I'd heard we get a lot of homework, but this is ridiculous!

This was on Mrs. Saxsma's white board today. The final draft of our World Lit 1 paper is due next class...and this didn't help the stress level much. Ironically, we didn't really have that much homework...maybe it was just to scare us. Everything is relative, I guess.

Watch your coma usage!

In Spanish class a few days ago, we were learning about relative pronouns, like que, quien, lo que, el que, cuyo, etc. One point we are supposed to know is that it is sometimes necessary to choose between que and quien. For example, quien is only ever used with a person; if the antecedent is not a person, it cannot be used. Also, quien tends to be used with commas. For example:

Mi maestro de fisica, quien trabaja en la Academía Internacional, se llama Sr. Giromini.

means "My physics teacher, who works at IA, is called Mr. Giromini." Without commas, que is used instead:

Mi maestro de fisica que trabaja en la Academía Internacional se llama Sr. Giromini.

This version means "My physics teacher that works at IA is called Mr. Giromini." Stra. Fernández put an overhead projection on the board that contained this information, along with some examples. She caught a small grammatical mistake she had made, explaining that she had had to make the guide quickly. When we got to the part about commas, we realized that she had accidentally used the Spanish spelling of "comma," even though the rest of the writing (save the examples) was in English. In two places, she had written "coma" instead of "comma." She caught the mistake the second time she read it, apologizing for her English spelling skills. We then thought about the difference one single letter m can make.

Remember, quien should only be used after a coma. If you wake up in the hospital after several days and the doctor asks how you were knocked unconscious, it is acceptable to explain, "¡El hombre, quien me dijo que usara 'que,' me pegó!"

Anything you can wear I can wear tighter

Senior Skit was last week. I love Senior Skit. I don't really have much to add (other than the fact that it used to confuse the f(x) out of me that there was a Senior Skit Day and a Senior Skip Day err...I mean no there's not... I mean really!), but I do have the video, which is definitely worth the time, especially if you missed it live. Actually, I have a few related videos, so I'll save that one for last, to keep your attention. Let's start with Senior Skit 2008, in two parts (I know these are all really long, so you can watch highlights if you want, but when you have some time, watch them all):





Now for the teachers' turn (still '08, mind you):





OK so here we go with '09 (Check out 17:35 for the title of this post, or start at 11:30 for the context that will make it make sense):



And by the way, teachers, please make fun of me next year! I can't wait to see what you come up with...

Math Teachers Two, Josh Zero

I was working on a lab for physics this week, and I got to use MS Word 2007's nifty equation tool. I like it a lot- it makes it pretty easy (or at least, pretty possible) to add complex, intelligent-looking symbols, fractions, scripts, etc. to equations. As you may know, one of the options is "Accent," with a symbol that looks like ä:


"Ööö!" I thought, "än ümläüt!" I like umlauts, so I clicked it to see if it was actually called an umlaut in math. Its not.


Dang. Well, recalling the ongoing inner struggle that began with this post, I wondered what Word would call the circumflex. I was sure it would be something as fancy sounding as some of the other accents, (try "Double Overbar," "Acute," "Grave," "Grouping Character Above" and "Boxed Formula (With Placeholder)" on for size,) but I was disappointed. See for yourself.

30 Hour Torture

Every year, many IA students participate in an event called the 30 Hour Famine. They fast for 30 hours, and collect pledges to help fight world hunger. It starts near the beginning of one school day and ends when the following school day is over. This year, I was in Mrs. Saxsma's English class during the penultimate period of the second day. I didn't fast, but the people who did had already gone about 26 hours without eating. When we walked into the classroom, we were assaulted by a strong smell. Apparently, someone had asked permission to use the room to store some food that they had needed to bring in for after school. Mrs. Saxsma said that anyone fasting had permission to move to the other side of the room to try to avoid the smell.

A few minutes later, we had continued talking about the World Literature 1 essay we are in the process of writing. Mrs. Saxsma said that she had an example of a good paper for us to read, and she again apologized to those participating in the 30 Hour Famine. When she handed out the paper, we saw why. It was called, "The Effect of Food in Midaq Alley and..." some other novel that's no longer in the curriculum. The essay was about three pages long, and it was about how several male characters' attitudes toward food were representative of their attitudes toward women. One character always ordered the same thing at restaurants, and was also faithful to his significant other. Another character, however, preferred to try different kinds of food from day to day. It went into quite a bit of detail about what foods the characters liked...making it that much more difficult for those who were starving anyway. And the word for this in English is "torture" and it is spelled t-o-r-t-u-r-e.

When I asked her permission to write about the event, she said that "it was totally accidental though."

Why don't "do" and "go" rhyme?

The title of this post is currently my status message on AIM (or at least it was when I wrote this). I was working on my homework (really!) when an IM window popped up. It was from Harvey:

Harvey: when I take over the world, "do" and "go" will rhyme
Me: will the plural of moose
Me: be meese?
Harvey: sure, it'll be meese
Me: brilliant
Me: house? hice?
Harvey: hmm, you know, actually, it might be better to simplify the English language
Harvey: plural of moose will be mooses
Me: gooses
Harvey: plural of mouse will be mouses
Me: mouses
Harvey: yep
Me: interesting
Me: one more thing
Me: enough or enuf?
Harvey: enuf
Me: ok
Harvey: fisix
Me: YES!
Harvey: fone
Me: now uve got it
Me: elektrishun
Me: can i put this convo on OAIA?
Harvey: sure
Me: o hey
Me: will they both sound like
Me: go or do
Me: ?
Harvey: go
Me: ok
Me: any closing thoughts?
Harvey: internashunle akademy
Me: yes!
Me: good idea
Me: internashunal bakeloreeut?
Me: or what?
Harvey: haha, I like that
Me: thx
Me: mit einem :)
Harvey: ...yeah, I don't know what that means...
Me: http://www.onlyatia.com/2009/03/iationary-mit-einem-smiley-face.html
Harvey: oh
Harvey: I see
Me: said the blind man
Me: to the deaf girl
Me: as the cripple walked into the room
Harvey: on a bright sunny day in the middle of the night
Harvey: as two dead boys got in a fight

When Harvey takes over the world, we won't need funny punchlines to end posts.

Nightmare

A while ago, someone from the Overachiever was sending out emails to all IA students asking if they had had any dreams related to the IA that they wished to share. They got several responses, and a few dreams made it into the newspaper. There were some interesting ones: one student dreamed of a snow day, only to find out that they had missed a day of school, while another, dreaming that they were going to school in heaven, would not allow the winged students to convince him or her that the otherwise unchanged school really was heaven. It wasn't in time for the article, but I've had an interesting IA-dream of my own. It all started this past Sunday night, looking forward to Monday, the final day of break (insert wavy flashback-inducing transition and harp music to taste here)...

I fell asleep thinking about how I was going to spend my last day before returning to school. I had nothing super-exciting to do, but I'd get to relax a bit more, maybe play a bit of Animal Crossing... when the next thing I knew my mom was in my room telling me I had to get up for school! I tried to tell her that only my sister had school that day, and that IA didn't start until Tuesday, but she would hear none of it. I don't remember if my carpool showed up or not, but I do know that somehow I did make it to school. Everyone was talking to each other about break, as they always do on the first day. Only, instead of asking how people had spent their time off, they wanted to know if they were enjoying their last day! I could clearly see that we were at IA, hanging out in the halls and going to class as usual, but everyone else seemed to think that they were still on break, and were thrilled to be able to spend the last day as they chose. The most vivid memory I have is of someone coming up to me and asking if I was enjoying the last day of spring break. I think they also talked about how awesome it was to still be on break when all the other schools had already started. Of course, they didn't see me trying to point out that we were in the German room.

Luckily, the real Monday morning eventually came around, and I did get to play some Animal Crossing.

Some Fun and Out-of-Context Quotes, Part XVIII

Let's just get right to it...

"I love Spanish!"
-Sra. Riggs on the Spanish word for 'piano'

"The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German."
-Mark Twain on separable verbs

"Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth."
-Mark Twain on the German language

"I might be so efficient that I out-efficisized myself!"
-Mr. Giromini on grading labs

"Next to the spleen!"
-Gabe on where to put the appendix in a History Internal Assessment

"I never use first person."
-Mike

"I just strung together a bunch of German-sounding words."
-Amisha on speaking German

"If it's green and slimey it's biology, if it stinks it's chemistry, and if it doesn't work it's physics."
-Mr. IB on how to difFrenchiate demos in different sciences

"Religion. I gave it up for Lent."
-Julia on why she can't play Mao or eat chocolate

"Wait, did you just say you gave religion up for Lent?"
-Me on the above

Most Hilarious ToK Powerpoint Presentation EVER!!!!!

