Some Fun and Out-of-Context Quotes, Part XXXII (With an aside about Halloween Passport)

Happy Halloween! I must say, Halloween Passport was great this year. I'm not so sure how I feel about the changes to the mummy/doughnut contest- it was sort of hard to follow, and the wrapees did all the work; didn't the wrappers eat the doughnut last year? And also, how did we let the teachers get away with picking the doughnuts up OFF the floor? In the good old days, watching them eat it off the floor was the best part. Still, there's something to be said for teachers covered in toilet paper running across a room to eat a doughnut off a string...and as for Mr. Stibitz, wow! I think he's got that part down; he ate it in no more than two bites! There were some bad Halloween puns from Mr. Lyons, and just a few that managed to get to good the Columbus way. My favorite was: What do you get when you cross a vampire and a werewolf? Vampire werewolf sine theta! I totally knew the answer (although I forgot and said cosine...bad Waldo) and shouted it out, but no one heard me. I think it was the costume- I didn't stand out. I'm glad they're doing the whole school costume contest again, and not just winners from each grade. The ones that stick out in my mind are the iPhone with the changing screen, the gorilla and the banana, the mafia, H1N1, the Wizard of Oz, and of course all the teachers as the Glee Club. I don't watch Glee, but dancing teachers in huge pants are enough to be entertaining independently. There were a lot more great costumes, and that's really what makes the passport for me, so thanks to everyone who dressed up! And now, on to the quotes! Although the first one never got a chance to be in the sidebar, it needs to be included in this post.

"Well I actually look scary."
-Moose on why the classic excuse of dressing up as himself works for him

"Yeah 'cause they're both foreign languages!"
-Jamie B. on the correlation between math and foreign language

"How can a student get this many wrong?"
-Madame Brien on grading Francias tests

"We had all the elements of a horror movie surrounding us while we were stuck. On a bus. In the middle of nowhere. Graveyard. Dense forest. Cornfield."
-Ms. Sturt on buses breaking down

"Toppings!"
-Bridget on ice cream

"It's a zombie rave!"
-Ms. Sturt on flashing LED lights in graveyards

"This is too easy; I will make it hard on myself because that is how this class is supposed to be."
-Miss Hessler on the average HL student's reaction to easy quizzes

"That's why I end up on a frikkin' blog all the time!"
-Mr. Giromini on preferring to make up his jokes as he goes instead of repeating them for each period

"He's like Pikachu!"
-Mike S. on "Tesla: Master of Lightning," the movie we watched in fisix

"Of every word I get, this is the most wrongly misspelled one."
-Frau Boyle on the German word for 'restaurant'

IAtionary: Grammage

Gram-mage [GRAM ij] n.

1. The mass of an object, expressed in grams; What's the grammage of this rock?


Also:
Met-er-age
1. A distance or length, expressed in meters

Se-cond-age
1. An amount of time, expressed in seconds

Kel-vin-age
1. A temperature, expressed in kelvins

New-ton-age
1. The magnitude of a force, expressed in Newtons

Coul-omb-age
1. A quantity of electric charge, expressed in coulombs

et cetera

In Fisix 10, when we first heard the term "potential difference," Mr. Lyons painfully admitted that because "voltage" had become so commonplace, he was forced to accept its use in fisix class. He did make it clear, however, that he did not like using the term as it is overly colloquial and has no real place in the fisix curriculum. He then wondered aloud what would happen if we went up to our chemistry teachers and asked, "Hey, what's the grammage on that?" Naturally, I like the idea, and see no reason why we can't use this format for any quantity at all. As far as I can tell, it should even work for compound units; why say "Newtonage" when you can get away with "kilogram-meter-per-secondage?"

Mr. Stibitz has a Bratz Cat; what else is new?

