What is this on my desk?

About 20 minutes before the end of the day, I looked over at my desk and I saw this.

But....what is THIS?

I mean, I know WHAT it is. It's a bunch of markers tied up in a condom.  But...... WHY?

Am I going to find other unused condoms filled with school supplies starting to appear randomly throughout my classroom?

Whoever the culprit is, they totally got into my head today, and that was most likely the whole intention behind it. I think I'm resolved to pretend, after I get this off of my chest and out in to the world, that this whole incident never occurred.

A little sidenote on my experience with online dating...

First of all, you should understand how much of a jump from my comfort zone the idea of online dating was.  I mean, meeting total strangers out of the context of my daily life? Plus I have to be honest, I had not really dated before.  I took one look at the cheesiness that was match.coms homepage and I had to think hard about it.  I mean I prayed about it.  And everywhere I heard online dating...online dating.  From my friends, from the radio, from the television, from the... yeah, ok, from the internet.  This, I felt, was fate and it was telling me to create a profile and throw it out there for the online dating world to see. 

I signed up for match knowing that there was some cost, and I decided this was a good thing because sometimes you get what you pay for, right? The first couple nights I got emails from a lady who was trying to get a date for her son and a guy with a t-shirt that said "I love hot moms". I mean this was the best people watching I have done in a long time.

Then I got an email from Adam, and he sounded really nice and he looked great (match makes me feel super judgmental, by the way).  I was sort of excited. And it got better from there! Because it turned out Adam was not a complete stranger but a good friend of my roommate's from Ball State.  We had the same science clock.  He had a great sense of humor and an interesting job. And did I mention he was adorable? And I left my purse behind on the first date and took me back to get it without complaining, so I knew he could partially put up with my occasional dysfunctionality.  Man, I thought, maybe this match.com website is the best decision I ever made.

So we were dating for awhile and I thought things were great! But you can probably tell by now (possibly the use of the past tense tipped you off) that things did not work out.  I was ready for let's be in a relationship! while Adam was ready to start dating someone else.  One of the fundamental things about life that sucks is how easy it is to form feelings for someone that are not mutual.  An ironically funny side note is that match sends out emails periodically with people they say match your interests and what you're looking for.  One recent email had his picture at the top with a 97% mutual match.

I like to get my money's worth so a couple days after Adam called me (would have been nice if he bought me a drink first) I tried to get back on and gave my number out WAY too early.  I ended up having a conversation that sounded like this:

"can we talk?"- guy

       "sure but I have to warn you that I just got done chaperoning prom and I'm a little tired"-me

"so we can't talk"- guy

       "no, we can talk, go ahead"- me

"so can we talk?"- guy 

       At this point I decided I did not really want to talk to this guy. Ever again.  Like I said, I was really tired and not interested in answering the same question THREE TIMES IN A ROW.  So I said, "apparently not, we are not doing a good job of communicating."

Not very many, yet way too many, exchanges later he told me if this is the way I approach dating, I will be single for a long time.  This might be true.

I am sure somewhere here there are deep lessons that I have learned but right now I'm just slightly bitter.  Part of me thinks I'm being immature because I got my feelings hurt, and maybe I am, but I don't want to actively try to date again for awhile.  Plus there are only so many "how the fuck ru?" emails from tallhotscott (p.s. not so hot) that I can take.  So I'm hiding the profile... at least for awhile. 1 out of 5 relationships start online, 1 in 5 probably meet in college,  and somewhere in the ballpark of 0.01 are arranged right? So that leaves me 2.99 out of 5 other ways.  I'm looking for suggestions.

Homecoming

I have to write about homecoming.  This year I took up the responsibility of co-student council advisor, as the previous student council advisor decided to have a baby.  My last experience as a school representative was in middle school when I sang a campaign speech that landed me the secretary position- it was a bold move that paid off.  The point of that story is supposed to be that I have a very minimal knowledge of the position.  This is what I've gathered so far: being the student council advisor is one of the most stressful jobs ever because you're not supposed to do any of the work, but if any of it goes wrong, you are immediately to blame and, damn, there is a boatload of drama involved.
So I was relieved that homecoming went off without too many issues.  Here were some of the highlights, from least fun to most fun:

• One student was nominated to homecoming court as a well-publicized joke. So glad she was a good sport about it.
• Fiasco with shirt ordering, it should never be that hard to give people money.
• I was in charge of getting the floats around the track.  Of course the first tractor stalled right in the middle
• The floats were AWESOME.  The theme was superheroes and my favorite was the sophomore superman float.  I should have taken pictures.  However, the seniors won because they had service men and women, doctors, firemen, policemen, and teachers on their float, and who can not vote for those heroes? 
• I decided to participate in the teacher tug-of-war at the homecoming pep rally.  Let me tell you, middle school teachers are tough.  We got our asses kicked.
• Favorite: One of my klutziest homeroom kids pantomimed my tug-of-war skills, starting off with "Who am I?" And then falling straight on her ass.  It was so perfect. 

