Yes Or No: Games No One Should Ever Play

I seem to have all the problem children in my group D. It's not necessarily that they're in need of discipline, but they seem to be the odd ducks. Let me tell you about N----.

N---- is a cute little boy whose family is from Bangladesh. To his credit, since English is not his first language, I give him credit for being as proficient as he is. He just talks to much. And about things I don't really care about. He insists on sitting next to me at lunch so he can tell me all about his favorite things. Like Pokemon (who knew they'd still be this popular a decade after they came out?). He insists on walking me through the entire game, giving me a play by play of each battle he had. But this I don't mind terribly. I mean, I imagine I was probably as obsessed by Pokemon at that age. But N---- insists on playing "games". By "games", I think he means asking me questions. One of his favorite games is: Yes or No. He asks:

N----: Mr. Sakimoto, would you like to play a game?
Me: Sure N----.
N----: Okay, here's the game. It's called Yes or No. I'm going to ask you a question and you're going to tell me Yes or No.
Me: Okay, go for it.
N----: Okay, here's the game, Yes or No, you're going to tell me Yes or No after I ask my question.
Me: Okay, go for it.
N----: We're playing Yes or No. Here's the question: Which do you like better? Apples or oranges?
Me: ....Yes?
N----: Wait...Okay, we're going to play another game. This one's called Question or Not A Question.
Me: Why not.
Nihal: You're going to tell me if what I ask you is a question or not a question.
Me: Let's do it.
N----: Okay, here it is: Which do you like better? Apples or oranges?
Me: It's a question.
N----: No, Mr. Sakimoto, which do you like better, apples or oranges?
Me: I got it, you asked a question.
N----: Oh, wait....let's play a game. This one's called Yes or No. I'm going to ask......
This goes on for quite a while.

I have another genius student. M-----. M----- -I-----, to be exact, a name all the counselors know well. He really is a putz. I've assigned him a special chair in my class. Today we were playing around with microscopes to look at four white powders as a continuation of our forensics unit. We looked at sugar, salt, flour, and baking powder (since that's what I had on hand. I have a nice little stock cabinet in the back of my class now. It's rather exciting.) For the younger groups, I set up the microscope and told them to just look in it, and describe it to me. M----- went up to the microscope and put his eye to the eyepiece. He came back to me and said:
M-----: Teacher! Teacher! Science Teacher!(this repeated for about a minute before I realized I couldn't just ignore him).
Me: What, M-----?
M-----: Teacher! Teacher! I cannot see the stuff. Whenever I blink, the picture goes away!
Me:....yes, M-----, that's what blinking is.
M-----: Teacher, Teacher! But when I close my eye, the picture goes away and I cannot see the stuff.
Me: Yes M-----, when you close your eyes, you can't see anymore. That's what blinking is.
I dutifully spent the next 5 minutes explaining to M----- how blinking works. No joke. You can't make stuff like this up.

But despite the fact that I had to yell a lot today at the C and D groups, and felt like crying for the first time in several years, there were some good points. I'm beginning to adore this B2 group I wrote about yesterday. Some of them are a bit of a handful, but as a group, they work rather well together. And two or three of them are surprisingly smart, and I was a little taken aback. Today we started the biology section of this program by playing adaptation games. I created three environments with beads as food and water as,...well, water. One of the beaded environments was open, the other was partially obstructed by some skewers. I had a bunch of chopsticks, forks, spoons and the like to simulate different appendages and beaks and such, and had them forage for food/beads. Here's a video of the open environment:

*EDIT: Video Removed*

I also made a restricted environment with skewers, hoping to demonstrate that long skinny appendages (simulated by the chopsticks or tweezers) would fare better. But I've realized that many children haven't developed the fine motor skills necessary to do this, so it didn't quite work out as planned.

*EDIT: Video Removed*

Finally, I had cups of water. I love this one little kid Jace, because before we even started, he knew he had a bum deal with the tweezers. But he was such a good sport about it, I gave him a prize at the end. It was so funny my mom stopped her work and came over to watch:

*EDIT: Video Removed*

So today was better. Not by leaps and bounds, but small measured steps. I wish I had time to have fun and hang out with friends, but for now, I'm a working stiff. The most exciting part of the day? Depositing my paycheck.* $300 for a week of hard labor. Damn taxes took away $70 of my money. But such is life. Here's today's shirt-pocket:
The inventory: For the adaptation games: 6 straws, 7 pairs of chopsticks, four forks, two spoons, a metal tweezer. Two pencils, a sharpie, and my camera bag. Plus my spiffy name tag. One of the few pictures of myself that doesn't make fat baby cherubs reel in horror. And yes, my shirt is very busy.

*I have a big problem with banks in Hawaii. For whatever reason, Hawaii has no national banks. No Bank of America, no Well's Fargo. Nothing. Instead we have Bank of Hawaii, First Hawaiian Bank, Territorial Savings, and Central Pacific Bank, my bank. I have savings account from when I was 8 or so, and over the years my frugality (or simply contentment over the things I already had) has saved up quite a bit. But it's mostly useless to me during the year because CPB has no online banking, meaning I cannot touch it once I'm in the mainland for school. Nor can I deposit my paychecks in my mainland Bank of America checking account because there are no BoA bank on the island. There, that's my short tirade of the day.