Only At IA

The Future of Only At IA

2011-10-23T15:24:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone! It's that time of year again; my payment on the domain name has run out, and I have to decide whether I'm going to renew it or not. I had already decided that if the site was put to good use in my absence I would have no problem doing so, but there have been two non-introductory posts by anyone other than me, and it's been about a year and a half. As much as I'd love to keep the name, it's not worth it for the amount of use it's getting. Therefore, I've decided not to renew it. There is, however, some good news! The site will continue to exist, all the old context will still be around, but the name will revert back to onlyatia.blogspot.com. I'm posting this as far in advance of the change as I can so that people don't have trouble finding it, but in early November the current domain will no longer work.

That said, I'd still like the site to continue in whatever way possible. I'll still post to it when I feel like it, and I hope that the others do the same. Like I've said countless times before, I really enjoy writing for the site and reading what others have written. I hope to keep it interesting enough to make it worth checking back, and I look forward to seeing where we decide to go with it:)

The moral of the story is this: nothing much is changing, the web address will return to onlyatia.blogspot.com sometime around November 13, and I hope to see more content appearing this year than last year.

IAtionary: Portmantastic

2011-01-27T03:37:00.000-05:00

Port-man-tas-tic [port-man-TAS-tik] adj.

1. Of or related to a well done or entertaining combination of two words; Have you guys seen xkcd.com/739? It's portmantastic!
2. Demonstrating the ability to improvise new and interesting combinations of words; A: So, do you think Kurt and Blaine will get together? B: I hope so, Klaine is so adorable! A: Ooo, portmantastic!

Antonym: Port-man-ter-ri-ble [port-man-TER-rih-buhl] adj.

1. Of or relating to a poorly-constructed combination of words; I keep trying to find a way to portmanteau "IA" and "Oberlin" but there are too many vowels at the beginning...it's portmanterrible!

It's been half a year since I've posted on OAIA, and I'll admit it feels weird to have been away for so long. Things are going great for me at Oberlin, and I thought I'd come back and share a little of my new, expanded vocabulary. You see, by complete accident I ended up living just downstairs from Sci-Fi Hall, an entire hall full of sci-fi fans, nerdy references and all the video games. I learned to speak Sci-Fi Hall pretty quickly, and a lot of the new words were either references that I needed to catch up on or awesomely meta words like "portmantastic." (Like, hey, did you know there's a word for "self-referential"? Yeah, it's "meta," like metalanguage or metaknowledge. The word on its own is still a neologism, but I love it nonetheless.) Anyway, I thought this would be an appropriate addition to the IA lexicon if it hasn't appeared independently in my absence, so I thereby justify putting it in the IAtionary.

Now let's address the other issue at hand; in the half a year, not counting semi-forced introductions, there has been one post. In total, I've written 97.5% of the posts in existence, though I've had sole ownership for about 80% of the time. And I'm 1/9 of the Task Force, so counting the time of each person separately, only 57% of the time has been mine. (See, I can still do math at 3:30 in the morning; I'm on college time.) Anyway, OAIATF people, I hope you pick it up a little. Meanwhile, I think I'll start posting once in a while again. I can't promise any regularity, but this has been fun and I've missed it. Obviously it won't be specifically IA stuff, but I'll pick out what I think applies best when I have time.

Calculator Fun!

2011-01-03T18:21:00.000-05:00

First I'd like to say happy new year! Congrats to me for being the first to post something cool now that Josh isn't updating. I don't really have a story to this post, but I do have an explanation....of sorts. So over a few weeks in Math Studies, I have taken pictures of some pretty cool calculator drawings that Zach Rich has created. I believe the first one was Pikachu and then came the pokeball, followed by Jigglypuff and then the Dreamworks symbol. Well, math is usually very easy, so many of us don't really pay attention to lectures and this is what we do to occupy our time.

I will rock your face off

2010-10-10T15:36:00.002-04:00

Hello. Abby here.

Well, as I am the person writing the OAIA articles and the back page of The Overachiever, I should really contribute to the site. Agh, I was so scared of doing it, I thought I was so unfunny. I'm still kinda in shock that Josh let me help run his special site . . .

However, since entering junior year, I have noticed a positively graph-able increase in my funniness, which hopefully will continue so this site doesn't die from my punny lameness.

Anyways . . . hi! I'm a junior girl at IA's central campus. Most of you will see my name on the back page of the school newspaper as the back page editor and contributor. Other than my work on The O, you won't hear about me much. I do love writing, so hopefully I'll be OK at it for the site. And yes, I'm trying to be funny when I post, but I'm just not very funny - unless I'm wicked tired, then I'm as funny as a YouTube "crack" video . . . and that's still not funny enough! :D

Ah, what else . . . I love languages (third year German, first year French, fourth year amateur Japanese), but I'm not much of a linguist. I'm a huge anime/manga nerd, or a general Japanese culture nerd. I wear glasses (big surprise). I sometimes show up in the quotes section, but that's when I'm tired, really. Seeing as I'm tired a lot more this year (oh IB . . . ) maybe I'll show up more. Oh, and I have very little confidence, so if I talk like this a lot, trust me, it's a regular day.

Despite being an IA nerd, I am not as nerdy as many people: I'm really bad at science, and struggle to keep my grade at A- in math. I prefer artistic or philosophical work, and prefer to work alone, though I like people. I read a lot, I write lots of amateur stories, and if you see me in the halls, I look kinda stern and masculine. My voice is pretty low too . . . Ah, and I talk a lot, and I mean A LOT. Look at how long this intro is!

Well, I've got some stuff bugging me already, so I can't wait to post more stuff! I'll try to make it a more regular process - after all, we can't let this site die! It'd be dishonorable to Josh. :D See y'all around the interwebs!

... I like peanut butter.

2010-09-29T19:37:00.002-04:00

Hi. I'm Simone, I'm a sophomore, and I'm really tempted to write in all caps right now.

SO I THINK I WILL.

There, I feel better now.

Yeah, I may seem a bit hyper right now (and a lot of other times, to be honest), but that's because I'm avoiding my work. Because I know I won't be able to when I'm a junior. So I'm savoring what little social life I have now.

Although this website is meant to -- let's face it -- extrapolate the nerdiness that is IA and put it all into one fun little web-sized package, I plan on bringing... a slightly less nerdy point of view.

Yeah, that sounds good.

And yes, I am the same Simone that is in the "Arguably Inappropriate" section of that venn diagram of types of quotes you've seen on our facebook page. So if that doesn't give you any indication of what I'm gonna write about... I don't know what to say. (If you haven't seen the fb page yet, you should go on it. And then like it. Don't you love my abilities to plug our other site in this one? SOMUCHFUN!)

I may have only been around for a few weeks, but I already have loads of ideas and stories. So I hope you enjoy all of the crazy crap I write about. :)

--Simone S.

P.S. Floccinaucinihilipilification.

... That's an awesome word, isn't it?

ACCIO READERS!

2010-09-20T19:57:00.000-04:00

Hi there! I'm Brie (or Bri, or Brizzi, or Brijonai, etc.)! I like to think that I'll be bringing a bit of randomness and energy to OAIA. I'm a junior this year and am very very nervous about the IB, so if I post anything it'll most likely be quotes from the other fear-stricken juniors about IOPS or CAS or maybe even the upcoming Orchestra concert on October 12. I'm a fan of crude humor, so for our younger readers I probably won't post many things besides "that's what she said" jokes. Let's see....what else. I'm not a formal writer, so prepare yourself for awkwardly phrased sentences, horrible grammar, and a general sense of confusion whenever you see my name.

I'm a huge believer in all things Harvey, and I WILL go on and on about the guy, so I'm not going to approach the topic of Harveyism (we'll save that for the other authors that AREN'T obsessed with him). I love OAIA and I hope that this year we'll see both returning readers and some new blood coming to the site. Keep an eye out for us, because once things start rolling we'll probably be making our way to the back of the Overacheiver!

Introduction

2010-09-10T16:53:00.002-04:00

Well, now that school's in not only for us IAers but the rest of the state, I guess I probably shouldn't put this off anymore. I've been meaning to do this sooner, but it just hasn't really worked out until now (procrastination- it happens to the best of us). ANYWAYS, I'm doing this post at Josh's (sorry, I haven't figured out how to put umlauts up here yet) suggestion, to introduce myself to the readers on onlyatia.com.

Okay, so here goes nothing!

My name is Caitlin Mayer, and I'm a senior this year. Other common names for me include "blue", "that mermaid obsessive" (don't ask unless you want a REALLY long explanation), and "weirdo hiccuping girl" (if you hear any strange, almost squealish noises and I'm in the vicinity, I'm probably the cause...). My favorite color is blue (as nickname #1 implies), and I'm an avid reader of books, mangas, comics, and pretty much anything else with writing on it. I've made a few other appearances on Onlyatia.com, both as the provider of a few of the out of context quotes, and the creator of a treasure map that featured last year. Last year I was known for creeping on freshmen, but this year I've moved on to bigger and better things- creeping on sophomores!

Anyways, if you see anything on this website that says it was posted by Caitlin, it probably means that it was posted by me, and not some random hacker by the same name.

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

2010-07-27T14:34:00.000-04:00

"You think I'm mean now, wait 'til you see me without food."
-Mr. Giromini on the 30 Hour Famine

"I can't remember my childhood anymore."
-David G. on time at IA going slowly

"Oh! She wants to be a teacher instead of a parachute!"
-Bri J. on a mistranslation of German

"You realize that my purpose in life is to entertain others with my stupidity, right?"
-Marie N.

"I just made a gesture without talking!"
-Kelsi C. on nonverbal communication

"I've gotten my best ACT and SAT scores on two hours of sleep."
-Anthony G.

