yes.... seducing the neighborhood hottie using my oh-so-subtle technique. that would be seeing him approaching as i'm walking proton, deciding that i am going to say hello since i see him all the time and he needs to realize that we are destined to bake rosemary-spiced bread together, and then making the move to greet first. however, i made that decision a bit prematurely and that resulted in me yelling "HELLO!!!" from a uncomfortably far distance. and then ssssooooooo mmmmuuuuucccchhhh tttttiiiimmmmeeeee until we were actually close enough to permit conversation to erupt at a normal, un-fog horn decibel level. unfortunately, he seemed a little rattled by my screaming greeting and just said "hi" as i stared at the ground and tried to imagine that i was invisible and could remain so as long as both proton and i had our eyes squeezed shut. another fantastic display of the art of seduction by yours truly. tomorrow i may try out an equally subtle net gun technique.

my mistake

“I’m sorry I treated you like adults yesterday.” At first I thought she had misspoke. But no… immediately following that statement, teacher X (that same teacher who had been the victim of rogue humping and was soon may be the victim of rogue paintballing) proceeded to delve into a diatribe of condescension and patronizing that awoke the sleeping beast of rage lying dormant in my belly. It’s a fairly interesting social experiment to observe a group of teachers be treated like disobedient children. College, med school, grad school-educated people resort to writing haikus and limericks about how they want to poke their own eyes out with firecrackers, doodling pictures of dragons eating teacher X, and not-so-subtlely daydreaming about all the different tequila shooters they will be doing later that evening.

Other delights that escaped her wrinkly little lips: “If some of you think I’m a *b* because of this, I’m ok with that.” “Perception is reality.” (that gem has been stated at least 65 times in the past three days) Also, every sentence or two ends with one of the following “K?”, “Does that make sense?” “Are you getting that?” “Is that clear?” All right?” UUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH.

The highlight of the session would be realizing that the Bulgarian physics expert who’s supposed to be leading us through parts of these sessions hates teacher X as much as I do. I leaned over and asked Ms. B. whether she would be teaching us, and she said “I thought I was… I keep getting bullied out.” She also was muttering awesome quips like “I’m going to commit the suicide” and “This is the worst day of my life” under her breath the entire time teacher X was telling us how awesome she is. And then, the best… I look over at Ms. B’s computer at a point and she’s opened up her new Mac’s dictionary and is typing in “f-u-c-k.” Then BOOM. There are the definitions. I start laughing super hard and she says “I just needed to see if it’s working.” YOU, Ms. B., are the best Bulgarian physicist I have ever met.

twix tricks

ahhh yes. another fun-filled day of anarchy-inducing, zombie-fying teacher school sessions on classroom management, the best way to distribute and organize binders, and writing letters to ourselves to serve as "pick me ups" six months from now. you would think we were a group of lobotomized hamsters. with limited use of our front paws. i have had far more interesting interactions with the resident terrapin turtle in the room than with the folks leading these infantile discussions. and that lucky bastard gets to stick his head under water every minute to drown out the droning instructions on the best way to arrange desks and how that crafty student faked humped teacher X when she was leaning over to explain something and wasn't that a great teaching moment... a great chance to display classroom management skills. our four hour morning session was concluded with a twenty minute exercise trying to fold a dollar bill into a box. TWENTY MINUTES. i stopped 30 seconds in and began to practice sleeping with my eyes open.

and at the completion of this morning session, after the twenty minute origami nightmare, all i wanted, all i was yearning for was a delicious sweet chocolate treat. just one. i scampered down the steps to the candy machine and saw that YES! twix bars were one of my delightful scrumptious options. I popped in my box dollar (no way... no boxes), eagerly pushed "D1", and watched my candy dream plop down. I reached in to grab it, and as i pulled it out, i noticed something was very odd about it. it felt like one big fat piece of twix that had been vaccum packed into the twix wrapper... as though the candy bar was inseperable from the wrapper itself. i asked my friend what his take on it was... and he was correct in assessing that "that's what happens when candy bars melt." NNNNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!. are you serious? sure enough.... peeling open the wrapper pulled half of the twix treat with it. so there i was ten minutes later... outside in the 103 degree weather, reading my irish crime novel, sweating through my pants, using my index finger to scoop out as much caramel and chocolate i could from the mad mess of what used to be a twix bar. alone. no shame. licking every last chocolate molecule i could from my hands like a pacified plebian.

three. more. days.