We are now preparing for our oral presentations in ToK. We have to get up in front of the class for ten minutes and talk about real-life experiences, knowledge issues, Ways of Knowing, etc. Quick side note: I'd like to point out how everything in ToK sounds more official and intimidating when "of knowledge" (or some slightly modified form thereof) is added to the end. The words "theory," "area" and "way" are normal everyday words, but they take on a whole new meaning when combined with the aforementioned term: "Theory of Knowledge," "Area of Knowledge" and "Way of Knowing" sound much more impressive. Kinda reminds me of the Spongebob episode "New Student Starfish" where Patrick goes to school to see the stairs, and then the Stairs of Learning. Anyway, I was on Blackboard (read: I was bored) a while ago and the words contained in the title of this post caught my eye, in the "Oral Presentation" folder. Of course I had to click it. So I did. And it really was the most hilarious ToK PowerPoint presentation ever. The next day I asked Miss Davey for the story behind it, having made the assumption that she had made it as an example of what not to do and chosen a random student's name to put on the title slide, but this was not the case. You see, we get two opportunities to do the presentation; if the first one doesn't go well, we have another chance. According to her, Brian Quigley, now a senior, was extremely busy on the days leading up to his presentation. He had a math internal assessment due, along with several other big assignments, that left him no time to prepare. He had explained the situation to Miss Davey, who agreed that it would be better just to wait for the second opportunity, as only the better of the two is counted. He would, however, need to do something to get the class credit for completion. The result was this PowerPoint, which Miss Davey showed us in class several days later, pretending to be Brian and giggling the entire time. I emailed him to ask permission to use the it here, which he said was fine. Therefore, this post's special thanks go to Brian for letting me use his PowerPoint. And also to Miss Davey for putting it on Blackboard. I asked him for any further information he had to offer, and he responded, "The story is true, I did it just to complete it. I had a math portfolio due that day, so I was not prepared to work on a ToK project also. I did it in about a half hour at 5am. When I was about to present it, I realized how dumb it really seemed, so I was a bit nervous. The presentation seemed to start off normal, but then as we got further in, everyone was laughing. Some slides I couldn't even read, because I was laughing so hard."

So that's about enough from me for now...let's get to it!

Most Hilarious ToK Powerpoint Presentation EVER!!!!!

Works Cited

Quigley, Brian. "TOK Presentation." ToK Oral Presentation. International Academy, Bloomfield Hills.

IAtionary: Brain

Brain [breyn] n.

1. A handheld electronic device, especially an iPhone or iPod Touch
2. Yet another handy substitute for thinking

Language of Origin: Seteran

Mike is extremely fond of his iPod Touch, and he always uses it to find any information his built-in brain is unable to come up with unassisted. I believe it was in Spanish class that we first referred to it as his brain, and the term has taken off from there. There is now Mike's brain (the iPod) and Brain one-point-oh (the original). Of course, it is not limited to Mike; it can be used to refer to any heavily relied on electronic device.

Happy 207rd Post!

207...wow that's a big number.

Anyway, today's topic resides on the whiteboard in room 306. We had a history test scheduled for March 23rd, but Mr. Majask decided that it would be better to have the test two days later, on the 25th. When he changed the date, he didn't feel like...well, see for yourself:


I don't know where the question mark came from.

And the word for this in English is "explanation" and it is spelled e-x-p-l-a-n-a-t-i-o-n

I feel morally obligated to explain a certain joke that I've taken to using quite often recently, so I shall do so in this post. Hopefully, many of you already know who Sheikh Darwish is, why he says what he does, and why Spell Check always gets mad at his name (the word for this in English is "transliteration" and it is spelled t-r-a-n-s-l-i-t-e-r-a-t-i-o-n), but there are undoubtedly several of you who don't. I started saying it a while ago, but the first written record of it is fairly recent. At the time, I expected it to make a one-time appearance on Only At IA; those who understood it would laugh and move on, and those who didn't would just move on. In my opinion however it is too funny to pass up, so it soon returned. I really like it, so I'll probably be using it more in the future, and I feel I should bring everyone in the loop (the word for this in English is "inclusion" and it is spelled i-n-c-l-u-s-i-o-n). Here goes:

As a junior in IB1 English, you read a book (sorry, a novel) called Midaq Alley. It is translated from Arabic, and it is about a community of people living in their own secluded alley hidden in the midst of Cairo. Each character goes about his or her business, and it gets more and more complicated from there. I really enjoyed it; it was really interesting and made for some good discussion. Anyway, one of the characters is Sheikh Darwish, a former teacher of the English language who is now homeless. He appears to enjoy flaunting his knowledge of English by informing everyone in his presence of the English word for any idea that comes up, and how it's spelled. And the word for this in English is "show-off" and it is spelled s-h-o-w-o-f-f. So I started saying it at school to those who would get it, then I started saying it at school to those who wouldn't get it, then it made its way here. And the word for this in English is "slippery slope" and it is spelled s-l-i-p-p-e-r-y-s-l-o-p-e. So now that that's over with, I can continue using it as much as I want without fear of excluding people. The only trouble is, it's more fun the more fancy the English word sounds, and I have to remember to make sure that I know how to spell them before saying it out loud. And the word for this in English is "embarrassing" and it is spelled e-m-b-a-r-a-s...ummm...s? Ah! No!

OK, that's about it for now. And the word for this in English is "end" and it is spelled e-n-d...