something a little different

I have to clean my room. It is, as the kids at school would say, "a hot mess." I was just assessing the clutter on the card table in my room (which serves as a second desk/catch-all area) and I thought it might be interesting to take an inventory...so here's a glimpse into my life via my hot mess of a table...

-a laminator
-bowl and spoon (from breakfast)
-large mortar with about 1/2 cup of spent dessicant in it
-32 oz Nalgene
-three framed photos from a mission trip to Jamaica
-a print of Jesus on the cross (made by a dear friend)
-a few books...Race Manners for the 21st Century: Navigating the Minefield between Black and White Americans in an Age of Fear; Future Grace (by John Piper); How People Learn; Six Steps to Talking about Jesus (small group Bible study); The Presbyterain Deacon; Light Action! Amazing Experiments with Optics; The Head Bone's Connected to the Neck Bone: the weird, wacky and wonderful x-ray.
Those last two are library books and I am fairly certain that they are overdue. whoops.

-2 DVDs -- Pirates of the Caribbean 2, and Funny Face
-2 CDs -- the elms (truth, soul and rock and roll). oh nevermind, the other one is an empty CDRW case. boring.
-one issue of Relevant Magazine, two issues of Popular Science, three issues of Chemical and Engineering News, and two issues of The Science Teacher. Plus a Physics Product catalog.
-Random receipts, bills, junk mail, bulletins, the title to my car...an invitation to do People to People with science teachers in Egypt...
-The Mad Scientist Award, which I won at the Mock Academy Awards at school last week. awesome.
-piano music for "The Servant Song"
-where did this piece of yellow paper come from?
-lip gloss
-sunglasses
-a comb
-my running watch
-a list of what we're singing at church for the next 6 weeks
-whoops. a stack of graded papers from before spring break...(when we made ice cream :) )
-about 10 pages of Meagan's comp
-a National city gift card
-a stack of task cards for the electricity unit we just did
-a stack of coupons, most of which are probably expired. shoot. I have good intentions...
-and last but not least, i just found another receipt, a to-do list, and a hair tie under my computer. awesome.

Well, now that my table is straightened up...on to the rest of my room...
:)

The mysteries of Miss Book's hair

FS (walking behind me): Hey, Ms Book, you ever wear weave?
me (grabbing my ponytail): What do you think this is?

I'm going to miss them this summer.

how is it already the end of may?

Time is a crazy thing. I swear that it was just the beginning of the school year like yesterday...now finals week starts tomorrow. I guess time flies when you're having fun...:-p It should be a fun few weeks though...all I have to do is write one more final, then adminster and grade them all. Then a week of community service, a picnic, graduation practice, etc. No lesson plans or running all over to find supplies for class :)

We were playing a review game in physics on Friday and talking about the law of reflection. I asked them about why big trucks often have signs that say "if you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you." Polite Boy was explaining it...
"It has to do with the angle of...in...in...indecence! The angle of indecence."
me: "incidence?"
PB: "yeah, that."

hehehe

whoops...I was just watching the news and they had a story about a bike event that's taking place this morning. Whoever is in charge of making the little names/story titles appear at the bottom of the screen wrote "peddle the city." I'm pretty sure the bikers are not selling anything...

Physics is Phun!

The juniors are ready to be done with school. This was first made evident the day a few weeks ago when they went on strike--barricading themselve in a classroom and making Mr. Arrogance their spokesperson. I had run an errand and came back to the school in time to hear the head of school knocking firmly on the door and loudly commanding: "Open the door. This does not end well. Open the damn door!"

They were sick and tired of all of the work they were being asked to do. Maybe they have a point...assignments aren't well coordinated between teachers...but overall it was just entertaining...they eventually came out.

We are studying light and color in physics...
Mr. Arrogance: If I bring in a colorblind person, can I get extra credit?

and last night in study hall, TNA Poster Child turned around in her seat and held out here homework to me:
"Here go my book, Miss Homework"

She didn't realize what had happened until some of her friends started laughing...hehe.

And yesterday I passed out mirrors in class so that I could show them a few things (like you can only see so much of yourself in a mirror no matter how close or far you are). Pretty soon they were using them to look at each other. Then I passed out some more mirrors for another demo...and soon Mr. Arrogance had one in each hand and had made a type of periscope out of them so that he could look down and still look like he was looking you in the face. They were having so much fun that I just let them go for awhile (I'm sure they were thinking about the law of reflection the whole time...:) )

Two more days of class!
I think I am finally ready for the school year to be over...

Batting 1.000

I've decided that running all over the place for materials was definitely worth it.
Why?
-To hear FS let out a high pitched squeal of delight when he figured out how to use the battery and wire to light his light bulb.
-To hear the rest of them...
"Miss Bookie! Lookie!" (yes, I heard this from the girls multiple times)
"I did it! Miss Book! Look at me!"
"It works! Miss Book, watch!"
"Miss Bookie, come see!"

They all had to show me when the light bulb lit up in the holder they made, or they got their switch to work (they had to follow the directions to make all of their own stuff...I gave them wire and bulbs and batteries and clothespins and rubber bands...). Too cute. I love them.

The end...kind of...

A quick update:
24 gauge bare copper wire is HARD to find! Home Depot-no. They suggested the electrical supply store across the street from my school. But they didn't have it either. The electric supply store suggested the appliance store down the street. There they looked at me like I was crazy for wanting bare wire and gave me the phone number for another place, which also didn't carry wire that thin.

So Radio Shack online claimed that a store just outside of the city had it. I drove all the way out their during rush hour (between school and evening study) only to find that they also thought I was crazy for wanting bare wire that thin. One guy didn't even try looking, even after I told him the site said they had it. They sent me next door to Busy Beaver, which had the colored lightbulbs I needed for physics, but the only bare copper wire they had was like 2 gauge. Okay, I'm exaggerating, I don't know what it was exactly, but I wouldn't even call it wire.

One last ditch effort was to MapQuest "hardware stores" near the school. One popped up about half a mile away. And whaddaya know...they carried 24 gauge bare copper wire! And they were closing in half an hour! So I bought them out (two spools). My wild goose chase ended successfully...but it sure took me all over tarnation just to bring me right back to where I started...:-p