"My best ACT section was the one I fell asleep on."
-Mr. Lyons on the above

"I'm getting more and more out of date as I age!"
-Abby S. on the 90s being two decades ago

"You mean, like, ghosts, and communism?"
-Kevin M. on the subjunctive being for talking about things that aren't real

"Brian! Sound intensity!"
-Ms. Priest on Brian's loudly making fun of Joel

"When I think I fail, I get a six."
-Lucy D. on the philosophy behind Math HL

"What are you, the Borg?"
-Miss Davey on judges' simultaneous, unanimous decisions

As far as you know

2010-07-03T01:45:00.001-04:00

There are several words and phrases that can serve as a response to absolutely any statement, question, exclamation or other utterance. It can be kind of fun to try to find them and use them in various situations (just be careful to avoid being that guy.) The idea is not to say the same thing over and over again, but to have an arsenal of things to say when most other responses would be inappropriate or impossible. There are two categories into which such words and phrases can fall. The first is the confusion-based group, which includes such favorites as "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" and "Are your gastrointestinal problems getting worse?." The idea here is that the phrase does not have to make any sense at all in the context of a conversation. This group is put to good use in situations like this one.

The second category is my favorite of the two: the ToK-based group. These are the generic responses which ask the recipient to consider the deeper implications of what he or she has just said, tell him or her to "prove it," etc. My favorite of these is "Arguably," as it turns out that in fact every statement you hear on a daily basis is - at some level - arguable. The favorite of our good friend Harvey is the title, "As far as you know." I encourage to try these out for yourself, and leave a comment if you come up with any of your own. It's especially fun to get friends to try to come up with an utterance which cannot be answered with a ToK-based generic response; I often play this Game in the lunch line, and it is indeed quite entertaining. May the mass times acceleration be with you.

Poll: The seniors are gone.

2010-06-29T14:55:00.001-04:00

I posted this just after the seniors' last day. Here are the results:

Yay! More space for us!
17%

Aww, we'll miss you!
70%

(Seniors only) Finally!
5%

(Seniors only) Oh no! Not already!
5%

I guess we're pretty popular:)

By the way, sorry for the infrequent posting lately. You'll start hearing more from the other Task Force members soon: I've asked them each to write a post introducing his/herself, and as soon as school starts back up you'll hear from them more. Not that we have to think about that yet, of course. Besides, I've still got a few posts in the making myself, so keep checking back!

IAtionary: Physicstubby

2010-06-19T14:46:00.002-04:00

Phys-ics-tub-by [FIZ-iks-tuhb-bee] n.

1. A physics teacher, especially one using a video and/or other non-personal medium to instruct students; I was wondering why certain pipes can only support odd numbered harmonics, but once I watched the Physicstubbies I understood.
2. An alternate method of physics instruction based on the idea of leaving a child to watch a screen until he or she understands a concept

Alternate spelling: Fisixtubby

Mr. Giromini came into fisix class to make fun of Mr. Lyons for a picture he sent him of a guy wearing an iPad as a necklace. I believe the word they used was "bling." This wasn't the picture, but I think it's close enough:

Mr. Giromini said the real reason he was making fun of Mr. Lyons was not that he sent him the picture, but that he included the statement that if he had an iPad, this is what he would do with it. He said that he could have all sorts of cool stuff like music videos playing whenever he wanted. The discussion quickly turned to the possibility of recording lectures, then standing in front of the class to play it back. Like the Physicstubbies.

Some Fun and Out-of-Context Quotes Part XLII

2010-05-23T22:09:00.003-04:00

Facebook Status: "Homework Sleepovers- the epitome of nerd-dom."
Reply: "I think skipping school to finish homework might be slightly worse xD"
-IA student facebooks on the great lengths taken to get homework done

"Hey, don't tell people class starts in two minutes when it doesn't!" - Lizzy on everyone being afraid of being late to Mr. Wolf's class
"But it DUD!" - Nilam on class starting in two minutes
"...I mean did..."- Nilan on self-correction

Pictures 'n' Stuff, Part VI

2010-05-23T16:56:00.004-04:00

Some fun pictures in here, I think. And I really want that T-shirt.

I was hanging around The Cheezburger Network today, specifically Graph Jam, So Much Pun and Failbook. The first was introduced to me by Mr. Lyons, and the second reminded me of him. The third I just found for myself. The next four are a few personal favorites.

So true.

A friend linked to this on Facebook:

To what extent is calling an award the "Xerox Creativity Award" ironic? A conversation entirely in IBan

2010-05-21T00:56:00.001-04:00

I finished my last ever IB exam yesterday, so I'm feeling somewhat reminiscent. When I think about it, I believe Mr. I B and I would get along very well, as counterintuitive as that sounds. I'll gladly say that I love the IB program, and I think it has had a profound impact on my thinking. I could go on nostalgically for quite some time but I think I'll skip ahead to today's topic, as nostalgia really isn't what it used to be.

My friend Brian B. (2011) recently posted as his Facebook status, "To what extent is calling an award the 'Xerox Creativity Award' ironic?" Apparently the award is presented to competitors in robotics competitions for unusual strategies and such. As I said, I was in an IB mood, so I decided to respond in IBan:

To the greatest extent possible, created by the possible excessive use of capital letters, the use of a brand name, and the clear contrast between the initial and penultimate words.

I must warn you that I am fluent in IBan.

Brian responded simply, "IBan sounds a lot like BS. It's just BS with IB words." Not about to give up, I countered with

It appears, given the limited length of the retort authored by [Brian's last name], that he is unaware of the full nature of the IBan language. This dramatic irony- created by the fact that most readers of said retort will have seen http://www.onlyatia.com/2008/05/iationary-eyebeean.html - is essential to the development of his message. This message is, (not to beg the question,) that he disagrees with the principles of the language.

The reader is then inclined to wonder how he would feel about Orwell's classic 1984, in which the opposite approach to language is employed. This juxtaposition of the simplified and and the complicated is key to [Brian's last name]'s disapproval, and only by understand [sic] these devices and [sic] a reader fully appreciate his intent.

Still not quite showing his full potential for writing in IBan, Brian said, "LMFAO. That just made my day. So IB...," to which I responded with two consecutive comments:

The author of this comment finds it necessary to clarify that the aforementioned point, "So IB..." ([Brian's last name] 2), is in fact the entire purpose of the language in question. He also must cite from his original comment that "I am fluent in IBan," ([My last name] 1) emphasizing that this point may be more potent after the previous demonstration.

followed by

He also, embarrassingly, must clarify that the concluding sentence in the second of his comments, above, was incorrectly rendered, and was meant to read, "...and only by understanding these devices can a reader fully appreciate his intent," ([My last name] 2).

Finally getting into it, Brian said:

The author of this comment agrees with [My last name]'s point in the previous comment that his claim of fluency in IBan "may be more potent after the previous demonstration" ([My last name] 3). He moves to admit [My last name] as [sic] fluent in IBan.

Me:

Upon closer inspection, this comment's purpose can be seen as twofold. On the one hand, it aims to thank the other participant in the current conversation for his appreciation of its author's proficiency in IBan while congratulating him on his own successful attempt thereof. This effect is created by his appreciative diction: he employs words such as "thank" ([My last name] 5) and "appreciative diction" ([My last name] 5).

On the other hand, the purpose of the comment can also be seen by the reader as a request for permission to publish the conversation of which it is a part on Only At IA, albeit with last names removed. This is evident in the author's sudden transition to a more inquiring diction, with phrases such as "request for permission" ([My last name] 5) and "inquiring diction" ([My last name] 5). Either way the reader chooses to interpret the comment's intent, its author does a masterful job of crafting his work, effectively conveying a multitude of messages while leaving only a slight trace of arrogance.

And finally Brian:

This comment's purpose can - like the comment to which it is a direct response - be seen as twofold. One function is to grant the request in [My last name]'s previous comment (to which this comment is a direct response) regarding the publishing of the conversation of which this comment and [My last name]'s comment are a part ([My last name] 5).

Another, equally important, function of this comment is to commend the extent to which [My last name] has successfully developed himself as self-centered and lacking humility through his tendency to quote himself even within a single sentence ([My last name] 5) and his precise diction, with which he provides himself opportunities to quote himself and thus develop himself as self-centered and lacking humility. [My last name]'s character development is quite masterful.

However the intent of this comment is interpreted, its author effectively conveys multiple messages in the language of IBan, which is an impressive achievement, as the author (at the time of the comment) is still learning IBan in the course IB IBan (a group 2 subject).

I decided to leave it at that for several reasons. The most prominent of these were that I wanted to get this post written in time to go to sleep at a semi-reasonable hour and that I was laughing too hard to think straight. Besides, I would inevitably get the last word in, as I get to write the post. I must say that I am impressed with Brian's analysis of my self-citations; it took me a couple of drafts to get the same-sentence self-references to work out just right. After an experience like this one - seeing how far we've both come - I find it much more believable that one must spend only four adult years in China to learn all the Chinese characters.

IAtionary: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgaben-übertragungsgesetz

2010-05-06T21:03:00.009-04:00

Rind-fleisch-e-ti-ket-tier-ungs-ü-ber-wach-ungs-auf-gab-en-ü-ber-trag-ungs-ge-setz [RINT-flaysh-eh-tih-keht-TEER-uhngz-oo*-behr-VACK**-uhngz-OUF-gah-behn-OO*-behr-trag-uhngz-geh-ZETS]*** n.

1. The German for "Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation law," a law about cattle marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation
2. Absolute, concrete proof that the German language is the single coolest sounding thing on the planet; A: I think German sounds kind of ugly.
B: It's not ugly, it's just guttural. I mean, Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.
A: Wow, you're so right! Teach me more!

See also: Sind deine Verdaungsprobleme schlimmer geworden?

*English doesn't quite have the vowel ü (or else this wouldn't be funny), so click here for a better idea of how to pronounce it- try the sound sample.
**Please, don't actually say K. Click here if you're confused, and again, the sound sample is your friend.
***You can listen to the entire word here.