SHUCK

Today was great. Lots of time at the dog park, reading up on how the science as an institution developed through very conscious and calculated maneuvers by elitists, intellectuals, and all sorts of folks threatened by artisans, and, of course, SHUCKING CORN. Shuck shuck shuck. Who knew that all of those hours spent sitting in the garage, tediously pulling the sticky, icky corn silk and green shuckings away from those sweet ears would pay off. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a pro, but I would venture to say I've got 200+ hours of corn shucking under my retro belt. Although the setting today was a bit different: beautiful weather, sitting on my deck, watching Proton and Doobie take turns peeing on my bok choy plants, thinking about sweet corn blanching in my sweet big pot. Contrast that to: Midwest mosquitos, sitting in my parents' garage, the Cure blasting on my headphones running on 60% battery power... but that slurred, dreary moan/singing being so much better than listening to my sisters screaming about how awesome their C+C Music Factory gymnastic routine was.... those morbid tunes echoing in my ears as I threw shucked corn remnants into a steel garbage can, counting the minutes until I could escape from the labor and back into my room and Stephen King. So. much. angst. And now: so much corn! Boop dee boop boop.

aaannnd.......

She's back. Again. And it's only been 4.5 months.

Updates in the life: back in baltimore (wooh hooh!), living in my sweet ol' neighborhood, tending my awesome awesome garden, and soon to be teaching at an amazing science high school in the city. SO. EXCITED. The Professor is absolutely elated to be back and visiting the dog park daily and hunting rats and pretty much just being awesome.

So some dandies to kick off my return to the land of the interweb..... courtesy of my always deprecating and confounding mother....

Last night I was talking on the phone to my mom about my plans buy some fish and an aquarium. Her response: “ooh… taking care of fish is really hard.” Mine: “Mom, I already own a dog. And I have my PhD in biochemistry. I think I can manage taking care of a fish tank and some fish.” I also told her that my friend Gabby is a therapist at a woman’s prison in Maryland. She asks “Wait… they spend state money on giving those people massages in prison?” No. No they don’t. I believe I cleared up the error by calling Gabby a “brain therapist.” My mother finished the conversation by reminding me that raising a child alone is really hard. I'm guessing slightly harder than maintaining a fish tank. I had to remind her that I'm 32 and not dead yet. Although apparently the chances of meeting a person to share child responiblities with post-30 are, as we all know, statisitically improbable. I'm asking for the best turkey basters EVER for Xmas.

this is not a science lab

today my little science brain almost exploded. i continue to struggle with why half the people i teach are in college. is it obligation? is it because their parents pushed them to? is it because they have nothing better to do but drive teachers who are super interested in science to the point of throwing test tubes? could be a combination of all three.

my journey towards apathy-induced insanity started today when i had to set up for a lab my class is doing on friday. the lab manager likes to not tell me where things are, or that she's setting up stuff for my labs, and seems to enjoy telling students how to do things during the lab exercises even though that's not what i would like them to do. so, i'm running around the lab, trying to find some 1 M TE which is a freaking STAPLE of any lab and nope. nobody's got it. and the five people who were in the lab seemed to have no idea what i was talking about. are you kidding? and yes, i appreciate that you can call ralph and have him come in and make it, but i need it right freaking now and how the hell are you running what you seem to think is a lab when you have zero freaking stock solutions of anything, students are spending 15 minutes trying to figure out how to dilute a 5X stock to 1X, and no. don't call me stephanie. my name is dr. larson and we are not friends. especially now. MOVE so i can actually get some science done. this is not a science lab. this is a freaking joke and it's making me seethe with rage.