For several years now, Mr. Stibitz has had a Bratz Cat in his classroom. For a while it was hidden behind stuff on his bookshelf, but one day last year it suddenly moved onto the top of the overhead projection screen. Cue picture by me:


I don't know if it's still there; I haven't checked since then. Naturally, I was curious and tried to get some information about it. I decided to be direct: I asked Mr. Stibitz if I could interview him on the subject for Only At IA. He agreed, and I came into his room after school one day to do so. I tried to record the audio from the interview, but my phone was set to record for something like 14 seconds at a time, and I didn't figure out how to change it until several months later. Instead, I took notes and managed to come away with some useful information. I found out that a couple of years ago, two students named Chelsea L. and Katherine S. brought the cat in and put it up for adoption. Mr. Stibitz offered to provide it with "a more caring home," and told them that it would always have a home in room 306.

Some time later, the cat disappeared. Mr. Stibitz couldn't find it anywhere (although, personally, I can't imagine him looking too hard,) and soon received a ransom note, complete with letters cut out from newspapers. As far as I could tell, the note was not too specific, threatening, as Mr. Stibitz told me, "general violence against the cat." It did, however, include pictures of the cat in "compromising positions," including one with its tail sticking out of the school's mailbox.

I have been trying for months now to get a hold of these pictures, and it has thus far proven impossible. I asked Mr. Stibitz if I could have a copy, as he is usually very generous when it comes to sending me files and letting me take pictures for my website, but he said he didn't have them; Sra. Riggs did. I asked Sra., who insisted Mr. Stibitz had them. This went back and forth several times until Mr. Stibitz admitted that he was being lazy and just didn't want to look. He looked, but still found nothing. Then he said that ----! Oh, wait! I can't say that yet, it'll ruin the ending! We can come back to it later.

Anyway, Mr. Stibitz then described how he tried to find the culprit, and eventually convicted Amrith S., class of 2009, who was Sra.'s student assistant. Sra. had ordered him to do it, so it turned out to be her after all. This kind of reminds me of a Mario game, where it looks like someone else will be responsible, but it inevitably turns out to be Bowser, which you've been subconsciously aware of all along. Or of the second Harry Potter, where it turns out to be *spoiler avoided- you probably already know, so you'll get it. If not, read the book!* Not to compare Sra. to either of them, of course. No offence intended.

So now back to where it all began- why was the cat on the projection screen? This issue started the inquiry (which so far has been ever so slightly less successful than OAIA's other mystery novel-style investigation,) but has yielded a vague - but nevertheless satisfying - result, in the form of a Mr. Stibitz quote: "I don't touch this cat. This cat has a life of its own."

---

Now let's wrap up one last thing. "He looked, but still found nothing. Then he said that" Amrith must have the pictures. I sent him an email shortly thereafter, requesting them and/or any information he might be willing to offer. Fast forward several months to the present: no answer. I called him (I hope I didn't creep him out too much...I did preface the conversation with "I have a strange request,") and asked if he still had the pictures anywhere around. He didn't, and apologized, saying he thought Sra. still had them! I'm writing this on Sunday the 27th, and I think I'll wait to post it until tomorrow or after I've had a change to ask Sra. one more time. Clearly, I really want those pictures. Mr. Stibitz offered to let me borrow the cat and recreate them, but I refuse to let OAIA be the cause of any more animal violence. So it all depends on her response, but chances are you're seeing this post without those pictures. I'll keep trying though, and I can always post them if and when I find them.

Nearly a month later: I didn't find them. Nor did I post this 'tomorrow,' but I'll forgive myself for that. If anything turns up, I'll keep you posted!

IAtionary: Philosophizer

Phil-os-o-phiz-er [fil-AH-soh-faiz-er] n.

1. A student of philosophy, especially ToK; Good morning philosophizers, and welcome to ToK!
2. Anyone who's life is significantly influenced by ToK, or the concepts and ideas learned therein

Language of Origin: Wolfian

IAtionary: Paradoxidigm

Par-a-dox-i-digm [pahr-ih-dahks-ih-daym] n.