I am so glad it's over... until next year!

I'm behind on many of the hilarious things that have happened in this second year of teaching, but I was grading this ridiculous assignment I gave to my freshmen biology students and I love some of their answers so much I want to share them.  If you don't remember Robert Hooke or don't like science, they might not make much sense.  The assignment: pick a scientist whose work contributed to cell theory.  As that scientist, you are to pick an appropriate audience and write a letter describing their work and why it was important.  Here are some of the winners:

"To whom it may concern,

You may or may not be aware, but recently I have been examining cork in my research...I have been using a contraption called the microscope...If any questions or comments please contact me back."

"Dear Bio Class, 

I was looking into a microscope examining cork, in thin slices of course."

"Anyways, I was using my microscope, and I came across something I'd never seen before.  By no doubt it was the smallest thing I'd ever seen.  They looked something like this: (picture of cork) Looks like rooms in a monastery right?"

"I am glad I can help make the Future of Science."

"THIS WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE THINGS!"

"Until then, I will continue to study cells and keep you posted"

Imma be famous

I had a discussion the other day with one of my students in efforts to convince him that his high school diploma, and therefore at least making an effort to pass my class, was important.
"How many millionaires do you know who don't have their high school diploma?"
"Duh, like every rapper!" Oh...at this point I am irked that I didn't consider that response and wondering if I should remind him that he's white and not Eminem.  I also am asked to name three rappers, which I finally nail with, of course, Eminem ("that's like the most obvious!"), 50-cent (that's like the second most popular!"), and TI but it takes me a few seconds and I make an eye-rolling mistake with Usher in the meantime.  Anyways, the student already replies with the fact that he's in a viral youtube video which I kind of shrug at, and tell him if he really wants to be famous he has to have a record deal and I might have bet him five dollars that he wouldn't.

So a couple of days later I'm in the teacher's lounge and this student comes up in conversation and one teacher says something to the effect of, I just can't take him seriously after seeing him try to stick a remote up his ass.  Huh? Yea, so you might have actually seen this video if you watch Tosh.O, and I had before and just didn't make the connection, but the two brothers from "The greatest freak out ever" are in my B2 block ICP class.  I'm not going to give him five dollars for being famous, but if you go watch the video, you might have a little more compassion for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc

Need a Ride

So my janitor has been sick for the last week, and needles to say my floor was absolutely disgusting.  The ease at which students can trash a classroom does not bode well for the future of our environment, btw.  Yesterday I decided something needed to be done.  I grabbed our pink broom from the stock room and after about, eh, two sweeps, the broom snaps in half.  I took it out in the hallway during passing periods to show off my supreme sweeping strength and one of the other teachers asked me "Did your ride break down?". "Haha yeah, house fell on it." So anyways, I ended up sweeping my room Quasimodo style.  It is kind of unfortunate however that I actually totaled my car on the ride to school this morning. Winner.

Journals

Every day my biology class comes in and answers a question in their journal.  Usually its related to what we've been discussing in class, but every once in awhile I just tell them to write whatever's on their mind.  The results are usually pretty awesome.

"Snow is really great.  It is just like frozen H2O.  We roll in it.  We fight in it, we can also get buried alive in it"

 "Snow sucks.  I hate shoveling snow.  It's a pain in my Butt. And snow is cold. And its to bright." Mainly I like that one because it's so contradictory to all of the others.

This one has to do with their PE final: "My chest hurts.  I'm not running a mile ever again.  Pokemon is awesome.  I need more (tries to spell vicodin, scribbles it out) pain pills."

"Pokemon is the best game ever! Everyone must love it! I love Groudon! It is amazing with fire blast ! IT IS AS AWESOME AS SCIENTOLOGY!"  Pokemon is still big? wha?

"The only thing worse than a ginger is a baby.  Babies are the reason there will never be world. Zack is having a seizure (or a baby).  I'm going to nail a baby (doll) to a tree and shoot it repetitively." At least he's not nailing a real baby to a tree.

"I have two turtles and two tadpoles.  (Land Turtle) Marriwhether Lewis (water turtle) Ferdinand Magellan (tapoles) giovanni de veranzono and Samuel de Chaimplain.  When the tadpoles turned to frogs they hopped out of the tank and my dog ate them.  Now Lewis has an eye infection and won't eat.  So he's probably going to die."  So...he had two turtles and two tadpoles.  Really I love that he names his pets after famous explorers!

"Ashley and Brock are my Bio buddies.  Ashley is annoying and Brock is a stud.  He knows how to draw deer, Ashley draws pigs.  School is not fun."  The second sentence was my fav.  I'm sure he loves my class though.