Math Team Names

Before my subbing gig last week, I went through my school bag. Every so often I like to go through and clean out the detritus that I seem to collect, and it seemed like that would be a good opportunity to do it. I found a lot of trash and one treasure.

I'm not sure when this was, but I do remember it was a middle school math class, and they were doing review. For the state testing if memory serves. The teacher had them all get into teams, and those teams were in a sort of competition.

The teacher had each team name themselves.

I was going to blog about this at the time, but something more interesting must have happened to push this list from the blog (I don't recall what). But it's the middle of summer, and I found the list.

So, here is a list of some of the team names that these middle schoolers came up with...

1. The Lakers
• This is L.A. County. Even in an off year, the Lakers are still popular.
2. The Mafia
3. Batota
• Your guess is as good as mine.
4. Migrants
5. The Oranges
6. White Stripe
7. The Defs
8. The Real Ones
9. The Fries
10. Chunky Monkey
11. Team I
12. Team Pena
13. Tyweenies
• A play on the name of one of the students in the group.
14. Pinkie's
15. Team Math
16. Raiders
• Even after leaving L.A., the locals still like the team. Because, we no longer have football in L.A.
17. The Eagles
18. Miss A
19. The Mail People/Heavenly Smells
• They changed their name during the period. In fact, I think they did more discussing of what to name themselves than actual math review.
20. Pen 15
21. Craycrayhunnybuns
• Um, uh...
22. Red Vines
• I get the feeling they were hungry.
23. The Natives
24. Hawaiian Punch
25. Nameless
• Another team that spent more time debating names than reviewing math. I guess the first name they came up with was vetoed by the teacher.
26. Pro Era
27. Pro Club +1
28. Wonderland
29. Rainbow Moonshine

If you have any theories as to the other names, feel free to leave them in the comments. (Because some of them make no sense to me.)  

An Empty Class

"Don't know how you're going to be able to handle his classes."

The secretary was joking as she handed over the roll sheets. Mr. L's classes had two students enrolled in each period.

Yes, this is a new subbing story. In July. That's because the continuation high school is on a year-round schedule. And Mr. L needed the day.

In first and second periods, I had a full house (that's what I call it when I have no absences). Then in period four, I had no one show up...for 30 minutes. Turned out that the only student who had been showing up to class was testing (CAHSEE).

The last period of the day had two students enrolled, and no one showed up.

Normally, two absences is no big deal. It's a good average. But when the class only contains those two students...

What to do? Do I hang out? I am contracted through the end of the school day. Or do I try to go home early?

(I stayed. I couldn't go home anyway as we were having a scheduled power outage.)

A Twinkie Conversation

A couple weeks ago, I picked up my niece and eldest nephew from the archery range. As we headed out to my car, the topic of bacon came up.

Bacon? Yep. Not sure why. I think nephew started it. Because niece is not a fan, and she said so. And nephew talked about chocolate covered bacon.

Which made me think of fair food. You know, deep fried everything? Deep fried bacon. Deep fried ice cream. Deep fried Twinkies.

Nephew: "What's a Twinkie?"

The eldest nephew is seven. Niece is twelve. Niece and I looked at each other, flabbergasted.

So, we described the snack cake known as "Twinkie" to nephew. He dismissed us pretty quickly. He knew what that was. (Although, he has a tendency to claim knowledge that he doesn't have, so whether or not he knew what we were talking about is debatable.)

By this time we had loaded up, were in the car, and I was pulling out. I mentioned how Hostess had gone bankrupt and how Twinkies were no more (note: this was just before they came back, although I was aware they were coming back and said something about it).

At this point, niece was amazed. She had not heard about the demise of the Twinkie.

I'm not sure whether I'm troubled or impressed. Troubled that a thing I thought was ubiquitous isn't. Impressed that Twinkies aren't a day to day occurrence in their home. I guess I'm a bit of both.

The Aliens are Here

While checking my Twitter feed, I came across this tweet:

If space Aliens landed in SanDiego this week, nobody would take notice. They'd blend right in with @Comic_Con attendees.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) July 19, 2013

and it got me thinking...

What if space aliens are among us, but have found a way to blend in?

Purse Preview

I've been working on various projects. One of these is a new purse I hope to have finished soon.

It's made with plain old wool and novelty yarns. I felted the whole thing, so the wool makes the fabric stiff and sturdy, and the novelty yarns add some shimmer.

I still need to line it, add a magnetic clasp, and add a strap. But I rather like how it turned out.

What do you think?

Just in Time

I have been witness to three fights in school since I started subbing. This one is my favorite. (I think this was the third.)

10th grade English class. They were supposed to be reading silently for a half hour. They were silent, but not everyone was actually reading. But as I had silence, I was happy enough.

Then, out of nowhere, one of the girls started yelling at another girl. (Seriously, it went from silent to yelling in an instant.) I didn't catch all of it. Something about "saying things" and "tell me to my face".

I recognized that level of anger. I tried to calm and shush, but the angry girl was having none of it. The other girl appeared shocked at the whole thing.

Yelling and posturing followed. I made my way over to the classroom phone and called for help. At this point, the rest of the class had gotten into it, encouraging the two girls to fight it out, so when I finally got another person on the end of the line, she heard that trouble was coming even though the actual fight hadn't started.

I suppose I should have gotten into the middle of this. I could have yelled (but I would have been drowned out by the chaos of the room). And angry girl was very, very angry. She was having none of my calming, so I stood and waited.

The room was set up with three groupings of chairs--one along the back wall, one along the door wall behind the door, and a small one in front of the door wall in front of the door. In the middle of the room was a big open space. Perfect for a fight.

At this point, both angry girl and quiet girl were in the same row in the grouping behind the door. They were close to each other (maybe two chairs separated them), but the rows were too close together for anything to start. They would have to position themselves in the open space in the middle of the room.

Angry girl threw down her binder and stood.

The door to the classroom opened. Security had arrived.

Angry girl had started moving forward, but the door opened as she was moving, so instead of turning left and heading towards the center of the room, she turned right and walked out the door. As if that had been her intent all along.

Security looked at the other girl. "You too."

And the fight was over.

One of the boys who had been encouraging the fight said to me: "Why did you have to call security? I wanted to see the fight."

A second security person arrived. (It had been so loud that the teacher next door also called for backup.) And somehow we managed to get the class settled.

Of course, I ran into the teacher a few days after this. I did not get the reaction I expected.

The teacher knew a fight was coming. She was surprised at the combatants. Mostly because quiet girl hadn't been coming to school, so her even being there that day was unusual.

I don't know if I ever saw quiet girl again. Angry girl ended up at the continuation high school the next year. As did the boy who wanted to see the fight.

To this day (and it's been a few years), I can still vividly see angry girl standing, throwing down her binder, starting forward, and then walking out the door. Security had perfect timing.

Thumb Drive Jewelry

I just replaced my thumb drives. Flash drives. USB drives. Whatever they're called.

Since I store my stories on them (as well as everything else), I like to have backups. And they were on sale, so I figured it was time.

But they're tiny.

I got a little worried. What happens if I lose them?

Which is silly. I don't lose things. Not generally. I tend to know where I put things, and I put those things back in the place they belong when I finish with them.

But still, I thought I should have some insurance...

A little addition to make sure that these things aren't too small...

This should make them harder to lose, don't you think?