They Just Don't Make 'em Like They Used To

Chico and Harpo. Delightful.

Annoying Things

In no particular order:

1. Slow cart pushers in Wal-Mart.

2. Forgetting whether or not I put on deodorant.

3. Conversational narcissists.

4. The way my laundry is always one step ahead of me.

5. People who think they know best how to bring up my children.

6. The automated greetings at the McDonald's drive-thru.

7. Humidity.

8. Food that sits uneaten in the cupboard for months.

9. People who think they know best how to bring up my children. (Did I already mention that one?)

10. Drama queens.

Who Needs Nouns, Anyway?

One thing about having to quit my job to be on bedrest is that I am free to read whatever I want. No more scrambling to stay a day or two ahead of my students. I can read, or not read, or half-heartedly read, completely according to my fancy. When you have to lie down all day and are only allowed on your feet for bathroom breaks, I think you're forced to appreciate some of these small benefits.

Right now I'm reading through That Hideous Strength, the 3rd part of C.S. Lewis' science fiction trilogy. Rather than write a book report on it, I thought I'd share a little snippet which, although entirely unrelated to the plot itself, I found quite amusing:

"The cardinal difficulty," said Macphee, "in collaboration
between the sexes is that women speak a language without nouns. If two men are
doing a bit of work, one will say to the other, 'Put this bowl inside the bigger
bowl which you'll find on the top shelf of the green cupboard.' The female for
this is, 'Put that in the other one in there.' And then if you ask them, 'in
where?' they say, 'in there, of course.' There is consequently a phatic
hiatus." He pronounced this so as to rhyme with "get at
us."

"There's your tea now," said Ivy Maggs, "and I'll go and get
you a piece of cake, which is more than you deserve. And when you've had it you
can go upstairs and talk about nouns for the rest of the evening."

"Not about nouns: by means of nouns, "said MacPhee, but Mrs. Maggs had already left the room.

Lewis is awesome.

Punchline of the Day

The school where I work has a small 7th grade class of 6 very energetic boys. They can be a lot of fun, but they can drive me crazy.

During study hall a few days ago, one of the boys mentioned that someone was kicked off of an airplane because he was too fat. Another student asked, quite seriously, "Did they at least give him a parachute?"

Out of the mouths of preteens, right?

Moms Say the Darndest Things

Me: We just got Fargo in the mail from Netflix.

Mom: Fargo...isn't that about a stagecoach?

Brody: I think it's a movie about Alaska.

Me: Really? I thought it was set in North Dakota.

Mom: Oh, North Dakota? But isn't it about a stagecoach travelling across country? Oh wait...that's called Stagecoach...

(We still don't know what the movie is about.)

Made in China

I ordered a number keypad from eBay last week to make it easier to catalog my personal library with my laptop on LibraryThing.com (a totally awesome site - so worth the 25 bucks!). I was so tickled by the English description. Raise your hand if you think a native speaker wrote this...

"The KEYPAD portabie 18/19 - key numerical

keypad brings the Notebook working

environment to the next level.

To fit to maximum portabilty,hence it's

designed to be slim, lightweight, flexibie.

USB cabie"

Too funny.

Calculators are Magic!

School has been in session for one week today. This time last year I was in a daze, a fog of insensibility brought on by the overwhelming realization that I don't know anything! It's one thing to go to school and earn a degree, but try teaching children - of any age - something...anything. Maybe it's just me, but the more I teach, the more I have to come to terms with my own ignorance. It's quite humbling, actually.

But today was a little different. Today I actually taught my algebra 1 students something: scientific calculators do fractions. I had taken for granted that they knew how to use their calculators. "I wish we could do fractions on this thing," one girl said. "You can," I said, half thinking she was making a very weird joke. I guess I thought people were born knowing how to use a calculator.

I know it's just a little thing, but the light bulbs that went on for those kids when they realized how to enter "five-ninths" into their calculators without having to make it a decimal was oddly rewarding for me. "This thing was SO worth six bucks!" according to one boy. Yes, that was my triumph of the day. Now if only I could get that to happen with an actual lesson...

