Hamlet, Act I, Scene iv, 87-91

There was something terribly wrong about today. It started as a trace feeling felt on the fringes of my subconscious and slowly crawled it's way into the forefront of my mind. But still, I could not pinpoint the source of this discomfort, this aberration from the State of Nature. Yes, even the fuzzy woodland creatures that scamper across the telephone lines and glide ever so precariously through the urban canopy could tell something was off kilter. But the source of this abnormality eluded me.

Then I looked down.

And saw these:

Shoes.

Shoes and Socks.

A horrid combination to be sure, the very antithesis of my island lifestyle. So confining, so restrictive. A hot, stuffy prison designed to coddle our once proud, strong, and functional feet, leaving soft, tender, fleshy bags sewn to the bottom of our legs.

But that's not it, my friends. Even with the discovery of this oddity, I could still sense a peculiarity, something that didn't sit right with me.

I felt it in my gut. No, not my gut, that's not quite right. It was more of a burning in my chest. A lingering, wanton fire, smoldering just left of center (where most people mistakenly think their heart is). I'd imagine it's the same feeling that headless chickens, or cockroaches must feel at the moment of decapitation. A distinct sense of loss, longing, and separation.

I looked in the mirror and noticed something terribly wrong:

No shirt pocket. No collar. No lapel. No buttons. A T-shirt.

An explanation to my slovenly, dejected and defeated dress? Field Trip.

The morning teachers arranged for a field trip into Chinatown for a walking tour (quick note. The tour organization, the Chinese Heritage something something, is run by my relatives, a collection of Aunts and Cousins. Considering my entire family is Japanese, this is rather confusing. But, cross-culturalism is always a good thing. But still, really?). And as a good teacher, employee, and son, I volunteered to help chaperon one of the groups, since I was the only one available on the payroll and able to legally be in charge of a group.

I love walking around Chinatown. Sure, it's dirty and kind of dangerous to wander around, but the food is fantastic and dirt cheap. Look fun noodles for less than a dollar a roll. Ma Tai Su, Pork Hash, and Manapua all for a few cents a piece. Needless to say, I had a very good lunch that day.

One of the most interesting things I noted with some delight was the transliteration of Hawaiian street names into Mandarin (which most Chinese in Hawaii don't speak, since most came from Guangdong a generation or two ago, and therefore speak Cantonese).

Here we have North Pauahi Street (named after Bernice Pauahi Bishop, part of the old Hawaiian royalty, and a Philanthropist who threw a lot of money into education.) The transliteration reads: Pu3Wa2Xi1Jie1(Bei3).
Also:

Here we have Mauna Kea St (most likely named after one of the 5 volcanoes that make up the island of Hawaii {the Big Island, as it is called}. The other 4 are: Mauna Loa, Kohala, Hualalai, Kilauea). The translation reads: Mo2Na4Gei1Ya1Jie1.

Aside from one heat induced bloody nose in one of my kids, the day went rather well. No one got lost, no one got hurt. No broken merchandise had to be paid for. Many samples were had.

I also found a candy I haven't had in a long time. I technically started learning Chinese in 3rd grade, when Mr. Wong (Huang2 Lao3shi1) would come once a week and teach us language and cultural things. He was pretty cheap (pake {pah-KAY), as locals call it), and so would reward us with virtual prizes (pieces of paper with pictures of cake, candy, and cookies on it) I suppose we were meant to collect. But on the rare occasion he would actually give us something material, he would reward us with Haw Flakes:

Not a roll of Haw Flakes, but a single wafer (think Chinese Neco Wafers). Regardless, I used to love them, though people's opinions differ greatly on the matter. The characters read Shan1Zha1Bing3, which translates to Hawthorne Berry Cakes.

This field trip was also one of my proudest moments as a teacher. We were waiting by the canal for the bus to come, and one of my students runs up to me and tells me: "Mr. Sakimoto! Come here! Look! It's a crab and it's camouflaging! Look! It's the same color as the rock, so it's hard to see! Camouflage!" Terribly, terribly proud.