and then lecture. i had the pleasure of interviewing in baltimore this weekend and observed a freshmen biology class that, interestingly enough, was at a level very similar to that of the college class i am currently teaching. insane. so i started the lecture by asking a question that should have been a no-brainer. we'd been talking about regulation of gene expression for WEEKS, the students have homework on it, and please. you're supposedly biology majors and i'm going to kill you if you can't answer this. so i say "ok... so we've been discussing the different levels of gene expression regulation: at the level of DNA, RNA, and protein. so if gene expression is being regulated at the level of DNA, what mechanism or proteins might be involved in that?" TICK. TOCK. nothing. nothing. nothing. then someone says "bacteria." WHHAAAATTT???? "bacteria?" are you out of your goddamn mind? i about jumped across the room and ripped her lips off. instead, i said "no. not bacteria." a muttering of "transcription" following that.. and i said "ok.. that's right. transcription is being regulated. so how?" TICK. TOCK. again... nothing. and then i decided this was going to be a freaking college lecture. so out poured the science babbling. no time for questions... i'm going to spout out so much information that if you're not confused, which i'm sure you are because you're proving to have the intelligence and gumption of a drunk puppy, i'll make sure to add enough detail and nuance that you will have trouble trying to remember what class you're in and how to turn a CD player on. done. i am done. and no. i will not tell you the answers to the homework. and no. do not complain to me about your grades because you're LUCKY if you pass this class with the sloth-like motivation you're showing. and if you ask me about extra credit i'm going to puke on your shoes.

physical abnormality therapist

my A&P I class has somehow turned into a venue of catharsis, a place where those with physical oddities and abnormalities feel free to give spoken life to the interesting bone arrangements, butt crack issues, and outrageous flexibilities they carry around with them. the impetus for these declarations was our first lecture on the skeleton. quite soon into it, a girl in the front raised her hand and proceeded to tell me that two of the bones are her foot are fused together, resulting in her having zero lateral movement and having to wear ankle braces all the time. awesome. that was quickly followed by my learning that:

- another student has some weird bone indentation in his sternum. this isn't to be confused with the ol' "chicken bone" syndrome apparently plaguing rutland. that's when a bone actually sticks out of your sternum like a little chicken teepee and must somehow facilitate your strutting around all fowl-like with your chest out.

- 55-year-old men have no problem trying to put their leg over their head during the middle of a lecture. and i say "trying" because in no way did he succeed. somehow talking about contortionists and what their little bodies can do signaled an "OK GO!" response in this man's brain that resulted in him exclaiming about how he was able to put his foot behind his head as a kid and then he tried doing it. in the middle of class. in his chair. i screamed and turned away and started sweating.

- there are people walking around with crooked butt cracks. after the gushings of things wrong with people (i somewhere in there heard mention of a third nipple on someone but chose to keep the lecture moving), a student came up to me during break and told me she had something wrong with her. and kind of looked at me..... and then said "my butt crack is crooked. how could that happen?" um............ before we talk about how, let's really talk about what a crooked butt crack is. are we talking a 45 degree angle of crookedness all the way across? a little hook in there? turns out the crookedness is just at the top. thank goodness. wow. pretty amazing how just teaching an A&P class makes you an expert on abnormal tush features.

so... the new nicknames of the class: "fuse foot", "divet chest", and "san andreas trench."

werewolf break

i love the 1970s for all its amazing contributions to cinema. tonight's gem: The Beast Must Die. a crazy hunter genius has lured a group of folks who all have been linked to flesh-eating/murder/general bad behavior to a big mansion in his quest to determine who amongst them is the werewolf. the bodies are piling up into a sweet polyester pyre of death.

this latest movie adventure was triggered in part by a meeting i had today with arguably one of the most frustrating students i have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. i mean, there's lots of different types of ridiculous students, but, without a doubt, the most aggravating and fist-biting-inducing are the entitled, spoiled, perpetual victims. and i'm talking turning in unfinished assignments because he/she couldn't get the computer program to run and scheduling THREE different meetings because he/she feels i should give them points for effort. EFFORT. i'm not your freaking kindergarten teacher and trying hard means zippo when you're a nurse and told to insert a catheter in a screaming 9-year-old. and claiming that you're not finishing your assignments because you're ex-husband recently raped you is definitely not the way to start the meeting. an even worse way to end the meeting would be to be yelling at your anatomy and physiology teacher, telling her how unapproachable she is and saying things like "i mean, are you serious dr. larson?" in a snotty girl voice. oh... but i see you're going to go for both of those things and then expect me to help you out. hmm.... not punching you in your stupid lip piercing is taking all the effort i have. and yes... this person has already started breeding.