Better than "Cash for Clunkers"

This is too good. Just listen to the concessions the news anchor makes when debating this guy.

Mummy Madness

Last year I got this crazy idea to incorporate a really hands-on project with my 13 first and second graders during a unit on Egyptian mummies. It was several months into school, so I had already learned from previous, less involved art projects that you can never be overprepared. I resolved to complete a sample project myself, have all the materials ready, and even write out my own list of step-by-step instructions so the whole thing would go smoothly in the classroom.

Yeah, right.

The project: Making a cat mummy inspired by the real thing.

(real thing)

Procedure: I found a book at the library with instructions on making a cat mummy using old socks stuffed and tied, strips of fabric from old t-shirts, and tea bags. My mom got in on the fun, too. She helped cut and dye the fabric, partially stuff the socks, and draw little faces on the poor departed felines.

We ran into our first problem at home. Most people would have torn the fabric, dyed it in tea, dried it in the dryer, then tied the strips together for bandages. We do things differently in the Ozarks. My mom and I tore the fabric, tied the bandages into roughly 10-ft-long strips, dyed them in the sink, and then brilliantly threw the whole gigantic, enormously confused heap into the dryer. And oh, the monster that emerged. It took the two of us an hour to navigate through that maze. We might have been hallucinating by the end of it.

Perhaps I should've taken that as a sign and dropped the whole silly project. But nooo. I just had to keep going.

The plan was to have the mummy heads prepared so the students could stuff the bodies, tie the ends with my help, and then wrap the bandages. Simple enough. I was prepared. Nothing would catch me off-guard.

When the time rolled around, I explained to the children what they would be doing and they could hardly contain their excitement. Their very own cat mummy! To take home and show Mom and Dad! COOL! So I triumphantly unveiled the example I had prepared:

(cute, huh?)

The sight was met by a satisfying mix of oohs and aahs, until one little girl said, "It looks like the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes!" How do you keep from laughing at something like that?

When I pulled out their mummies, it was apparent that the body was made from socks. "Stinky" socks, they thought, since the tea had made them so dingy. I passed one out to each student, instructing them to leave the socks on their desks until everyone had one. Here was an interesting display of the difference between girls and boys. All the girls picked up their partially-completed mummies and began rocking them in their arms, cooing at their imaginary babies. The boys turned theirs into weapons. If they weren't bludgeoning each other with stuffed cat heads they had them turned upside down to use as punching bags. Different, yes, but alike in that none of them left the sock on their desk as they were told!

Once I regained control of the room, I passed out old newspapers for the kids to tear up and begin stuffing. Boy, did they love that. I was trying to do damage control as paper went flying when I noticed one first grade girl sitting quietly with her paper opened, trying to read one of the articles, oblivious to the mayhem surrounding her. It was the oddest thing to discourage her from reading and tell her to be destructive instead.

Finally, the bodies were stuffed, the feet were tied, and it was time to pass out the bandages. It seemed straightforward enough with a neat little bag for each student. I think some kids might ahve been trying to mummify themselves instead of their cats.

The wrapping was tricky, though not much more than I had anticipated. Thankfully I had a parent volunteer to help with finishing up the project. But it was still chaos. I had the students sing through their review songs just to control the noise level as we adults walked around to help as needed.

At last, we were finished. All the trash was thrown away, and sitting atop each student desk was a quirky, one-of-a-kind, homemade cat mummy. I orally quizzed them about the why and how of Egyptian mummies to reinforce why we did that project. Yes, their minds were on ancient Egypt. My efforts were a success, of sorts.

As the students packed up, one second grade boy showed me how the bandages were coming loose over his mummy's face. "Mrs. Smith," he said excitedly, "mine's a wounded Civil War soldier!" Then he made his mummy/soldier hobble around on his desk, groaning from the pain of his battle scars.

Did I say ancient Egypt...?

Are women born this way?