After an amazing lunch back at school (Char Hung Sut, amazing Ma Tai Su, so-so manapua(cha1shao1bao1, for you Mainland types)), I was very full and very sleepy. But I had to actually start teaching, so no time for a nap.

Today we covered inherited traits, through the guise of a bingo game. I gave them a lot, but some of the more interesting ones include:
-Hitchhiker's thumb
-Widow's peak
-When you clasp your hands, which thumb is on top, right or left?
-Same for crossing arms
-Is your 2nd toe longer than your big toe
-Hair color
-Eye color
-Can you do the Vulcan sign?
-Tongue rolling (which I've read actually has no genetic basis. Oh, well)
-Which is taller, your pointer or ring finger?

So here's the thing about the last one on that list. I can easily tell that my ring finger is longer than my pointer finger. And both hands are the same way. But apparently determining such things are not easy for everybody. One of my kids had the pointer longer on one hand, and the ring finger longer on the other hand.

And some people have freakish hands altogether. One of my students, M-----, came up to me, and told me she had both (or neither) taller. I didn't believe her and asked her to show me. If she held her hand with palm away from her, her ring finger was taller:

But if she rotated her palm towards her, it switched:

Her pointer was now longer than her ring finger! This blew my mind. I must have asked her to show me a dozen times. Pretty awesome, as evidenced by the amused looks on my students' faces. But still very perplexing, as evidenced by my sister's confuzzled look in the back. I'd have to guess that it has something to do with how your musculature and tendons are interconnected, and turning your wrist/elbow tugs and pushes your fingers forward and back. Made my day.

Three day weekend, since it would be a shame to waste such a fun holiday as 4th of July on a weekend. I've been tinkering around with an electronics kit I got as a kid, since we'll be covering electricity, circuits, and magnetism next week. This kit is pretty sweet, now that I'm older, have taken physics classes, and know what all these things are. Aside from a motley assortment of capacitors, resistors, LED's, bulbs, transistors, diodes, photovoltaic cells, and transformers, it also comes with a reed switch, which I'm going to have a lot of fun with. After PChem Lab and Physics with Shankar, I think I can make some pretty nifty circuits. Hopefully.

Macbeth, Act V, Scene v, 19-28

And as we roll into the first auspicious day of July, we find ourselves beginning to near the end. By my count, there remain 9 more classes left in this program, spanning a short two weeks (hoo-ah). Now that the prospect of not having to create lesson plans every day, and babysit 90 screaming kids, is slowly creeping into that fuzzy corner of my eye (where most ghosts, spectres, and bogeymen are spotted), my mind is reeling with project ideas. So many ideas and inspirations birthed in the twilight hours of all-nighters, late night conversations, and mid-morning brunches deferred to a less hectic time. Well, that less hectic time is perhaps a stone's throw and a half away, and I'm getting excited. But we must see each project through to the end with dignity and poise. So let us recap:

Today we continued fingerprinting with the remaining classes. Luckily, I had most of the older kids, who could work self-guided which made my life easier. I even had time to take pictures:

I had them put their prints on an index card and we played a guessing/matching game.

But what would this summer job be without a little bit of stress and turmoil, eh?

The inspector came today. Let me rephrase that. The inspector who gives us our licensing that allows us to operate came today. I had actually forgotten, which was not a good way to start the day. A few moments before the inspector got to my class, one of the administrators called my class to tell me she was coming, sending an "oh sh*t" shiver (alliteration!) through my spine as I realized that I had the A group, the littlest ones, next. Usually, 50% of this class is spent getting them to sit down and be quite. 10% is relegated to controlling each M----- and A--, which usually involves me assigning them a special chair in the back of the room, and shooting them dirty looks when they start talking. 30% is reserved for bathroom and water breaks, since the junior leader who is supposed to take care of this while I'm teaching is never there, and I'm forced to take the whole class to the bathroom each time, lest one of the kids has and accident. The remaining 10% is left for actual teaching, which is honestly more than I expect with these kids.