1. A paradox that sells for a dime
2. A world view that contains inherant inconsistancies

Language of Origin: Super-Dhooperan

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

eXDee

"It's so American."
-Frau Boyle on the paradoxical nature of plastic silverware

"...which is bluey-green with a little bit of white and possibly some clear mixed in!"
-Marie on the color aqua

"I tear up a little when writing these quizzes 'cause it's so exciting."
-Sra. Riggs on including palabras claves in quizzes

"I don't understand The Game, so I can never lose."
-Mr. Stibitz

"I would tell you to calm down except you're not freaking out enough."
-Marie on the freshpeople painting the rock

"I don't know how! I'm in math studies!"
-Caitlin M. on predicting Olympics scores

"Just because they're next to each other on the QWERTY keyboard doesn't mean they're the same letter."
-Marie on the letters S and D

"Are you guys debating string theory again?"
-Mrs. G on how IA students spend their free time

"Ms. Nagy's walking down the hall- we have to look like were learning!"
-Mr. Lyons

"Oop! I forgot how good this hall is at carrying sound!"
-Mr. Lyons on the above

"This is the only environment where that type of personality makes sense."
-Simone S., referring to Sra. Riggs

"I can't count that high!"
-John J. on the number four

"I don't stalk teachers, I only stalk students."
-Sudheer on his claim that he knows which district each senior is from, but failing when it comes to Sra. Riggs

Iambic Pentameter: Results

I considered writing this in iambic pentameter...but I figured that one 490 word post in iambic pentameter is quite enough for one week. Besides, this way I can actually say "iambic pentameter," which is really fun. So how did it go? The simple answer: it was a partial success. Let's do a good news/bad news sort of thing, with the bad news first so we can look forward to the good news:

Bad News
-Only one person noticed (actually "acknowledged" is probably a better word) my endeavor.
-I had told that person my plan on Monday.
-I forgot the pickup a lot.
-Occasionally, my "one word responses" were a few words.
-I forgot to keep it up a few times throughout the day, especially at lunch.
-I fell into the trap of using foreign languages as excuses. For example, in German class I spoke German without dealing with iambic pentameter, figuring that that would be an unreasonable expectation. I still believe this to be acceptable, but the problem was that once I realized I could get away with this I used more German than I might otherwise have bothered with to avoid the challenge.
-I stopped at about 2:10 when Mr. Giromini was concluding his discussion with the class regarding Olymipi--- err, I mean we were totally talking about design labs that whole time - figuring that I would probably panic and say something stupid just to make it fit the meter.

Good News
-I remembered to use it most of the day.
-I was able to get across most of what I wanted to say.
-Mrs. Fuelling noticed.
-It was the day we started reading Much Ado About Nothing. (I planned this:)
-IT WAS FUN!

I know it looks like there's a ton more bad news than good news, but it's OK. The point was for it to be fun, so the last one counts for at least π. And since I already acknowledged the pickup thing, I'm only counting that as e^iπ + 1. Gepwnd. ;)

Iambic Pentameter

So I've decided that I want to try
to set a brand new challenge for myself.
One whole entire day I'll set aside
to try to talk like this as long I can.
"But why?" I'm sure you want to know right now.
The answer's this: I'm really not quite sure.
It's possible that you might recognize
just how I like to mess with language, yes?
Since talking normal seems to me too dull,
I often like to try to change it up.
So therefore I am gonna set the goal
of trying to continue this all day.
It's really not as hard as it may look-
just try to make it sound right in your head.
I'm sure you see that there's a rhythm here:
the syllables line up in just a way
to make it sound that way when read out loud.
So each line must have ten, no more no less,
and every other syllable with stress.
It's quite straight-forward once you've got it down,
but if you're still confused try looking here.
The hardest part for me is how to start:
I oft forget the pickup, leaving nine.
And so I often start with "well" or "so,"
or sometime a conjunction here and there.

