Dance Class Demos

So on Sunday nights, Rebecca, Philip and I take a beginner's swing dancing class. It is a lot of fun, especially because our instructors are slightly crazy.

One time, our instructors were doing a demo, well call them Matt and Susie. We also have another instructor person in our class that doesn't teach but competes at swing dancing and helps out, we'll call her Hanna. So Matt was leading Susie around, and says, "So let's say you're dancing and all of a sudden some bumbling idiot comes too close..." He pointedly looks at Hanna. Repeating himself, he says, "Some bumbling idiot.." Hanna stands there, looking at him.

Susie whispers, "He wants you to come over and help."

Hanna goes over. Matt continues..."And they push you." Hanna pushes Matt. "Harder." He whispers. And she does. Matt and Susie demonstrate how the compression technique lets them stay balanced while dancing.

When it is all over, Hanna looks to Susie and says, "I thought he just wanted to call me a bumbling idiot."


Sachi

Big Brother is Watching You

My chemistry teacher was telling us about how he only teaches two classes but durring the rest of the day he watches over computer labs. He explained to us what he does...

"If you ever get a message on your computer from 'Big Brother' that says 'that doesn't look like schoolwork', that's probably me," he told us. He can watch all the computers in the computerlabs, library, everything.

"I can take control of the computer. Sometimes if someone's playing a game like pacman, I take over control and start crashing them into things. And sometimes I just close things. Like if someone's on IM, chatting with their little friends, I'll type in 'Anyway, I have to go now because I'm in the library and I'm supposed to be doing work, so bye!' and close it.

"If you're ever playing text twist and there's like ten seconds left, and suddenly the seven letter word appears, that would be me," he said. "Text twist is the only game I let people play, because I think it's a good exercise of the mind."

"If you send a message can we message you back?" asked someone.

"Not always but I can send a message of a type that allows people to write back. But sometimes people will open Microsoft Word and type messages to me. Like, "sorry, I'll get back to work now."

He had his computer on to show us a video of a person breathing sulfur hexaflouride,* so he showed us how he can observe the computers. He chose a computer lab and on the screen appeared many small images of computer screens. He clicked on one that had an aparantly abandoned Yahoo on, and it became bigger. Then he typed "Muahahahaha" in the search bar and closed it.

"What if someone was actually using that computer?" someone said.

"They aren't any more," said Mr. R.

People started to ask if it was him who had done something or other or sent some message to their computers, but he didn't remember random occasions like that.

But if you're ever in a computer lab and it seems like your computer has gained a mind of it's own, perhaps it was really Mr. R.

-Rebecca

*Breathing sulfur hexaflouride, a very heavy gas, makes your voice deep, just as helium makes you talk in a high voice.

Pardon My French

So I got a French quiz back a few days ago. It was just on different irregular verbs in different tenses, straight memorization, easy peasy, right?

Wrong.

See, I didn't study all that much in the first place. So when we were asked to conjugate "courir" in the past tense, I couldn't think of the word needed, which was "couru". Instead, I wrote "cu". Not only did I get that entire section wrong, my French teacher also informed me as she was passing back the test that "cu" is a bad word. Turns out, it means "ass" in French. I had literally written "He has ass", "He was having ass", "He would have ass", and "He will have ass" all over my French quiz.

Well, at least I know I'm never going to forget "couru" again... and I now know how to talk about ass in French.

<3 Helen

Dead Chocolate and Crazy Diplomats

Last night, I attended a big game of Diplomacy at Sachi's house along with the other members of this blog. Diplomacy consists of a map of pre-World War I Europe on a table with armies and fleets placed strategically on different parts, and the goal is to take over Europe. Most of the game is actually hiding in rooms making negotiations and plans with other countries and then breaking them whenever it seems fitting.

Before we started the game, we were eating pizza, and talking about Sachi's dog Kona.

"Don't feed your pizza to Kona," Sachi's mother said.

"I have an idea for a strategy," someone said. "Put a slice of pizza on the board, and Kona will take it, knocking all of the pieces off."

Knowing that we were going to eat brownies later, and also knowing that chocolate is poisonous to dogs, I began, "But make sure you don't put brownies on the board because dogs are poisonous to..." Oh no, I thought. Why does this have to happen to me? But what else could I do but finish what I had been saying? I finished, "...chocolate."

There was a short silence, with people staring at me strangely, and then everyone started to laugh. Someone commented on how there was so much dead chocolate that had been poisoned by dogs.

After dinner, the game took place. I was England, and I had been allied with Russia and France (we had a nice Triple Entente for a while). Now, there is a territory on the coast of France called Brest. For the most part, we were mature enough to avoid snickering, but when I was stuck between doing France's bidding and Italy's bidding, I found myself in a somewhat awkward situation. A representative from France, who wanted me to take Brest from Italy, followed me until I was cornered, insisting, "Attack Brest! Attack Brest! Claim the Brest!" And I was left squirming there peevishly, not knowing quite what to do.

-Philip

You're Not Going to Die!

In the SFA meeting this morning, the principal said to Andreas, the student co-chair, "You're graduating, right?"

"Hopefully," he said cheerfully. "I have to somehow get my PEIS papers in on time."

Hmm, I thought to myself. I had asked the PE department head, Mr. G, about them at the start of the semester, and he had said that my homeroom teacher would tell me what to do. But there had been no mention of PEIS in homeroom so far. I decided to ask my homeroom teacher about it.

"You have to go to Mr. G," my homeroom teacher, Mrs. S answered.

"But I already went to him and he said that we get the information in homeroom."

"Ha, ha. That's classic Mr. G," laughed Mrs. S. Jesse, a student in my homeroom, remarked casually, "You were supposed to get the information from the PE office last week." I was not sure if PEIS was a graduation requirement; after all, I already had seven PE credits, which is all that is required for graduation. But then, why would people bother with PEIS if it didn't amount to something? Better late than never, I thought, and got permission to leave homeroom to go to the PE office.

The door to Mr. G's office was locked. I entered the neighboring office that housed other gym teachers. A woman asked me what I wanted.

"A few weeks ago, I was told that I would get information about PEIS in homeroom," I began, realizing how awkwardly I was phrasing it, "but my homeroom teacher said that I have to go to the PE department."

"You have to see Mr. G for that," she said. "Unfortunately, Mr. G isn't currently in the building. He should be back in an hour or so. Come back later."

The next few classes went for the most part uneventfully, with one exception. I was walking through the hall to my next class when suddenly a large teacher barged out of his office just as I was passing by. We collided squarely.

"Sorry."

"Sorry."

At lunch, I decided to be daring and eat on Main Street instead of in the cafeteria for the first time. Sitting down with lunch in hand, I remarked to Sachi, "I don't understand. As I wandered down Main Street, I saw nobody else carrying lunches from the cafeteria. What do people do?"

"That's not true," said Sachi. "Here comes Derek carrying a lunch right now."

Derek sat down nearby. "What do you do with your lunch without a table?" I asked him. "Do you put it on the floor, or on your lap?"

"Umm..." he stammered.

Sachi interjected, "Put it on your lap." I tried, hesitated, and decided to put it on the floor.

When I finished my lunch, I went back to Mr. G's office to see if he was there. I found him sitting in a large chair with a telephone between an ear and a shoulder, talking about scheduling football games. "We could do the kickoff on the twenty-seventh...and the blitz on the fourth...no, that's Labor Day...how about seven PM on the third?..." Finally, he finished and asked what I wanted.

"A few weeks ago, you said that I would find out about PEIS in homeroom, but my homeroom teacher said I should go to you."

"Yes, that's right. You find out in homeroom that you should come to me."

"But my homeroom teacher didn't tell us. I had to ask."

"Here, take this paper," he said, and checked off my name on a list.

I returned to Yellow where I had been having lunch when I glanced at the PEIS paper. One thing caught my attention: for one of the due dates, it said: Friday, 6, 2009. There was no month.

When I pointed this out, Sachi exclaimed, "You're not going to die!"

I wasn't actually worrying about that, but still good to know.

-Philip

Speak Your Truth

In gym (lifetime activities) we're watching a movie about golf ("The Greatest Game Ever Played"). This morning, before we went to the MVP assembly, Ms. P asked if we had any questions about the movie. She talked a little about what had gone on, making sure we remembered and understood.

"People often were discriminated against based on class back then," she finished.

A student (we'll call her Maddie) raised her hand. "That still sometimes happens today," she said when Ms. P called on her.

"Classism? It's not nearly so much of a problem currently," Ms. P said.

"Well, yeah, it's not as much, but it still happens."

"Yes, I suppose in some places," contemplated Ms P, "certain people aren't allowed into country clubs..."

"I meant more in general," said Maddie as a few people suppresed snickers.

"What did you say?" asked Ms. P, as Maddie had talked sort of quietly.

"Nothing," said Maddie.

Ms. P looked at her intently and said, simply and clearly, "Speak your truth," citing one of the five rules of our class "full value contract."

Of course Maddie had to consent, so she said again, "I meant in general. Like maybe a person can't go to college because he doesn't have enough money."

"That seems like more of a financial trouble...or you mean based on his socio-economic status..." they completed the conversation. As we were walking out the door to go to the assembly, Ms. P said to Maddie, "I'm glad you said what you had to say."

Wow, she made a much bigger deal out of that than necessary...

-Rebecca

Who Says History is Boring?

"When I was little, I used to think the past was black and white," began my history teacher, Mr D. "I thought the movies were always black and white because, well, those were the only colors they had back then. But we know this isn't true. Today we are watching a movie: World War I in color!" He held up the DVD box and I saw that in fact, the movie was titled "World War I in color".

As the menu screen came up, showing a purplish image of soldiers, someone said, "I didn't realize it was so purple!"

"Yes," someone responded, "It was a very purple war."

We began to watch the show, but it was having problems so Mr. D took out the disc to clean it. Meanwhile, I watched the screen as the words that said "DVD" moved across and bounced off the edges. Whenever I watch one of those screen savers, I always hope it will bounce off the corner, or very close. Now this seems to me like one of those wierd quirks I have, but in actuality, everyone has it. So as we were waiting for the movie, the entire class was staring at the screen, holding our breaths together when it looked like it would hit the corner, and sighing in desperation when it came so close but didn't make it. Every so often, I would just think about the situation and almost burst into laughter.

Soon the movie was ready and we began to watch it. Now, I had thought that Mr. D was being rather original when he said the thing about the color, but I soon found out what had inspired him.

"World War I is always seen as a war in black and white," the narrator narrated, "but that is not the reality...The grass was green, the mud was brown, the fire was red... now with new technology, the color has been restored to the films..."

After they made such a big deal about it, the color wasn't even that great. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the faces were a little too pink, the uniforms were a little too dull...

~~~

Another day in my history class, Mr. D was talking about poison gas and the smell and I had to laugh as he said, "stick your nose in a bottle of amonia--DON'T DO THAT!"

~~~

"Once I had a French student in my class," my history teacher said, "and that was really hard for me because I always make fun of the French."

~~~

After neglecting to tell us that the Hapsburgs were the ruling family of Austria-Hungary, Mr. D explained, "I sometimes forget that other people don't know some things. That doesn't really make me a good teacher."

-Rebecca