odds and ends...

First a couple of quotes from school this past week:

Flava Flav: Ms. Book! how are you?
me: I'm great, FF, and how are you today?
FF: I'm tired, hungry and constipated.

At least he's honest...


And in 9th grade, I was teaching pure substances and mixtures. When I teach heterogeneous vs homogeneous, I always point out that hetero means different and homo means the same, and I use the example of heterosexual and homosexual, because that's where they've heard the prefixes before. This discussion prompted the following exchange, initiated by the Lone Ranger (the only boy in the 9th grade).

LR: Can heterosexuals have intercourse with themselves?
me: What? [general uproar in the classroom in response to the question, while LR defends himself saying that this is an adult conversation and he used the proper terminology, meanwhile I am still not sure what he is asking me...finally...]
Girl #1: You mean hermaphrodites?
LR: Yeah, that's what I mean. Can hermaphrodites have intercourse with themselves?
me: No. I don't think it works that way.
LR: Well then what's the point?!?

I think I just left it there at that point...and tried to corrale them back towards a more relevant discussion.


Two other unrelated items, but worthy of note because they were so amazing.

#1 Driving downtown to a baseball game the other day, we saw a guy riding a unicycle down the street. Yes, a unicycle. Yes, he was actually riding in the street with the traffic, downtown. And yes, in one hand he had a water bottle AND a small jug of iced tea, while in the other he had a walkie talkie. I was extremely impressed.

#2 I was running with a friend last week, right as a storm was coming to an end (I like running in the rain...especially when it's hot.) We chose a route that crossed a bridge, and as we ran we started looking for a rainbow b/c it was right at the point when the sun was coming back out, but it was still sort of rainy and dark in parts of the sky. Plus it was evening, so the sun was lower, making perfect conditions for a rainbow. Sure enough, as we ran onto the bridge we turned and had to stop and stare at this aMAzing rainbow--pretty much we could see the whole thing stretched the whole way across the sky--there was even a slight double rainbow above it! So cool...too bad I don't carry my camera with me when I run...:-p Definitely the most incredible rainbow I have ever seen--and we had the perfect vantage point high on this bridge. It was pretty cool.