Sudheer dx

2010-05-04T21:44:00.003-04:00

This was a teaser I posted on Only At IA's Facebook page a while ago. I found it on Mr. Majask's whiteboard. "What?" you ask. "Who's Fudheer?" Actually, poor, misinformed reader, the integral sign comes from the long S, which has all but disappeared but for its remnants found in the German ligature ß, which comes from the pairing ſʒ, ʒ being related to the modern letter s. Fire up.

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

2010-05-02T05:31:00.002-04:00

I have no real witty comment at five thirty in the morning, so since the next quote to appear over there <--- will have to do with Star Trek, live long and prosper. Oh and for the record, Zefram Cochraine High School has nothing on IA. Now go read the new quote(s)...erm, I mean "Make it so, Number One."

"Since I tend to say stupid things it only seems logical for me to start listening for other people's stupidity."
-Marie N. on my invitation to join the OAIA task force

"I was conscious that entire class!"
-Anthony G. on misremembering fisix

"'Cause nothing says 'we care' like photocopies."
-Anthony G. on Kiss-A-Senior-Goodbye-Grams

"Monday we'll have a party."
-Mr. Stibitz on Friday being my last day

"Probably because you observed it."
-Mr. Lyons on Kavya's not understanding a college quantum physics course

"I give you three weeks."
-Mrs. Parliament on my resolution never to learn Klingon

"...Pregnant pause. Haha, don't say pregnant."
-Sra. on meaningful silences

"It gets kinda competitive. Like Survivor."
-SHS leader on college apps

"I don't want much, I just want the world."
-Sra. on being dedicated to SHS leadership

"Important, important, important. I'll look at all this important stuff later."
-Natalie K. on procrastination

Plans for the Future

2010-04-24T16:11:00.008-04:00

I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I think I've come up with a solution what will work for everyone. I won't be at IA next year, but I'd like Only At IA to continue. I considered passing it on to one person, but I know no one else will be willing to donate as much time as it takes to run the site alone. I considered keeping it and expanding the subject matter, but I think that would ruin the essential IA-ness that makes the site what it is. I also considered all sorts of other options, and I've finally picked one.

I'm going to pass it on to a carefully chosen task force that will have the job of maintaining the site and supplying it with new material. I'll still post occasionally, but most of the writing will be done by them. See where it says "Posted by Jösh" below this post? If not, then I'm still working on fixing that. If technology agrees, you'll be able to see who posted what in case it's not obvious. I've asked eight people to be on the team and so far I've heard back from three, all interested. I just sent the email yesterday, so I'm optimistic about the rest. Here's the list of people who've agreed so far (I'll update it as more people sign on):

*Change of plans: check the sidebar for the most recent version of this list*

I chose people whose unique senses of humor I appreciate and who have a certain connection to OAIA already. Special thanks to everyone who's opted to join, and also to all the readers for making the site enough fun to be worth continuing. As soon as I post this I'm going to start granting permissions, so if you're seeing it then the plan is already in action. I've also asked the task force to keep itself populated as its members graduate by finding replacements, so OAIA ought to go on for quite sometime to come. It really has been a wonderful part of my IA experience, and I hope it continues to grow in the coming years. I do plan on reading everything that appears here, and I'll probably comment pretty often. Thanks again to everyone seeing this, and let the invitations begin!

I hate blog posts about controversial topics almost as much as I love irony

2010-04-19T19:33:00.007-04:00

First let me say that I seriously considered writing this entire post in the color of the background so you would have to highlight it to see it. Instead I decided text was silent enough already...consider yourself lucky. This past Friday, I and many other IA students participated in the annual Day of Silence. Please read the aforelinked Wikipedia article if you don't know what that means. It was a great experience and for a great cause; I encourage you to participate next year if you get the chance. IA's GSWA (Gay-Straight-Whatever Alliance) handed out stickers to wear, advising others that one was participating. Sadly they ran out of them before I arrived, but Marie got there in time to get one. As you may remember, Marie is a fairly religious person. Her entire church, however, participates in the Day of Silence; they even have a silent service that evening. In her own note-passing, "Not all Christians are confused." Anyway, she happened to have a copy of the bible in her backpack, which she decided would be an excellent place to keep the DoS sticker.

I decided to take another picture, as the sticker in the first one wasn't straight. At the time, the pun was totally not intended.

Hang a left at Annotation Isle

2010-04-08T16:39:00.000-04:00

Quite a while ago, Caitlin M. showed me an assignment she had to do in math. According to her, "The assignment was to create a treasure map for math that would have a coordinate system, and give clues so that the person who is given your map can find the treasure, we were told to 'be creative,' which mostly resulted in maps that had pictures of pirates or were supposed to look like authentic pirate maps... except mine :)" I asked her to send it to me, and she kindly agreed to do so. After months of friendly reminders, I have the map (sans grid, but we don't need that anyway) and am ready to share it with you. Take a look (click to embiggen):

Well done, Caitlin! I'm a little curious about the two unnamed Sleepless Nights' Islands (and just a bit annoyed with the erroneous apostrophe), and I recommend that for safely reasons we keep Mr. Giromini away from the Ocean of Tears.

Poll: How many of the mouseovers in SFAOOCQ XXXIX did you find before reading this?

2010-04-04T22:24:00.005-04:00

I do mouseovers quite often, as I find them to be a very useful way to insert additional comments and thoughts without disrupting the flow of a post or other text. (This sounds familiar...almost like I've said it before?) I was wondering how many people find them, as the idea is for most of you to, not just an elite few. Unfortunately, the poll results leaned toward the "elite few" model:

"Wait, you do mouseovers?" got an entire quarter of you.

"None, but I often find others" gathered 16%.

"Just one," fittingly got just one vote: 8%.

Another quarter went to "A resounding two."

No one picked "Three...getting better."

"Four, decent" got another 8%.

"Five, not bad!" got 16%.

Finally, not a single person said, "All Six! Go me!" Good.

You see, in addition to investigating how many people found the mouseovers, I also tried a little mind game. Take a look at this video we watched in ToK2. I find the whole thing fascinating, but it's pretty lengthy, so if you don't have the time just stick to 4:20 to 6:30.

The basic idea is that when given the chance to cheat, a lot of people will cheat a little bit. They won't try to get away with as much as possible, but rather increase their "score" by a small enough amount so as not to tamper with their idea of being a righteous person. SFAOOCQ XXXIX had only four mouseovers, and true to the theory no one cheated as much as possible, preferring when they did cheat to do so in smaller increments. Congratulations Mr. Ariely, you got us this time.

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

2010-04-02T17:07:00.007-04:00

You know, there are certain numbers that just make you step back and say, "Whoa, that's a lot of quotes." XL is one of those numbers. In fact, I really want to know just how many there are...so I think I'll count. It's not like I have anything better to do. Hang on a sec.

Almost exactly 15 minutes later: 391. Wow. That's including this post, obviously not re-counting the New Year's posts, and counting "This is a classroom copy" only once. If anyone would like to verify, that would be appreciated but not expected. Thanks to Bridget S., I have several new ones to put up; take a look:)

"When irrational people rationalize things, their rationalizations tend to seem irrational to rational people."
-Marie

"It's either this or dum-dums."
-Miss Davey on handing out Smarties before English orals

"Now I know what it feels like to take drugs, so I don't need to do it in real life."
-Tanmay S. on bumper cars

"I feel awkward not being stressed about something."
-Jamie

"Oh wait, history internal assessment."
-Jamie on the above

"Ewww are those brains?"
-Caitlin M. on Ming C.'s Chinese food

"Yeah, yours."
-Ming C. on the above

"Yeah, that would explain a lot."
-Katerina M. on the above

"If homework is like a woman, then turnitin.com is the pimp."
-Anonymous

"Quiz! Take out your brain!"
-Mr. Woods

"We can't do that..."
-Students on the above

"Don't hang around because we start eating students."
-Mr. Woods on staying after school on half days

A A A Handbag?

2010-03-31T19:53:00.003-04:00

We just read The Importance of Being Earnest in English class, a play which I quite enjoyed, albeit not as much as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The play makes fun of the upper classes of Victorian England, an idea with which I identify having spent so much time making fun of the upper classes of education. In fact, among my favorite lines is, "The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes" (Wilde I-don't-have-the-page-number). Oscar Wilde (see also: Oscar Wilde) has a wonderful sense of humor. Today we had planned to have a tea party in honor of the play (although I don't think we had any cucumber sandwiches, as Algernon had eaten all of the ones we made, despite Lane having gone to check twice). I brought lemonade, which as we all know is essential to any and all tea parties. Before we got started, Mrs. Fuelling announced that she had a song to play for us first. You see, one of the characters in the play, Jack, does not know who his parents are. He was found in a handbag in a closet at a railway station as an infant, and that's all he knows about his heritage. This presents a problem when he needs Lady Bracknell's approval to ask his love to marry him, as "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness" (Lady Bracknell). Take a look at the video Mrs. Fuelling played for us:

Se Busca

2010-03-28T20:27:00.000-04:00

A while ago I wrote a post about Sra.'s missing fácil button. Remember? The sign that said "It is looked for"? This is a follow-up to that; I have some new information I'd like to share. No, it still hasn't been found. (If you have information, please contact myself or Sra. Riggs immediately.) However, I did find this on her desk some time ago:

Yay! It's back! Well hang on a minute, let's take a closer look:

Upon seeing this attempt to remake Sra.'s desk into the fácil button-inhabited paradise it had once been, I asked Mr. Stibitz to explain how it got there. He said that he had wanted to try to restore the button, so he taped a printout of a picture of it to the lid from a coffee cup. However, after (I imagine) taking a look at it from a similar angle to that of the second picture above, he commented, "It's kinda like Disney world, it's everything just...artificial."

A few days later, I returned and found this:

It was also made by Mr. Stibitz, and this time he added, "I made it in the spirit of finals week." I guess that gives away how long I've been meaning to write this post. Oops.

"As they say in Mexico, 'Dos vi danya.' Down there that's two vi danyas."

(Don't recognize the quote? No worries, just check out 5:21 of this clip from one of my favorite TV shows. Or, if you're feeling adventurous after reading this particular post, try 5:21 from this other clip.)