Anywho, the inspector had the perfect timing to come visit my class while I had these youngsters. And this progressed as usual, with mayhem and chaos. They were especially rowdy today, forcing me to turn off the lights at one point just so I could get their attention. Those little clapping games other teachers use to get their kids attention? Doesn't work when half those kids are screaming at the top of their lungs about a bird that wandered into the class. More screaming ensued when I told them we were using pencil lead (graphite) to take their fingerprints, as they thought I was trying to poison them. A lot of coaxing and coddling. But everyone got their prints taken. No one was killed (except a little part of me that loved teaching), and I supposed we passed the inspection. I could see the inspector giving me sympathetic looks during her visit. But really, does it even matter? There are only two weeks left in the program, what would taking away our license really do? I've already made a good chunk of change from this job, and I think the kids have learned a lot as it is. But still, it's nice to meet the approval of your somewhat-superiors.

Here's today's shirt pocket:

The inventory: 12 pencils of various lengths and sharpness, a pair of scissors, a pack of 100 index cards, two American flags (which were confiscated after I told them to stop playing with them in class. They were returned. Eventually), 3 dry-erase pens, a rubber band, and a spork.


And since July 1st was apparently a special day (some of my kids were hounding me for not wearing red, white or blue, since it was 3 days before the 4th of July [who knew that three days before a holiday was special?], and decided to pinch me as if it were Saint Patty's day), my loyal readership, I have a two-fer-one deal. Act now, and you get not one overly burdened shirt pocket, but TWO!

This second pocket contained: a pencil, an ipod nano (1st generation), another confiscated American flag (not returned), and a stash of 4 Starlight mints (from a bag which are so old, the hard candies have now become taffy-like. Chewing them relieves some stress, and leaves my breath minty fresh.)

Tomorrow I am going to school to help chaperon a trip to Chinatown with the morning session. I apparently will be chaperoning a mixed group (with kids from each of the 6 groups) of the "good" kids. And E----. I get E----. I'm loosing patience with E----. He's a brat and a bully, and I would have hated him as a kid. But I'm older and slightly more patient now, and hope that this horribleness is a phase he will grow out of. But we'll see. There's much time left for us to see.

Catechism: Catholics Are Funny

The week thus far has been a very teacher-y week. Allow me to catechize you:

What do you mean by this?
I mean that I've had to do a lot of teacher related things, rather than educator things.

Aren't they are the same thing?
No. As an educator, I'm responsible for teaching them science, and making sure they're learning the material. As a teacher, I have to break up fights, put people in time out, and hound people about doing homework.

Why haven't you been doing teacher-y things thus far?
Well, I've been trying to avoid them. I've come to realize I don't want to be a teacher (particularly an elementary school teacher). I love talking science, and showing kids why I love science, but I hate having to discipline and yell. I'm a kind-hearted, gentle giant. Plus, some of these kids are brats, and I've been trying to not get worked up over these little pills.

What have you had to do today, Mr. Sakimoto?
Well, as always, N---- and E---- got in a fight. I've come to realize that as smart and brilliant as E---- is, he's a bully. And I told him so. He did not like this. I think his opinion of me is starting to turn, because I made him sit on the side and write for half the class for bullying N----. He did not like this either. I don't think I'm his favorite person in the world. Good. I have no tolerance for the cruel-hearted.

What else have you had to face, Mr. Science?
Well, aside from the usual yelling and scolding, we had a practice fire drill. Not a fire drill, but a practice for the practice fire evacuation exercise. Yup. I had the youngest group, which includes young A--, form whom I had to confiscate a number of things to make sure he listened. I also made him my special friend, which mandated that he stand next to me during the fire drill, and sit in a special chair during class, pretending he's a statue (meaning he can't talk and can't move).
I also had to crack down on this one kid D----, who refuses to write in his journal, as everyone is supposed to. When he does write, he copies what someone else write. But he copies it wrong. I asked him to write something about the difference between animal cells and plant cells. He wrote that animal cells have cell walls while plants don't, which is downright wrong. After arguing with him for 10 minutes, he ran out of the class to cry. It felt good.

