And Then a Miracle Occurred

It was a bad, bad day. Algebra readiness. These classes were filled with freshmen who were not ready for algebra. And many were not fans of math anyway.

2nd period came in like a herd of wild elephants. They were loud. Wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise (and I was supposed to go over notes with them). And they thought it was fun to play around. Throwing paper at each other. Screeching.

I keep a tally of the number of times I have to stop and get their focus back. (I leave that number for the teacher.) It was north of 20.

So, typical freshmen. And I knew my day was going to be very, very long.

3rd period was pretty much the same.

I wasn't expecting much from 4th period. I started off the period by explaining that I had a bunch of stuff to go over with them (the notes were on scientific notation), and if they would help me out by paying attention while I did that, they could talk afterwards.

I got into the meat of the lesson...and the class settled. One student even commented on how quiet the class was.

I held my breath. I crossed my fingers. And somehow they remained settled for the entirety of the lesson.

A miracle.

Too bad 5th and 6th periods went crazy. At least I had a period of not-so-bad.

Impossible Wish

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements ;)

If you watch Elementary you know what inspired this question...

What if you could be granted one impossible wish (such as a visit with a deceased relative or a glimpse of the future), but the only way to achieve this would result in permanent debilitating brain damage? Would it be worth it? What if you were dying anyway?

That I Do Remember

"Do you remember me?"

It's a common question. The answer is usually no.

An average class contains 33 students. Sometimes 35. Not usually much less than 30. I'll see five periods a day.

While I may get some students over and over, there are some students I see once and then not again. And unless there's some memorable incident...

"You confiscated my cell phone."

Again, not a detail that makes the student stand out.

"I was taking a picture... of her..."

The girl was two seats over.

"And I took out my battery..."

Aha! Yep, that I do recall. It was memorable enough that I wrote about it.

I mentioned that he was being way too paranoid. He said that the principal actually did go through his phone. Looking for drug references. And the boy's sister yelled at the administration for the violation of the student's privacy. So, apparently it became a big huge thing.

Ah well...

I was at the continuation high school. It was the orientation class--the first class the students take when they're first sent out of the other schools.

So, I'm kind of not surprised to see that he ended up there.

Common Bonds

This quiz I found on Mental Floss. You have 5 minutes to find the movies that share the trait listed at the top of the screen. And if you guess wrong, you've got a mark against you.

You can skip ahead if you need to, and you can go back if you still have time.

I believe I got 34/39. (I didn't think I'd be doing another random quiz today, so I didn't note my score when I took it.)

How'd you do?

The Alleged Wasp

It was a middle school graphic arts class. I'm not sure exactly what they do, although the classroom was filled with computers and various shop-type equipment.

This particular teacher doesn't allow them on the computers when she's not there (I'm not sure what happened, but there has to be a good reason for it), so I knew going in they'd have book work.

And they weren't going to be happy about it.

4th period. I got the work passed out and explained. I think. I'm not sure when the boys spotted the wasp. Because it all went downhill after that.

They ran away. One complained that he was allergic. Another told me that I had to kill it. He indicated a broom. Then there was general shrieking and loud complaining.

So, was this wasp attacking them? No. As far as I could tell, there was no wasp. The boys pointed at the overhead lights. It was there.

These lights were at least 10 feet up. Way above their heads. So, nowhere near them.

Eventually I got them seated, but they would not settle. One shrieked that he saw the wasp, and another boy ran for it again.

"It's there. It's right there."

"It's coming out again."

I turned the first couple times. After that I stopped. I was right where the wasp was supposedly, yet I never saw the thing. I never heard the thing.

There was no wasp. I'm certain of it.

The rest of the class attempted to work in the midst of this chaos. There were six tables in the classroom. The wasp sighters were at only two. And then even one of those tables lost interest...

These boys started fighting over pencils. "No, that pencil is mine."

"What did you do with my pencil?"

"That was my lead."

I mean really. (Just imagine me shaking my head.)

The other reason I know the wasp didn't exist--no other period made mention of the beast.

Nook Denied

It was Tuesday night. I was ready for bed. And like I do every night before I go to sleep, I took out my Nook to do a little reading. (Well, first I play a couple rounds of Candy Crush...)

I woke it up. I touched the little icon. And nothing happened.

Uh...

The thing was completely frozen. I tried hitting buttons, and I got nothing. In desperation, I hit both the power button and the home button at the same time.

Finally, movement. It rebooted. There was a little animation that showed that it was loading, and it counted up from 1% to 99%... And froze.

What do you do? The only trick I know is the reboot. That usually works. But it was sheer luck that I found that.

I had to go to bed without having anything to read. The next day I contacted customer service, and they taught me a new trick. How to get the thing to the factory reset.

Which meant I lost all my bookmarks. All my organization. But I had to do something. At this point my ereader was a doorstop (and not a very effective one).

Turns out that when the little Nook screen first pops up after hitting the power and home buttons at the same time, if you hit the home button then, the whole thing wipes and starts over.

And my Nook then again worked. After reloading all the software updates. And I had to restore all my settings by hand.

I've become a little dependent on my Nook.

(And I discovered a funny little trick. I actually loaded the Kindle app onto my Nook, so I can have the best of both worlds.)

Death of an Infant

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements ;)

There was this awful story in the local news last week about a 3-week-old infant who was kidnapped and then found dead. (Full story here. Don't click on the link. The headline is awful enough. The details are best skipped so you don't have the full knowledge of the awful terrible.)

The only reason I bring this up is for the what if factor. The whole if-I-could-go-back-in-time-and-fix something thing. Which always backfires. (Warning: that link leads to tvtropes.org, and it's very easy to start clicking links and find 5 hours of your life gone.) Because, that's the only reason an infant should end up dead. Or is it?

What if you knew that this small child was going to grow up to be complete evil? How could you prevent that child from fulfilling such a destiny without resorting to murder? Because, murder never works. It always backfires.