oh my gosh. the movie has an official "werewolf break." this is amazing.

yes... he has all his teeth

i get it, i get it. vermont is beautiful and calm and quiet and relaxing. but as i was driving to one of my teaching gigs yesterday, stuck behind a semi going 30 mph on a 50 mph road, i looked around at the nothingness i was surrounded by, i thought to myself "why the hell would anyone want to live here?" and yes, i know... visiting a place like vermont can be a great reprieve from the usual intensity of life... but it's a good place to visit. hold it. it's a great place for certain types of people to live forever in and a good place for ME to visit. although i highly doubt that once i leave vermont i will ever want to visit. and perhaps there's some really awesome stuff going on outside of the general area i'm living in.... but the folks i run into on a daily basis seem like they'd be really great friends with the non-smiling, super sad folks of rural china. all wearing sweatpants and seeming to dislike fun, exciting things and working hard to maintain a relatively stagnant state of existence. and again... there may be really great folks out there doing really fun things..... and i think they live in baltimore. :)

if anything, living here has without a doubt convinced me that 1- i belong in a city with weird folks and stoplights and lots of stimulation, 2- teaching middle schoolers is way more fun and interesting and challenging than teaching college students and is what i should be doing with my life, 3- i want my own black hoodie, converse-wearing tikes to live in a place with all sorts of different types and colors of poeple, 4- i want my dog to be able to play with other dogs at dog parks, and 5- dating people in a town where, when folks find out you have a date ask "does he have all his teeth? does he have a job? is he an alcoholic?," does not a fantastic romantic life make. so cross your fingers... my first baltimore interview is this weekend and i'm only a few months away from a return to all things quirky and fantastic.

calvin

i saw calvin peeing on two different things today. first he was peeing on gun control. then he was peeing on "my ex." SPEECHLESS. vermont has once again rendered me speechless.

signs of a good lecture include:1- doing the drug fiend lean to demonstrate the effects of heroin, 2-being asked what sort of natural opiates might be released during sex to make you want to do it again, and 3-explaining the development of the birth control pill and why the idea that it's "natural" to have your period every month is complete bunk. i am currently researching what sorts of chemicals are part of an orgasm so I can explain it the class on wednesday. oh are the boys going to shift uncomfortably.

quite a movie weekend

charlton heston in Soylent Green makes burn reynolds in Deliverance look like warren beatty in The Parallax View

Hormones

You know a lecture on hormones is going to be a fun one. But thanks to some delightful students, this one surpassed even my expectations.

Terrance is in my A&P I class and has a full metal grill and likes to flash it at me and ask me if anything he does (answering a question correctly, picking up a microscope, breathing softly) is worth some extra credit points. It's not. He also threw an eyeball across the room during our last cat dissection day fall term. He's hilarious and great and gives me fist pumps and hugs when he thinks he's upset me in any way... which he never has but it's super cute.

So... the hormone lecture. Terrance asked such delightful questions as:
1- How does Viagra work? (of course we were going to talk about that)
2- Why are you so tired afterwards? (after sex, that is.... I think he was looking for some sort of hormone-related mechanism but I assured him it was only when the activity was rather rigorous, much like running up stairs or being chased by a tiger).
3- Why do you get wet dreams? (I told him it usually happens when you're going through puberty and things are pretty out-of-control. He then proceeded to tell the class he has at least three a month (he's in his late 20s) and kind of shook his head back and forth. When I told him I felt sorry for his girlfriend waking up in that, he responded with “we don’t do it enough” and then sort of sighed. Outrageous.)
4- If you get a vasecctomy, do you still… you know? I assured him I didn't and he then made a “Ugh + exhale” noise to emulate some sort of a releasing sound. And mind you, he's doing all of this while making direct eye contact with me. Oh did I laugh and laugh and laugh.

My sister encouraged me to start recording my lectures because she finds the stories I tell her about them so enjoyable.... so, if you're interested in learning about science and want to hear me go on little tirades about how the government is injecting you with computer chips and monkey DNA via the H1N1 "vaccine" then yay.... post up and I'll get you on the distribution list.