So Friday is the day that I have picked
to speak like this at school for one whole day.
So if you're reading this before it comes,
then mark the date and help me with my goal.
The only thing you need to do is this:
just listen to my speech and tell me when
I say something that doesn't follow suit.
But if you'd like to try it be my guest!
It's lots of fun to recognize who sees.

I've written several guidelines for myself,
so please don't call me out unless you see
me break a rule that's listed here below:

-All day Friday I will try to speak
like this, with all the stresses lining up.
The goal's to make it sound real natural,
and not to make it obvious or forced.
I'll do my best to stick right with my plan
and tell you how I did as soon I can.
-One word answers will still be OK,
as long as sounding natural's at stake.
-Well sadly is the title of this post,
impossible to say here properly.
So therefore I can say the title if
and only if I get someone to ask
how it is I'm talking and/or why.
-Officially the challenge ends with school,
but if I'm feeling good I might go on
to try it till I leave for home that day.
-Of course these rules are subject now to change,
and they'll remain so till the day begins.

So please do come and see me on the day,
and see if I'm still going, won't you please?
So thanks for reading, I look forward to
my trying this at school...I hope it works!

IAtionary: Death Energy

Death En-er-gy [DETH en-er-jee] n.

1. The form of energy created when the death of a creature in a fisix problem takes place; At the top of the Grand Canyon, you have a certain amount of gravitational potential energy. At the bottom, you have another. Separately, both states are OK. It's the connection between the two that's the problem: when you try to make that connection, potential energy is converted into kinetic energy...and death energy. Lots of death energy.

Language of Origin: Lyonese

In fisix class, a problem like the example sentence came up (in fact, I think that was almost exactly it). We're studying electricity, and conversations like "It's OK if you touch the one labeled 'plus,' and it's OK if you touch the one labeled 'minus,' but please don't touch them at the same time" come up a lot. In that example similar to the one above, which is used as a parallel of electrical energy, Mr. Lyons coined the term "death energy." I now bring it up as often as possible in class, like when IA students think that they might actually gain something from connecting the two terminals of a battery with pencil lead to watch the smoke, or connecting four six-volt batteries in series and touching them to their tongues.

Curves

Recently, we had to do a physics lab involving capacitors. We charged one up and as it was discharging, we measured the voltage across it every ten seconds for about twenty minutes. The directions said to wait until it went to zero, but if you know anything about exponential decay... Anyway, we were supposed to end up with a nice exponential decay function. The data came out almost perfectly, which is the Mew of physics labs, so I was pretty excited as I helped Moose (who was in my group) enter the data into the computer. Before we were done, I glanced over at Justine's graph, which was gorgeous. It had an RMSE value of 0.006002, which is awesome. If you don't know, (and even if you do,) the RMSE value is a number from -1 to 1 that measures how closely the data follows the model, with 0 being a perfect fit. To get a value that close to zero on a physics lab is virtually unheard of. I told her, "Justine, that is the prettiest graph I have ever seen in my entire life." Here, see for yourself (click both to enlarge):


She thanked me, and then Moose bet her five bucks that our graph would beat hers. She politely declined, and Moose offered simply to give her $5 if her graph turned out better. She didn't answer, and he took that for an OK. We finished entering the data and brought up ours:


An RMSE value of .008240. Ooo, that hurts. Well actually it's still awesome, but not quite awesome enough. Moose gave her the $5, which she gave back. He gave her $1, which she took. And that was that.

Thanks to Justine and Moose for the screen shots.

Let's be realistic

The IA paintball event is right around now, and this poster recently appeared around the building:


I believe it has one picture of Mr. Giromini and one of Mr. Majask in full paintball attire. When Mr. Giromini saw the poster, he read the heading and told Mr. Majask, "But they won't." Mr. Majask agreed, and all subsequently printed posters include this information: