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....

What Does N---- Do Everyday?

Open House

I had half an hour from the time I finished work to the time I had to be back at school for open house. After running home, showering and eating (food should not go down that quickly), I dashed back to school, if only a little late.

There were two ways I could have done this open house. I mean, the display is only going to be up for half an hour, during which the parents must rotate through 6 presentations, meaning the parents are only going to see my stuff for 5 minutes or so. I could have just made a poster and put up some pictures. But I decided I had a little bit of pride left after that week, and I decided to wow these parents. I recreated every experiment we did in class. Forensics, Adaptation games, density columns, chromatography, etc. Here's what the semi finished display looked like:

There's another table to the left that I didn't get to photograph. I also had a video I spoke about earlier of the rocket launches.

Open house overall went well. I had many parents come up to me and tell me how much their kids loved my class. One mother commented that the stuff I was teaching them was pretty advanced, to which I replied "yup".

The Sleepover

After open house, the program decided to have a sleepover for the older kids (I think it was 3rd grade and above). I honestly was not enthused about having to watch these kids for another 10 hours, but I was obliged to stay and chaperon.

In order to tire the kids out as quickly as possible, we had them play "Minute to Win It" games. Some of my favorite ones included Beer Pong (okay, sans the beer), one where you had to stack three golf balls on top of each other, and a game where you had to blow a deck of cards off a cup except for the joker. This last one was called.....Don't Blow the Joker (hee hee).

And tire these kids out it did. A lot of these games were really physical (like one where you had to scoot around on your butt through an obstacle course), which equated to a bunch of small sweaty kids running up and hugging me throughout the night. But by the time 10:30 rolled around, most were ready to sleep.

However, not before a quick snack. They gave them hot dogs and watermelon (really good watermelon). One of the kids, N---, decided it would be best to put ketchup on his watermelon. The program administrators yelled at him, telling him if he threw up from the weird combination, he would have to clean it up himself. I thought to my self: watermelon's a natural laxative. After eating nearly half a watermelon by himself, I think we have other problems to worry about.

N---- decided to sleepover as well. There was one point in the night when he was running around muttering something. The first time I listened in closely, I heard "suck it, suck it, suck it..." while the second time I heard "f**k it, f**k it, f**k it...". After pulling him aside and giving him a stern talking-to, it turns out he was saying "funky, funky, funky".

All the kids went down rather quickly, at which time us grown ups retired to the office to hang out. We played Taboo for 3-4 hours, stopping only because we exhausted all the cards. My team won. By a lot. The best thing about playing with friends and co-workers is that you can rely on inside jokes.
I gave the clue: M----- does this to me a lot. Without missing a beat, someone gave me the word: Annoy.
Someone also gave: N---- does this everyday. The answer: cry.
Sadly, the most fun I've had all summer. But, they're a great group of people, and I'm not surprised.

Mrs. K, who was taking her shift while we were playing Taboo, told us that while she was watching the kids, she heard singing. She at first thought it was us (we were apparently laughing really loudly), but when she stepped outside, she couldn't hear it. She started walking around the sleeping kids, and finally found the source. N---- was sleep-singing. An insipid little tune, as she put it.

At around 2 am we rotated shifts, and I sat down on the stage, intending stay up for the rest of the night watching the kids. I plugged my ipod in and grooved out to some Percy Sledge. I think I dozed out around 3:30, because I woke up around 5:30, on the 60th song of my playlist. Further evidence that I physically cannot pull an All-nighter.

After the sleepover, I came home, with full intention of just staying up and making the most of my Saturday. But after only getting around 6 hours of sleep over the last 2 days, it was inevitable that I would crash in front of the TV watching Everybody Loves Raymond. A waste of a weekend, but much needed.

And now I find myself on Sunday morning, trying to figure out if I should try to have fun on this last day of my weekend, or just bite the bullet and start writing my lesson plans. Though the former sounds more appealing, the latter desperately needs to be done. I'm going to try to teach the kids about DNA, a subject I didn't learn about until freshman year of high school, I'd have to reckon. Yes, it's overly ambitious. But I have a plan. A plan that will require me to pull out my Legos and build things. And since it takes so much effort to drag them out from the back of my closet, I might as well leave them in my room. And since they're in my room, I might as well play with them, since it would be such a waste to leave them derelict in a corner. Lego party anyone?

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.