As an educator, I did fingerprinting with the kids. Using graphite from a pencil, we transferred their thumb prints to a piece of tape and identified the salient features, like the major patterns: whorl, arch, and loop. Thankfully, it was rather clean, and the mess was isolated to their smudgy papers.

So here's something that blew my mind. I suppose I had never really looked at my fingerprints, had never really studied them. But here's what surprised me: my thumbs have two different patterns on them. My right thumb is a whorl, and my left is a loop. I naturally assumed that my thumb prints were more or less identical, but apparently that is not the case. I'm interested to see if anyone else has heterogeneous thumb prints.

I'm somewhat happy to be finishing up biology, since it's rather unfamiliar territory. Next week we'll be heading back to physics to talk about circuits, harmonics, and optics, three topics I'm rather fond of.

Here's today's shirt pocket:

The inventory: Four pencils, two pairs of scissors, A--'s spoon and hair tie contraption he was playing with, a fork, a handout about the three types of fingerprint patterns, and my ID. This is also my only silk shirt. I've discovered I'm not a fan of silk. I'm a simple, poly-cotton blend person. No frills. It was also missing a button and I used a safety pin to close my shirt. The kids made fun of me.

And it was recently pointed out to me that I should post a happier picture from my childhood. We'll step it up in increments:

I used to be deathly afraid of fire crackers. As you can see from the picture, I had to be decked out and covered head to toe. I used an oven mitt to hold the morning glory sparkler, because I was afraid to get burned. The situation wasn't helped by my dad, intending to cure me of my fright, threw a bunch of those ground blooming flower ones at me. Not funny. Made it worse. Now I'm fine with fireworks. This is from New Year's. Me and my sis. Good times.

And so, as I once again find myself with half formed lesson plans that will have to be finalized in the morning, I bid you all adieu.

Tuesdays Are Marginally Better Than Mondays

Congrats! to fellow Champion of the Blogosphere, Angela, for winning Baby Bunsen Burners' first contest by finding a video of the Supernanny episode I specified in the previous post. Links to the video are posted in the comments section. From what I've watched of the episode, the children have gotten better, if only slightly. I get little pangs of anxiety watching that video, because that's exactly what my days are like.

Today we covered cells. Relying on my limited knowledge of microbio from Bio Honors (again, Liem FTW), I explained the difference between animal cells and plant cells, as well as salient features of each. The main experiment was looking at various cells under the microscope, and having the kids sketching what they see.

Here are some of the samples we looked at: onion skin (dyed with green food coloring. Bah, who needs expensive iodine?), some pollen, a feather, the petal from this small yellow flower, a leaf, Plumeria flower petal, and my cheek cells.

Overall the lesson went rather well. The images turned out great, and the kids were fascinated by the samples. I remember doing a similar exercise in 7th grade (Mrs. Nishimoto. She had a chinchilla that didn't like boys), and some of those images are firmly implanted in my memory. Hopefully some of these slides will stick with the kids as they progress through their respective educations.

In other news, here's today's shirt-pocket:

The inventory stands at: two mechanical pencils, a ball point pen, a pack of microscope slides, a pack of microscope slide covers, a Plumeria flower, a kukui nut, a list of people who don't get recess that day, a note saying one of my students went to the healthroom for a sore stomache, and my ID.

So here's the thing about that shirt. I bought that shirt sometime in the latter end of elementary school. Elementary school?! Surely you must be kidding, Mr. Sakimoto. Ah, but here's the thing about me. I have apparently always been a huge and adorable, but mainly huge, child. After a weekend of cleaning, at the intersection of Memory Lane and Reminiscing Road I came across picture albums from my misguided youth. Such gems as these:

Yes, that is me, the kid who's two heads taller and twice as wide as everybody else. I'm pretty sure we were all the same age. So after reviewing this evidence, I don't find it particularly surprising that a shirt from elementary school still fits.

Tomorrow, we will attempt to look at fingerprints and examine salient features. My single hope is that we don't make a mess. But that's pretty ambitious. So I hope for a day free of pee and poo accidents.

Monday, Monday, So Good To Me..

Ah, Mondays. I suppose after reading thousands of Garfield comics in my younger days, I've been conditioned to loathe mondays (love lasagna and kick Odie off the table). But there's something about Mondays that creeps under my skin and crawls around like nobody's business (like those darn scarab beetles). But such is the life of this working stiff. Another week, another $300 (that sounds pretty sad, but hey, it's a summer job. Much better than minimum wage).

Today we covered Bones. Though this was an experiment I had covered previously with Angela She's Demos class a few months back, I've learned not to expect much from little kids. But surely rolling paper tubes is a simple enough task for them. Right?

Ah, to be so young and so naive. The experiment is to show why bones are hollow. Paper is rolled into loose hollow tubes as well as tight "solid" tubes to model the two potential bone designs. Then, stuff's piled on top to see which bone design is stronger. Now the hardest part of the experiment is the rolling of the tubes. I had a busy morning, and didn't have enough time to prep paper strips for them to just roll. So I stupidly figured I would have them tear their own strips. I gave each of them a sheet of copier paper and told them to rip it into four long strips. I even showed them how to do it and walked them step by step, showing them every crease and every rip. Even then, I had the perennial hopeless cases come up to me (read: N----) and whine that it was too hard. Some of these kids need to put down their DS's and learn how to do simple, everyday tasks.

Overall the experiment went well, I suppose. Today's lesson could be summarized in to a short Mr. Sakimoto Mantra: "HOLLOW BONES ARE STRONGER", which is always a good thing. I had a little issue with a group of boys in the C group, who upon making their solid bone rolls, began to pretend smoking with them. I was furious, for obvious reasons. At least they were smoking them like cigarettes, rather than joints, which is somewhat redeeming, I suppose.

I had the best lunch today, thanks to a little bit of creativity and having to dash to get ready for work. Last night we ate Korean from Gina's and I had leftovers. I didn't have time to get rice and all that jazz ready, so I made a sandwich.

Which turned out to be one of the best sandwiches I've eaten in a while. Here's the rundown: hamburger bun, with koo che jung paste (or however you spell it), my leftover BBQ chicken, romaine lettuce, and assorted ban chan (well, my brother's ban chan. Hey, he's always eating my food, I'm just easing his guilt) including daikon, beansprouts, seaweed, cabbage, and taegu. It's like bi bim bop in sandwich form. So good, I had to take a picture.

Perhaps not the worst Monday I've had. I was honestly not surprised to find that the two outcast trouble makers in the A group (M----- and A--) have become the closest of friends through their mutual exclusion. I cannot say the same for the two outcasts of D group (N---- and E----) who have developed such a disastrous antagonistic relationship, that I now need to physically separate them. I hope I never have to tell another story about their problems, but something tells me by the end of this job, half the tags on these posts are going to be about them.

And as usual:

Here's today's shirt-pocket. The inventory stands at three dry erase pens (because I forget to cap them and they dry out), a mechanical pencil with no graphite but a big eraser, a mechanical pencil with graphite but no eraser, my cellphone (because I'm constantly checking the time in hopes that it's time for recess), strips of paper (because it's physically impossible for anyone younger than 2nd grade to cut or rip paper nicely. I'd like to spend a class with some of these kids just developing fine motor skills. I think I could devote a whole class to folding paper evenly in half), and my name tag, as always. The kids told me they liked my shirt. You can't see it well, but there's a big dragon in some clouds along the torso. I bought it when I was 10 and it seemed like the coolest thing in the world at the time. And I was a huge child. I came to this realization after cleaning and going through family albums on Sunday. Pictures are forthcoming.

Only four more days until the weekend. Scratch that, 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds. 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 39 seconds. 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 30 seconds....

Sincerely Yours, Exhasperated...

This was a hard week. I suppose the children are reaching their breaking point, that crumbling edge of the precipice before they take that final leap into summer lunacy. But who can blame them (me. The answer is me).

My mom has said I look exasperated when I come home. For the last few days, I think I've become tired. On a subconscious level, I think my mind has made the conclusion that if the children don't want to be there, why am I trying so hard. Hours and hours of lesson plans and material preparations, and we can't even get through the whole lesson because I have to discipline. On Thursday I exercised my right to hold students for the first time. Why you might ask.

Thursday and Friday I conducted the second part of my adaptation and evolution games, covering camouflage and the importance of coloring in nature. To do this, I had the kids pretend they were birds hunting for colored yarn worms in colored grass. There were white, yellow, blue and red worms in white or yellow grass:

Now, I know children can hear things. They hear me tell them they can go to recess, and they hear me tell them "we're playing a game today". But their attentions flicker so intermittently, I've learned to repeat the same instructions for a few minutes. Even then, they have selecting tuning. Phrases like "don't throw all my grass on the floor" don't make it all the way through. As such, I held four boys back on Thursday. Their mothers were not happy. At them. Mission Accomplished.

Now, I did this experiment in 9th grade (Bio Honors with Liem FTW), at which time I understood a little bit about scientific methods. I knew I was supposed to pick unconsciously, like a hungry bird would. And I told these kids this: "Pretend you're a mommy or daddy bird, and you have to bring home food for you baby birdies. You need to pick quickly!" But some still spent 5 minutes hunting through the bag searching for their favorite color worm. Or even better, some would pick their worms such that all colors were chosen equally. But I had planned for this contingency. If a person liked a certain color, I told these kids that it was like a bird who liked the taste of a certain type of worm. And if you wanted to survive, you would make sure you didn't look like the bird's favorite food. I didn't really know what to do with the ones who chose evenly, but many of these are my perennial lost causes.

Truth be told, the excitement over this simulation (a word many of the kids don't know) was mixed. Some loved it, others told me straight up it was boring (as hell). It is an easy exercise, but well worth it. Truth be told, I wanted an easy end of the week since we had open house and a sleep over Friday night. And I suppose I got it. Here's Thursday's shirt pocket:

The inventory: Two pencils, a sheet of folder paper I found on the ground (I was teaching character writing to one of my kids, Lauren, who speaks a little Cantonese at home. Cantonese sounds made up.) That's it. Yes, my shirt is odd. It was from my Aunty. She bought it from Goodwill for my Christmas. To be fair, she also gave me $20.

Thursday night, I tried to pull an all-nighter to prepare for my open house. Now, I've tried many many times in my life to pull an all-nighter. As any procrastinating and overworked college student will tell you, the need for one comes up several times throughout the year, more or less without fail. And as hard as I try, I always fall asleep for a few hours, sometime around 5 in the morning. Luckily, I had managed to finish my poster board before I dozed off:

Pictures and other visuals were added later.
Friday rolled around and I had to quickly scramble to finish my video that morning. I learned a little late in the game that my camera saves video as mp4, a format windows' movie maker does not like. So after searching around for the least sketchiest file converter, I finished my movie. Won't post it here. It's rather long (5 min. Yes, that's long) and boring (I think). But the parents loved it.

As a continuation of "I'm tired and don't want to put in much effort right now", we looked at stuff under the microscope with my D group. I had them run around the school and collect samples. We also did cheek swabs to get skin cells and looked at hair of various things. The kids minds (plus my junior leader, Mr. D--, who's going to High School) were collectively blown. I still think looking at plant matter under microscopes is the coolest thing in the world since you can see the cell walls and modulation of the cells. Cheek cells are less interesting. I'm pretty sure half the ones I found were just food particles.

Finally, here's a few videos of the kids doing the first adaptation game with the different beaks. I put more skewers in the restricted environment, hoping to produce the results I'm trying to illustrate (yes, I'm skewing the data. I'm a bad scientist, but a good teacher).

*EDIT: Videos Removed*

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.