Free Flip Video Cameras!

2010-03-26T17:51:00.001-04:00

Even though many of you already received the message with the title in the subject line, I think it's clever enough to be immortalized on Only At IA. Said message went out to all Central students from Mrs. Miner, our technology coordinator. The content of the message was as follows:

NOT REALLY- but some students might think they are... if you borrowed one to use on a project and FORGOT to return it, please bring it back immediately. It is not worth the rotten karma that will be heaped on you if you forget to return it.

When I asked, she said that it would at least get people to open it. Well, it worked on me.

Atheists don't solve exponential equations because they don't believe in higher powers

2010-03-24T21:31:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday while looking for a pun for this month's Back Page I came across the title and liked it enough to make it my Facebook status. As expected I got a "lol" or two, but somewhat less expectedly Brian B. commented, "That isn't even close to being true..." Intrigued, I decided to defend my claim, challenging myself to use a pun in each comment. 41 comments later I had had quite the conversation, mainly involving myself and Okma juniors Brian B. and Nick L. I'll let you see for yourself:

Brian: That isn't even close to being true...

Brian: It's not even funny...

Me: What part of it isn't true? Careful, you might make me mad during my magic act; I've been known to pull my hare out!

Brian: Lots of atheists solve exponential equations. Therefore, it isn't true.

Me: Do atheists believe in Santa? What about his helpers, the subordinate clauses?

Brian: Very few people over the age of 10 believe in Santa. Subordinate clauses have nothing to do with Santa.

Me: Hey! Are you calling my jokes average? How could you be so mean...

Nick: In Soviet Russia, equation differentiate you!

Me: I really don't think you should use Russian Reversal in a discussion of mathematics; it's a weapon of math disruption.

Brian: Your jokes are below average.

Nick: In Soviet Russia (and in IB 1 Physics A2), Brian annoy YOU.

Brian: lmfao at IB1 Physics A2 = Soviet Russia

Me: Really, Brian, I don't mind your insults. It's not the students of IA that bother me, it's just the principal of it.

Me: And Nick, we know the Russians can never accomplish anything, especially after WWII then they kept Stalin around.

Brian: Wait, Ms. Gibson bothers you?

Nick: In Soviet Russia, josh's post doesn't understand you....

Brian: What was I supposed to understand that I didn't? Principal is the person.

Me: Why do you have to read so much into it? Geez, I give you guys an inch and you think you're rulers.

Nick: In Soviet Russia, ruler measures YOU (and amount of produce Stalin give you).

Me: "Principal" can be spelled another way and therefore has two meanings. It's kinda like when I broke up with that tennis player; love meant nothing to her.

Brian: "Principle" is the other spelling. It's meanings are not included in "principal."
And do you ever run out of these?

Me: Whoa whoa whoa, are you trying to calculate how long I can keep this up? Please don't, I'm so bad at math. Even a simple equation like 2n + 2n is 4n to me.

Brian: That's not an equation, but you definitely got it right.

Me: I told you, I'm bad at math. I finished my last trig test right in the nick of time, with not a secant to spare.
I'm so excited about laser tag on senior skip day tomorrow! It's too bad about that group that planned to skip to go bungee jumping though; I hear they got suspended.

Me: It's also kinda scary about the group that went shopping at The Gap during the hold-up; there were lots of casual Ts.

Brian: Wow...just wow...where are you getting these?

Me: There's a book in the store where they sell paper. I like going there, especially when they're saying an earthquake is on its way. No matter what, it's always a stationary store.

Me: They also sell envelopes. Not really good for peaceful resistance though: no matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationary.

Me: Like I said, I'm pretty excited about SSD tomorrow. I'm a little nervous about going to sleep though, because whenever I'm excited I always dream of having written Lord of the Rings. Every single time, my mom wakes me up and says I'd been Tolkien in my sleep.

Me: As soon as I'm awake, she reminds me yet again not to run with Caesars. Then again, that's what Brutus' mother always told him, and he didn't listen.

Brian: Where did you find these?

Me: Sorry for the delay, my computer is so slow it hertz. Anyway, I got them all from a pregnant bovine. Don't say anything; if she finds out I told you she'll have a cow.

Me: OK...I got a few of them from my CO2 delivery guy. Although I can never talk with him for too long...he gives me gas.

Me: You should try to answer with a pun; they have their own rewords.

Me: To start off, try the one about the ceiling! Oh wait never mind, that's over you're head anyway.

Me: Hello? I feel like I'm having this conversation all by myself here! Just like that time I got sick at the airport; no one would come near me because they all thought I had a terminal illness.

Me: All right if you're not there I'll be going to bed...I never do get tired of sleeping.

Me: Sorry, I need to go back to school to learn the difference between "your" and "you're." Just like the manicurist who went back to school to become a veterinarian; she really knew how to give a pet a cure!
Unrelatedly, permission to OAIA this? I just hope my Internet connection doesn't die while posting it...that would be a net loss.

My non-IA friend Natalie: You are more brilliant than I will willingly give you credit for. Or you use google. Either or.

As it happens, I got most of them from the same site. A few I already knew or came up with myself. The hardest part was trying to work them into the conversation...it sure was fun though!

DISCLAIMER: The content of the posts is not necessarily true, some of it is just there to make a good pun. All the Brians of the world: I'm talking to you.

IAtionary: Symbolic Symbol

2010-03-21T16:27:00.000-04:00

Sym-bol-ic Sym-bol [sim-BOL-ik sim-buhl] n.

1. An object, thing or idea that represents, depicts and/or reminds one of another, different, not similar object, thing or idea for the purpose and end of conveying and communicating something about or related to a particular, certain or specific aspect, element, part, property and/or piece of the object, thing or idea being or becoming represented and/or depicted; Mr. Majask: In Cuba, the dove that landed on Castro's shoulder was a symbolic symbol.

Language of Origin: Majaskean

In history class, we were talking about the rise to power of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. When he was giving a speech in front of a large crowd of Cubans while trying to gain their support, a single white dove landed on his shoulder. In a sentence paraphrasedly similar to the above sample sentence, Mr. Majask gave us an interesting new term (word, phrase, utterance, expression, idiom, saying, articulation, verbalization...)

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

2010-03-14T15:36:00.005-04:00

A very happy Pi Day to all! It's too bad it's on a Sunday, but much like last year's ITLAPD, I plan on celebrating tomorrow. Check out the new quotes; there ought to be quite a few.

"You took the time to say 'whom' and you still ended with a preposition?"
-Mr. Giromini on my asking him whom he was hiding from

"I'm gonna take The Game and beat you with it."
-Mr. Majask on (non-The-Game-related) rebuttal

"That was the...not...right...emotional response."
-Sra. Riggs on laughing at students

"One of the many uses of keys: making CDs into ninja stars."
-Kenny

"So, when you get really big, can I rub your belly?"
-Anonymous on Sra. Riggs' pregnancy

"Um, no."
-Sra. Riggs on the above

"Don't worry, it's only concentrated acid."
-Kenny on chem labs

"The later mouse gets the cheese."
-Kenny on procrastination

"In physics there is a conservation of strangeness, which means somewhere out there in the universe, to balance out this place, there has to be a very normal school."
-Mr. Lyons

"Optical illusions are a gateway drug. They get you into ToK."
-Mr. Wolf on optical illusions

"Let me copy that down- I need something to do during this class."
-Jon D. on a complex-looking integral

"See, sometimes my brain functions normally. Very rarely, but on occasion."
-Marie on the simple past tense

"Touché, or as it is pronounced, Touchy."
-Mr. Wolf on rebuttals.

IAtionary: Racial Test

2010-03-07T12:56:00.001-05:00

Ra-cial Test [REY-shuhl test] n.

1. A manner of determining the convergence or divergence of an infinite series based solely on its outermost appearance, including the color of the ink with which it was written; IB test: Discuss the convergence or divergence of the series Σ1/n. IB student: It's written in white, so by the Racial Test it must be convergent.

In HL math, we spent an insane amount of time covering infinite series. The basic idea is that you have an infinitely long list of numbers like the example above: the harmonic series, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 ... 1/n. When you add all the numbers together, sometimes they will add up to a certain number and sometimes they won't. The harmonic series is divergent, meaning it will never settle on a single number, but a series like 1, 1/2, 1/4 1/8 ... (1/2)^n is convergent; it adds up to 2. We had to learn an unhealthy amount of tests to determine this property of any series Mr. IB could throw at us. It starts off calmly enough, then before you know it you're taking the integral of a series which (as you'd never notice) happens to be similar to the arctan formula, then asking if it's continuous, positive, and decreasing, then trying to evaluate said definite integral from here to infinity. Ouch. Anyway, one of the tests we learned was called the Ratio Test, and it was misheard this way at least once.

A Strange Game

2010-03-02T21:36:00.000-05:00

A short time ago I watched the movie WarGames with my dad. It's about a kid who accidentally hacks into the government's supercomputer and starts a nuclear war simulation which the computer interprets as real and he has to try to stop. My dad told me I would like it, and it turns out I did. I thought it was a bit unrealistic at times, i.e. when the FBI just shows up and next thing you know he's locked up; it seemed to jump around a bit. However, the idea behind the movie was pretty cool, and for the most part it was well done for its time.

Interestingly, we happen to be talking about the Cold War in history, and the movie is a great representation of how people felt at the time as well as of how on the way to destruction we were. The next class I actually understood a good portion of what Mr. Majask was saying due to my having seen the movie, which is quite a rare occurrence for me; history isn't exactly my strong point. Since then I've been trying to convince him to let us watch it in class, as it would help with our understanding of the public's mindset and the propaganda of the time period. I think it would help, as it has indeed helped me.

Today I decided to write a paraphrased version of *SPOILER* that scene from WarGames on the whiteboard to see if he'd notice. It's not all from that same scene, more loosely based on the scene but with lines from other parts as well. Crossing out "professor" was my anonymous friend's idea. And by the way he did notice, but mostly because he came in right as I was finishing writing. I wonder what would have happened otherwise...oh well:)

See also xkcd.com/601 and xkcd.com/696.

Submissions, Part II

2010-02-27T17:27:00.004-05:00

Irayo! Tute fpìmeie' oe-ru hiyìk-a lapo: nìn po-ti! In other news, I'm learning Na'vi. Anyone else want in? It's super fun, not terribly difficult, and it'll make one heck of a secret code!

Today at lunch I was marking my Bible with chalk for my weekly religious lesson readings. The people at my table, after realizing what I was doing, continued an ongoing theological debate about my religion and whether or not its name, Christian Science, was a misnomer. OAIA.
-Abby S.

Today, I saw a license plate that said 'ESCAPAY' on in. In Spanish we were talking about finding Nemo. IMMD.
-Bridget S.

Only at IA when a lit teacher gives you the full hour to read and annotate 5 chapters worth of information, do students actually gasp and clap their hands in happiness.
-Bridget S.

Today, I was talking with a group of friends in the hall when Mr. E. approached. He said that it seemed the same people meet there to confer each day, and that he wondered what we could be plotting. He hypothesized the taking over of the world, but I said that we planned to start smaller, with the IA, from there the IBO, and from there the world. He suggested that when we take over the IBO, we should ask them to give us credit in the "Risk-Takers" category for taking the risk to overthrow them. OAIA.
-Me:)

Today, the library didn't open until after everyone had to go to class. Nobody knew what to do with themselves. OAIA
-Caitlin M.

Over Christmas break I went on vacation with my boyfriend, only to find myself spending hours burning myself with hot glue and traveling to and from the public library for internet so we could complete our physics extra credit electric house project. OAIA
-Julia K.

Today in IB2 Physics, my seat partner and I were balancing pens on their tips. When the Oakland Press came into class to do their story, we claimed the pens represented the emission spectrum of an electron. OAIA
-Kyle S.

Mr. Lyons' IA Fight Stories

2010-02-23T23:45:00.001-05:00

This post has been a long time in the making. And by that of course I mean I've been meaning to write it since December. But that's beside the point; I took notes so as not to forget stuff, so nothing but time has been lost. On that note, let's get started.

In mid-December in fisix class a student asked Mr. Lyons if he had ever taught math before. He responded with a story about how he had indeed taught math at his old school, but then he thought to ask himself why he enjoyed math. His answer to himself was "to do fisix," so after that he because a fisix teacher. He continued to say that at his old school, as at many ~~normal~~ non-IA schools, it was quite common for fights to break out in the hallways. In fact, it was so common that it became second nature for him to scan for signs of potential fights so he could go break them up as soon as they started.

"Wait," you ask, "doesn't this sound familiar?" Yes, it should. But not to worry, they are different stories entirely from this point on. Well, save for the next sentence.

It was Mr. Lyons' first year at IA, and he hadn't quite learned the IA way yet. Actually, hang on a moment. He told us this story first, but let's save it for the end. Meanwhile...

The second fight story he told us was about two French students (from France, not that take Francias). He said that he entered a room to find that one student had pushed another into a whiteboard. Why? The pusher believed that the pushee was being disrespectful to his (the pushee's) girlfriend and wanted to defend her honor. I really want to know what exactly was said, but alas I do not.

OK, back to my favorite one. In fact, it was not just his first year but his first two days at IA. While walking in the hallway he heard two boys start to raise their voices. Accustomed to his old school, he automatically went over to them to begin to break up the coming fight. However, true to IA form, the exchange contained no physical violence whatsoever and the dialogue was as follows:

A: You know, when you said that to me, that really hurt my feelings!

B: I'm sorry! I didn't mean for you to take it that way! *Looks at watch* We're gonna be late! We gotta get to class!

And they both went their separate ways. The end.

And to conclude, I apologize for all the sentences in this post that begin with conjunctions. This situation is well known as tung and the meaning of this in English is "allow" and it is spelled a-l-l-o-w.

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

2010-02-21T23:10:00.003-05:00

I will post more this week, don't worry. I have several mental posts that simply need to be digitized, I've just been in either vacation mode or Careers in Medicine mode this week. Meanwhile, here are some quotes:

"Teachers were not amused by me. I was amused by myself."
-Sra. Riggs on her educational experience

"Oh that's...biblical."
-Sra. Riggs on the number 666

"It's a curse, not a skill."
-Mr. Lyons on being punny

"The spindle fibers are chomped like Pacman."
-Ms. Sturt on Mitosis

"¿En serio, chicos? ¿En serio?" *raises eyebrow*
-Srta. Fernández on stupidity.

"Don't blame me, I'm perfection."
-Sra. Riggs

"I am going to randomly replace one fact in your brain with this one: protons taste like chocolate."
-Mr. Lyons on test preparation

"Really? You're gonna say that?"
-Mrs. Hessler on That's What She Said

"Look at what I have: a CD, but it's old!"
-Sudheer on a cassette tape

"We have a little bit of unnaturally high expectations."
-Sra. Riggs on IA's language B program

The Official Only At IA Screensaver

2010-02-14T17:46:00.004-05:00

About a week or so ago I figured out how to make custom screensavers. Actually I wanted a The Office one but there were only desktop wallpapers available on the website, so I decided to learn how to put them together into my own screensaver. Once I had done so I realized that it would be pretty fun to design a screensaver for Only At IA, and I decided to give it a shot. The animation took a long time - it was all done in Flash, which is awesome but can be painfully slow - but it was really fun to do and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Here's what it looks like:

It has 45 different quotes, IAtionary entries, OAIA stories and logos that it displays randomly. It nearly always starts with my all-time favorite quote, then continues however it pleases.

If you like it, click here to download and install. Installation is pretty straightforward: just download and run the *.exe file and follow the on-screen instructions. The screensaver will automatically adapt to fill your screen size. Please let me know what you think- I'd love to hear from you!

In a ToK 1 class...

2010-02-12T23:15:00.000-05:00

Mr Wolf: So, the other two areas of knowledge are....the natural sciences....and...?

Student: The unnatural sciences?

Mr. Wolf: No, the human sciences.

Student: Wait, so humans are unnatural?

Special thanks to Bridget S. for this one:)

To Read or Not To Read

2010-02-04T18:25:00.000-05:00

We just finished reading Hamlet in English class. It was good, but I liked Much Ado better. Anyway we did a lot of the reading in small groups. We formed groups of 4 or 5 at the start of the play and read in the hallway with those same people throughout it. Somewhere around Act II (of V) I think, I was trying to encourage my group members to focus - quite unsuccessfully, I might add - and someone suggested I read a page out loud as all of the characters. I declined, but they asked me again the next class. And the next class. And the next. Somewhere in there it turned into a whole scene, and eventually a whole act, with everyone else claiming that it had been that way all along. One day I gave in and read a page out loud, telling them that that was what they had said originally and it would have to do. One group member was absent that day, but it was the only day I imagined I would feel like reading as all the characters, and I wanted to get it over with. I did, and it went rather well, so I figured my debt (for what, I know not) was paid, but alas it was not.

The next class I was reminded that one group member had missed it, and that it was supposed to be much more than a page, and that I needed to pick a part with more characters, and that I needed more enthusiasm...etc. This continued for a while, until finally the very last reading assignment arrived. I decided that I would go for it, seeing as they were so intent on listening to my pitiful excuse for acting, and I told them that I would try again. I meant with the small group out in the hallway, so I headed that way, but Mrs. Fuelling called me back inside. She had been informed that I would be performing for the entire class. I decided to go for it, and ended up reading as three different characters and using different places on the "stage" to represent my multiple identities. There were only about ten minutes left of class by this point, so I didn't read for very long, but I must say it was really fun. I navigated the obsolete words fairly well, having had months to get used to them, and I ended up quite glad I did it. And that was the end of the faux complaints from my group, so there.

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

2010-02-01T17:12:00.003-05:00

A few gems this time- particularly...well on second thought, I'll let you decide for yourself. Or you can read the mouseovers.

"If you pull the fish out of his hat you become the next king of England."
-Jon D. on my dad's fish hat

"I'm so sarcastic I think I'm rubbing off on you."
-Mr. Giromini

"Do you know how dangerous it is to taste the rainbow?"
-Mr. Lyons on Skittles

"It looks as awkward as it sounds."
-Ms. Sturt on cleavage furrows

"That's sort of a weird thing just to make up your own endings for tenses."
-Anonymous in the alternate form of the past subjunctive

"I remember when we were little, when Friday night came around it would be like, 'Yay! Friday night! I can stay up late!' but now it's 'Yay! Friday night! I can sleep some more!'
-Kenny W.

"The matrices are attacking! Good thing we know scalar multiplication!"
-Aaron on the seniors' Olympics shirts

"It's like killing off all the skinny people by decreasing the heat to a point where they can't survive."
-Anthony G. on using radiation to kill cancer cells

"I have to sing a song in my head to write my last name."
-Hania on being Polish

"You should try harder to be bothersome."
-Mr. Stibitz on his rewarding the juniors' nagging with paella

"Most people have life styles; I have a styled life."
-Mr. Stibitz

Irony

2010-01-31T14:56:00.000-05:00

An interesting little anecdote for you today: I was in German class the other day and Marie said she had a story for me. She was at home and her mom had given her a huge pile of laundry to put away. She was in her closet sorting through it while talking on the phone to her youth pastor. They were discussing Proverbs chapter 31 - which is about being a good Christian woman - when Marie's mom entered the room and told Marie to "come out of the closet already!" Marie started laughing, asked her youth pastor if she had heard and told her what happened when she said she hadn't. While telling me the story she drew this artistic representation of the situation which she gave me permission to publish:

I even let her borrow my Stabilos. Which, by the way, I now have a bunch more of after going to the only store in the state that I have been able to find that carries them! Woo!

How will you probably pronounce "2010" most often?

2010-01-26T22:11:00.005-05:00

I was curious and wanted to find out. I started by asking random people at school what year it was. They would look at me wondering if I had gone insane then answer either "two thousand ten" or "twenty ten," with the occasional "duh" tacked on. I found that a few more people said "twenty ten," but the more influential people (teachers, administrators, etc.) tended to say "two thousand (and) ten." So I asked you guys, and was surprised by how many votes I got; thanks:) Here are the results:

"Twenty ten" was the overall winner with 40% of the vote.

"Two thousand ten" was a very close second, with 37%; this mirrors pretty well the ratio between these two responses when asking people in person.

"Two thousand and ten" had only 14%, predictably; as that extra syllable is so much more work!

"Oh ten" was the penultimate response, with 5%. This is a personal favorite, nostalgic of freshman year when the IA contained the classes of oh seven, oh eight, oh nine, and ten. Not quite right.

"Ten" had only 2%. Easiest to say, but still not quite right.

Personally I'm going for the most part with "twenty ten." It's easiest to say without leaving too much ambiguity. Although if I ever need to sound fancy, I'll know how to do it.

Congratulations

2010-01-24T18:22:00.000-05:00

Recently in Spanish class, I found out from a friend that a senior whose name I don't have permission to use (if it's you and you don't mind, email me) had managed to take over Mr. Majask's computer during class as a prank. Curious, I asked how such a feat had been accomplished, but my friend didn't know; he could say only that the senior had found a way to control the cursor from his seat for a while without Mr. Majask noticing. He suggested that maybe it had had something to do with the Pizarra Estúpida.

I had history with Mr. Majask next, so I decided to ask about it. At the start of class I asked Mr. Majask if it was true that a student had hijacked his computer, and he confirmed the story. It was not, however, SMARTboard-related; apparently the student had brought a wireless mouse with him and snuck the USB connector into the back of the computer when Mr. Majask wasn't looking. He then waited for a good time during the lecture to close the PowerPoint presentation on the screen and open Minesweeper. Brilliant. Anonymous senior, you have my congratulations.

IAtionary: End of the Year Party Test

2010-01-20T19:38:00.000-05:00

End of the Year Par-ty Test [end uhv thuh yeer PAHR-tee test] n.

1. A test or exam taken at the end of a school year to celebrate the onset of summer
2. A way of ~~showing~~ demonstrating to students how useful and productive the year has been through festive use of every concept learned during the year at once; OK class, remember, your end of the year party test is next week so look over all your materials and bring some confetti to add to the celebration!

Language of Origin: Westese

In the Moodle forum "You know you're in the IA when," Central student John D. submitted "when people call the midterms and final exams the celebration of learning." West student Sarah W. responded in the following way: "lol last year my friends and i called the final exams the 'end of the year party tests.' It just makes it sound more fun...," a statement with which I agree wholeheartedly. Please people, let's bring this into common usage; how awesome would it be to start hearing people actually say things like the sample sentence?!

You know you're in the IA when...

2010-01-17T00:02:00.001-05:00

Sometime near the beginning of this school year, everyone at IA was automatically enrolled in a Moodle course called Tri Campus Unity. The point is to get students from the different campi to interact with each other a bit and stop thinking of the IA as three separate schools. One student posted a thread in the forum with the same title as this post and asked others to weigh in with their own ways of completing the sentence. It's really fun to read and comment on, so if you have access to Moodle please go check it out. I'll share some of my favorites here, but you should definitely still go read some more. (I won't mention submitters' names here without permission, but you can see who submitted what in the thread.)

-you prefer block dude to most video games

~it's a beautiful day out and your first thought is 'Yes! I can study outside today!'

~you spend more time on moodle and zangle then you do facebook.

-you take it to the chess board to solve a fight instead of into the street

~the first thing you notice about a presentor's slideshow is that his sources are older than you

~calculator accessories suddenly become more important than fashion (btw, purple, pink and mismatched cases are soooo in!)

~you make a graph on your graphing calculator that you think is "cool"

~you sit at the computer wondering if you are really at the IA because of that TOK class that you took

-it's easier to count 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 than 1,2,3,4,5,6

~your parents schedule family trips around no-homework weekends

~you have inside jokes with your friends... and those jokes are in your foreign language

-you have a warranty on your calculator, but not your iPod

~you argue over which is better, Runescape or WoW, and factor in cost of membership, benefits of free play, graphics, quests, events, and all sorts of things.

~over 25% of your friends' statuses on facebook are in a foreign language

There's even a Facebook group dedicated to the subject now. I'm pretty sure you can see it without a Facebook account, so I won't share highlights; go see for yourself!

BTW, the ones with a tilde (~) are the ones that actually apply/have applied to me speciffically. Sad? Or not? I'll go with not.

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

2010-01-15T16:42:00.003-05:00

So there are quite a few this time...mostly because I haven't gotten to transferring them in way too long. I think there are some gems in here though, so it turned out OK in the end:)

"The French built that wall...that was supposed to keep the Germans out...but the Germans went around the wall..."
-Mr. Lyons on animosity between France and Germany

"It takes a lot of effort to be this stupid."
-Mr. Lyons on his making careless errors

"I show up at school with a ukulele and you're still asking 'why'?"
-Duke on my questioning the motives behind his having a ukulele at school

"With all the creative arts students we have at this school, that could be a lot cooler."
-Julia on the hexagon

"When you took your midterm last year you had a soul."
-Mr. Lyons on IB Fisix

"Not if you don't look at it."
-Mr. Lyons on whether or not there will be questions about quantum mechanics on the midterm

"Shoot for the Z, Amanda!"
Mr. Newell (West) on Amanda's grade.

"I was once dared to shout 'Happy pumpkins!' in the hallway."
-Veronica B. (West) on Physics.

"There's a donut here. It's green. It has sprinkles."
-Ms. Sturt trying to convince the West Science Olympiad team to eat the
last of the donuts at the Tri-campus event.

"Ooh, an antelope!"
-Ms. Fleury on World Literature random-ities.

"Why is it upside down?"
-Kyra on an emission spectrum diagram, which is supposed to be drawn differently from an absorbtion spectrum diagram

"An IA student is more likely to die from stress from finals."
-An anonymous senior on tornado drills

IAtionary: Big Boom Bomb

2010-01-10T21:29:00.000-05:00

Big Boom Bomb [big boom BOM] n.

1. Any nuclear weapon; Many argue that it was wrong to drop big boom bombs on Japan, but every mushroom cloud has a silver lining: look at all the lives it saved!

Language of Origin: Majaskean

A while ago in history, we were talking about the Potsdam conference where Truman told Stalin about the atomic bomb. Stalin was not very surprised to hear the news, as he had spies in the Manhattan Project, and Truman thought that he did not react because he had not understood the implications of the new weapon. Mr. Majask did an impression of the conversation, basically consisting of exaggerated mushroom cloud hand motions and saying to himself, "It goes boom! Yes, I know. No, it goes BOOM! Yes, I understand. No, I mean it goes BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!" It was entertaining, but according to Wikipedia the exact words Truman used were that it was "a new weapon of unusually destructive force." Bo-ring. Anyway, this alliterative phrase came about a bit later, and I believe Kyra might have been involved in its suggestion, but I can't be sure of that. I like it and I plan on using it in history class from now on. Anyone else care to try?

Crossword: Answers

2010-01-08T21:18:00.004-05:00

OK, time's up! Here are the answers to the crossword I drew on the whiteboard in fisix before break. If you haven't had a chance to try to solve it yet, click here and don't read on! Sadly, no one managed to email me all the answers correctly, so there is no hall of fame:) Anyway, here they are:) (Click to enlarge)

I had more spare time in fisix today and tried to draw a word search, but it turns out you need a grid to do that; you can't cheat with half boxes and such as easily. I'll try to think of something else for next time.

IAtionary: Ultraviolet Catastrophe

2010-01-07T18:26:00.000-05:00

Ul-tra-vi-o-let Ca-tas-tro-phe [uhl-truh-VAHY-uh-lit kuh-TAS-truh-fee] n.

1. A sudden and widespread disaster often pertaining to relatively high-energy electromagnetic radiation; We were learning about waves in physics class and all the freshpeople kept actually doing the wave...it was an ultraviolet catastrophe!
2. A paradox or other seemingly impossible situation; I thought that sin(90) coming out as a weird decimal was an ultraviolet catastrophe, but then I realized that my calculator was in radian mode.

Language of Origin: Lyonese

In IB2 Fisix we were discussing black body radiation. This concept came up, which for those without the patience to read an entire Wikipedia article is a problem that scientists in the early 20th century faced. They knew that a black body (i.e. something that absorbs all radiation that hits it) should give off certain amounts of radiation of its own in different colors, but the theoretical model predicted that pretty much any random object should give off more and more intense radiation as the frequency of the wave increases. An object should give off more orange light than red, more yellow than orange, etc. The problem was that it kept increasing, and the object should give off an infinite amount of ultraviolet light. Clearly, this doesn't really happen. The problem was solved when we realized that electrons could only exist in discrete energy levels...click the link if you want more on that. Anyway, when Mr. Lyons introduced the concept, he explained the problem and then said that it had pretty much the most awesome name ever. And you've gotta admit, it sounds kinda cool.

Some Fun and Out-of-Context Quotes 2009: The year in review

2009-12-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

Just like last year, Only At IA is ringing in the new year with a countdown of this year's best quotes. If you remember (or clicked the link), the format last year was a countdown and a series of awards, which is pretty much what I'm going to do this year. The big difference is this: last year, due to my not wanting any quote to appear twice, winning an award disqualified a quote from the countdown. Looking back on it that was kind of silly; avoiding redundancy is not sufficient grounds to deny a quote the recognition it deserves. With that, let's get started!

First we'll count down the best quotes of 2009. There are a lot more this year, but remember, I started collecting quotes about half way through 2008, and I'm repeating some from the awards, so it works out about right. Here we go!

30. "I never use first person."
-Mike S.

29. "You just have to hope to God that the people around you are dumb... or dumber than you."
-Sra. Riggs on the IB exam being graded on a bell curve

28. "I guessed really hard on that!"
-David G. on Spanish tests

27. "Russia's far away from itself!"
-Kyra H. on geography

26. "I think my brain thinks in knowledge issues."
-Cat K.

25. "Moodle senses how badly you need the information, and will shut down."
-Mr. Lyons

24. "I just love the technology in this school but it's not wanting to love me back."
-Srta. Fernández on trying to play a movie

23. "Why do they call this Math HL? It should be Learning How to Deal with Disappointment."
-Matt M.

22. "If you ever have a question about where your soul went, check your syllabus for ToK."
-Miss Davey on LTUAE

21. "The first phrase I learned in German was 'A mi no me gusta Deutsch.'"
-Alex T. on the Spanish for 'I don't like Deutsch'

20. "Yeah that was me trying to be cool. And I failed."
-Mr. Stibitz on the phrase 'you go girl'

19. "Let's not be violent, there's too much paperwork involved."
-Bridget S.

18. "So, its like going up a down escalator? That's so fun!"
-Jordan A. on active transport

17. "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

16. "I'm not a distractable person, there's just distracting things that are happening all the time."
-Miss Davey on LTUAE

15. "Do not put that on the Internet or I'll smack you."
-An anonymous faculty member on a quote unlisted here for obvious reasons

14. "You insult people by combining a food with a body part."
-Amisha A. on calling me a picklehead

13. "There's a back to every worksheet. There's not always something written on it..."
-Mr. Lyons

12. "It just kinda blends into all the other annoying things in this class."
-Mr. Stibitz on my LED flashlight

11. "No, but I got a pencil sharpener that's also a wind-up robot."
-Simone S. on my asking if she got any Stabilos at the Dick Blick art supply store

10. "I think I've had one 'click' where math is concerned, and it was like one equals one."
-Miss Davey on epiphanies

9. "Whenever I watch a movie I really enjoy it, until the conflict comes in, then I get really stressed out."
-Zoë C.

8. "Sometimes I make up natural sciences."
-Miss Davey

7. "I could make some crazy argument that x-naught is x-n-o-t, which is x-not, which is not x, which is y."
-Mr. Giromini on how his students believe everything he says

6. "Number one was neurologist, number two was vending machine operator. Could they be more different?"
-Rachel B. on a career aptitude test

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

4. "They're back here, away from dangerous things like coffee, soda and freshmen."
-Mrs. Neustadt on the location of submitted Extended Essays

3. "I never taught you guys projectile motion, so we never bombed the orphanage. Which was located next to the bomb factory. Which was where the kids worked."
-Mr. Lyons on the bizarre analogies he uses in class

2. "This one turned green. This one turned green-er. The average was green, plus-or-minus red."
-Mr. Giromini on Chem Labs

As before, let's save the top spot until after the awards. Speaking of awards, here they are!

The first award category is Most Contradictory. It was absolutely impossible to pick a single quote to win this one. Well not quite - I did pick one - but I had to mention more. In fact, I could only narrow it down to four. Fourth place goes to Miss Davey:

"Teachers, although we are perfect, sometimes have flaws."
-Miss Davey

Mike tied with himself for third and second:

"I never use first person."
-Mike S.

"'I'm not playing this game,' said Mike."
"-Mike S. on narration," wrote Josh ironically

And congratulations to Mr. Uhelski for being the winner of 1st place in the category of Most Contradictory:

"You may not use electronic devices while working on your laptop."
-Mr. Uhelski on irony

Most Educational goes to Jordan A.:

"So, its like going up a down escalator? That's so fun!"
-Jordan A. on active transport

The third award is for the Most Revealing. This was another one that was tough to pick, but good ol' Mr. Stibitz ended up with the title:

"It's not a very good riddle; I was just watching children's television."
-Mr. Stibitz on asking me for a word that rhymes with month

Most Random goes to Julia:

"You don't choke T-Rexes, they bite!"
-Julia K.

And bringing back another old favorite, Most True to the Speaker's View of LTUAE:

"I'm not a distractable person, there's just distracting things that are happening all the time."
-Miss Davey on LTUAE

Finally, a special award for my favorite quotes that mention Only At IA; I always appreciate it when a teacher or another student happens to mention my blog, even if its in a situation like:

"Do not put that on the Internet or I'll smack you."
-An anonymous faculty member on a quote unlisted here for obvious reasons

"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

"I feel that Only At IA is the International Academy's closest thing to Gossip Girl."
-Cat K.

And now, the best overall quote of 2009:

1. It's very common to see me everywhere in the building except where I'm supposed to be."
-Mr. Giromini

The best quote of all time stands from last year and deserves to be mentioned again:

"Trees are meant to die for your education. It's their purpose in life, except for the oxygen thing."
-Mr. Giromini on wasting paper

Congratulations to Mr. Giromini, of course, for taking the top spot both of 2009 and all-time, not to mention the second of this year and more. Congrats to (in no particular order) Sra. Riggs, Mr. Lyons, Srta. Fernández, Miss Davey, Mr. Stibitz, Miss Hessler, Mr. Uhelski, Mrs. Neustadt, Mike S., David G., Kyra H., Cat K., Matt M., Alex T., Bridget S., Jordan A., Amisha A., Simone S., Zoë C., Rachael B and Julia K. for making it into this post and to everyone whose quotes were posted this and last year. Happy New Year's, and see you in 2010!

Crossword: My Sociology Experiment 2.0

2009-12-24T15:09:00.000-05:00

If you know me, you probably also know that I think it's fun to see how people react to unusual situations. This is especially fun at IA because said reactions are frequently awesome. For example, the last time I tried a sociology experiment it went rather well. This post is going to be about another attempt at something similar, but also quite a bit different, so hang on tight.

During the penultimate physics class of 2009 (the last one before the midterm), we had finished reviewing and had some time to ourselves. While I was sitting at my desk a thought occurred to me and I found that I had said it out loud before it had even finished taking shape: "I feel like drawing a really complex crossword puzzle on the board." It was that simple; don't ask me where the idea came from or why I decided it was a good one. I had a good 15 or 20 minutes of class left, so I went over to the whiteboard on the side of the room (which Mr. Lyons hardly ever uses) and got to work. In that time I managed to come up with quite a puzzle, especially considering that there was no planning involved whatsoever; I pretty much just thought of clues one at a time and added in the word wherever I found a shared letter. This explains the somewhat unorganized numbering system - traditionally the boxes are numbered from left to right then top to bottom like the letters on a page - but I'm willing to overlook that if you are. Here's what I came up with; I needed multiple pictures because of the not-so-great resolution of my cell phone camera, but you can click all of them to get a closer look:

Here's the puzzle itself; I Photoshopped (OK, Fireworksed) the numbers and the ümläüt in because they were hard to read otherwise, and I should clear up that there are two separate boxes that I had to squeeze in below the number 7 and above the word "Across." Now for the clues:

If you want to try your hand at it, you can print a cleaner copy using this printable version in PDF format...in fact, I challenge you to do so. I had planned on posting the puzzle and the answers together, but as I go I'm liking more and more the idea of waiting a while. OK so here's what I'll do: once this post goes up, you will have a limited amount of time (at least a week but probably not more than until the end of break) to try to solve the puzzle. If you can email the correct answers to josh@OnlyAtIA.com before the answers appear, you will get your name in the hall of fame that will be in the post with the answers. I encourage you to send your answers even if you don't know all of them for sure. If I see that there are still people working on it, the deadline is more likely to be later. Besides, you can submit your answers more than once. So one more time, here's the printable version. Missed it? OK here it is again. Good luck to everyone!

Submissions, Part I

2009-12-13T17:47:00.004-05:00

I'm gonna stick with the Roman numerals...I like them. Thanks to everyone who submitted, and I look forward to seeing what else you guys can come up with!

Today, I went on www.onlyatia.com and received an error message reading, "THE GAME. You just lost it." I clicked OK and scrolled up and down the page over and over until I had received the message twenty times, laughing the entire time. Then my carpool driver came and I had to wait until we reached IA to repeat the process silently. OAIA
-Abby S., sophomore

I spent 7 hours on the computer last night writing a speech about procrastination. I procrastinated for roughly 6.5 of those hours. I got an A on the essay. OAIA
-Abby S., sophomore

Today, I (an IA graduate and college sophomore) was in a class on Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus and we were discussing the historical background - basically the history of Germany in 19th and early 20th centuries. When our professor got to Bismarck I could feel myself holding my breath, and I was so relieved when he took less than 10 minutes to go through it. And then I felt myself wanting to add more...OAIA
-Anonymous, class of '08

Today at lunch, I developed a system of carrying my chair while I walk with my tray, so that nobody jacks my chair when I get up to get ketchup. OAIA.
-Tanmay S., sophomore

Today I lost The Game... 20 times. OAIA
-Liam G.

Today, I finished my homework before 4:00. I had no idea what to do with myself. OAIA.
-Simone S., freshman

Today, someone made a joke about valid sources. People actually thought it was funny and laughed. OAIA.
-Simone S., freshman

Cedward Cullory is watching you

2009-12-12T00:08:00.010-05:00

This past Thursday we seniors took our Spanish midterm, undoubtedly like most other students of Spanish did. I have Spanish second hour, and my first hour teacher had let us out a little bit early that day, so I managed to arrive just before Sra. Riggs let her first hour class leave. Not aware of this, I walked in to Sra. asking me to wait outside. I did, but not before I noticed something surprising: there was a huge poster of Robert Pattinson on the whiteboard, staring blank-eyed at the students hurrying to finish their tests. Both interested and mildly creeped out, I waited until the class was let go to enter and ask her about it. What she said was lost to me among a flurry of rapid-fire Spanish, midterm preparation and quickly departing first hour students. Still having almost ten minutes before class started, I went up to the board and wrote CEDRIC DIGGORY! in big letters next to the poster. Before I knew it, it was time to start the test. I tried to get an answer from Sra. a couple more times that day, but each was either 1) hushed and incomplete due to the tests still in progress, 2) made to seem less important by the prospect of getting to lunch on time, or 3) all of the above.

The next day, I decided to try again. I found her talking to a group of students in the hallway, and I thought I heard a word or two relating to the poster, so I stopped to listen. It turns out they were discussing it, and as the students dissipated I was able to get some direct information. Here's what I found out:

There had been a tutoring session the previous day after school. Apparently someone in the session (either the tutors or the tutored, this fact is unknown) had left the poster there on the whiteboard for her to find. She thought the concept of Robert Pattinson staring at us while we tried to focus on our midterms was funny, (which, I must admit, it really is when you think about it, and besides it didn't affect the actual test; we all forgot about it once we got started), so she decided to leave it up. I believe her words were something like, "Es un poco de diversión para mí, nada más."

She also pointed out that she observed two very distinct reactions, with students tending toward the extremes and very rarely staying in the middle. They either stared at him open-mouthed for a moment and proclaimed how incredibly cute he was, or loudly protested, claiming that it would be impossible to take the midterm with a vampire staring them in the face. On a related note, it is unknown who was responsible for the talk bubble which appeared later saying, "Soy el más sexy de todos."

P.S. I'm working on getting a picture of this one; I'll post it soon if I can, but no guarantees.

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

2009-12-09T18:24:00.003-05:00

There are definitely some good ones in here. I'm pretty sure we'll see how they stand up on New Year's; I'm planning a similar thing.

"Which is supposed to be the most joyous time in my life, according to the greeting cards I got."
-Mr. Lyons on the births of his children

"Most of what I put in the notes I make up."
-Mr. Lyons

"After extended essay, I have no consideration for trees anymore."
-Cat

"I'm such a paper-waster; I just realized that all of these have backs."
-David G. on pages in a notebook

"Stop talking about waterslides and llamas!"
-Mrs. Osinski on her A1 class focusing

"Ok, if you guys can stop talking about llamas and waterslides for fifteen minutes, we'll watch that YouTube video I told you about earlier!"
-Mrs. Osinski on the above

"So, its like going up a down escalator? That's so fun!"
-Jordan A. on active transport

"Your mom is stupid!"
-Adira in response to her sister calling her stupid.

"Why do they call this Math HL? It should be Learning How to Deal with Disappointment."
-Matt M.

"Grr, rawr, and other generic terms of disappointment!"
-Kenny on vocalization

"13 is not a number that promotes harmony or order."
-Anonymous on confusing the number of apostles Jesus had

¿Así de fácil?

2009-12-04T20:07:00.000-05:00

Sra. Riggs has always had lots of Spanish-related things in her room. As you know if you clicked the link, my second favorite is the fácil button. I hit it pretty much every time I enter or exit the room, as it makes the transitions between hallway, room and back much more interesting. Today, I went to hit it as always but realized it wasn't there. I looked around for a while...nothing. When I asked Sra. where it had gone, she told me someone had stolen it! Oh no!

A bit later I noticed this paper hanging on the whiteboard, which Sra. told me had been made by Mr. Stibitz:

I love this sign so much, mainly because it's so Mr. Stibitz. For you no n-S pa ni sh sp ea ke rs, se busca means something along the lines of "looked for," but it's more than that. The fancy grammar word, I believe, is "incomplete passive construction," meaning basically that there's nothing explicitly doing the looking, it's just happening. No flashy font, no fancy photos, just what needs to be said. I automatically read this sign in his voice, by the way. If you haven't been, try it now.

And if you know where the fácil button is, please help it find its way home; room 105 misses it.

Productivity Fail

2009-12-02T21:35:00.001-05:00

In GLC the other day we were using laptops to work on our Berlin assignments. I booted mine up (Rather quickly too! What happened?) to find a nice autumn scene as the desktop wallpaper and got to work. Caitlin M., however, had this, complete with animation:

It still astounds me that we were able to get anything done at all after that. I must know: who did this? Please speak up...you rock.

As an aside, I'd also like to mention that several days before this I was on a school laptop and tried to type my name. I am a dysfunctional typist (I still have to look at the keyboard:( ), and I accidentally typed "Fosh." Laughing at myself, I tried again. Still "Fosh." Hoping no one else saw, I tried again, this time choosing each key with careful precision. Shift, J. O. S. H. OK, all set. But alas, it still said "Fosh!" It took me a good five minutes of puzzlement in total to realize that someone had switched the F and J keys.

The funny picture of the century

2009-11-28T20:37:00.000-05:00

Moose showed me this picture a few days ago, and it has become among my top few favorite funny pictures of...well, ever. He said the picture used was taken of him at his computer, and the chart was assembled by his brother. It's now on Facebook, and he gave me permission to repost it here.

It's now the background image on my brain, and I still laugh every time I see it.

The last day before break...

2009-11-24T23:18:00.000-05:00

...is a day for watching videos. Well, not in every class, but in a few at least. This morning in GLC we presented our Berlin Districts projects; we had to research a district in Berlin and create an infomercial advertising it. My group chose Friedrichshain (which I learned today is pronounced ,,FREED-richs-hayn," not ,,FREED-rich-shayn"), and this is what we came up with, if you're interested:

Anyway, after the presentations were done, Mr. Uhelski and John D. (that's the one with an h) showed us two German commercials which are well worth sharing. The first one is pretty self-explanatory:

and the second one is like one of those "Have an Idea?" commercials...I'm pretty sure it's for a contest where you enter with a cool idea or invention and can win money. Kann jemand dass Deutsch spricht bitte mir helfen? Stimmt das? Danke. Most of the important dialog is along the lines of ,,And now we wait," ,,He won't be driving through here anymore!" and ,,Don't film the flowers, come over here!" (you can match those up yourself); the text at 1:00 asks ,,Do you have a better do-it-yourself idea?" and the rest you can see for yourself:

Finally, three classes later in Fisix, I finally got Mr. Lyons to watch Der Riss in Der Hose, which is amazing on so many levels, but that's a different story. Anyway, before we got the video about fisix that we were actually supposed to watch, he showed us yet another of the countless differently-subtitled versions of that scene from Der Untergang where Hitler yells at everyone. This particular one, however, makes it onto OAIA quite easily...I'm sure you'll see why.

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

2009-11-22T13:54:00.003-05:00

Sorry...I keep falling behind on posting quotes 'cause I've been so busy...but I think I'm about to be caught up. Look over there <---, and if you see a few it means I had the attention span to post the ones waiting to go up before getting distracted.

"I feel that Only At IA is the International Academy's closest thing to Gossip Girl."
-Cat

"If the subjunctive didn't exist, how could we talk about it's non-existence?!"
-Me on how I get to put one by me here if I want to

"Attack it like a bear."
-Mr. Woods on annotation

"I think my brain thinks in knowledge issues."
-Cat

"Laser eye surgery?! Those are lasers!"
-Swathi N. on the effects of radiation on human health

"Do not put that on the Internet or I'll smack you."
-An anonymous faculty member on a quote unlisted here for obvious reasons

"They're back here, away from dangerous things like coffee, soda and freshmen."
-Mrs. Neustadt on the location of submitted Extended Essays

"I'm one of those people that is very good at coming up with comebacks on the fly, even when they're not coming back."
-Marie

"They're not really pop quizzes, they're just quizzes that I forgot to listen for."
-Märie ön Qüizzes in Germänkläß

"I can't spell it."
-Allen on problems with CAS

"You may not use electronic devices while working on your laptop."
-Mr. Uhelski on irony

"I need to brush up on my mind-reading skills."
-Brian B. on the need to be able to read Mr. IB's mind to do well on IB exams

Other schools compete in things like football...

2009-11-19T19:40:00.001-05:00

I got the following submission the other day from Ryan W. over at West:

"A few days ago, the Junior Physics class walked in to find 10 of the chairs stacked into a sculpture with only 1 chair touching the ground. We added a few more chairs in and left it for the original class to see. Today, we found over 20 chairs stacked. Not to be outdone, we took all 36 chairs in the room and stacked them together with only 1 touching the ground. OAIA."

It even came with pictures which I felt were worth sharing, so it's getting it's own post instead of going through the whole sidebar process. When I asked him for the rest of the story he sent back more info and some interesting pictures...so I'll let him tell the story:

"This is at West and the chair stacking took place between the junior and senior IB physics classes. (Juniors are 2nd block, seniors first.) Here is the full story:

The Seniors left a few chairs stacked together, probably something they did out of boredom at the end of class:

We expanded on that for a little while and produced this: (13 total)

A couple fell and our final piece for the day was this, which we left for the next class to find: (12 total)

The Senior class apparently heard about what we did and managed to get 22 or 23 chairs stacked together (sorry, no picture of this one).

We decided to beat them, so we took theirs apart and managed to get all 36 chairs in the classroom into the sculpture in the pictures I already sent you:

We had to take this one down though, because apparently the next class wanted to use chairs (we were content to just sit on desks to keep our masterpiece up). We ended up playing chair jenga, which resulted in a really loud crash."

Awesome. Thanks for the submission, and congratulations to the first Westerners to make the site!

Vesta's got the idea

2009-11-16T20:07:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned, I believe Animal Crossing: City Folk to be the single best video game of all time. Disagree with me if you must, but at least wait until you've tried it for long enough to be sure (renting it from Blockbuster does not count!). Anyway, it really is absolutely brilliant. As I said in the previously-linked post, the animals in your town will periodically ask you for a new catchphrase or greeting. I still (or did when I wrote this in early August...heh heh sorry, it really isn't usually that long) always use "by Harvey" as the catchphrase and "Grüß Harvey" as the greeting. Although they both fit in entertainingly well, no character has ever fully understood the concept...until now. This picture was taken when I first introduced Vesta to my favorite greeting, and she was telling me how awesome it sounded:

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

2009-11-13T23:24:00.005-05:00

I've been kinda busy lately...and have let the quotes build up. That means that I've got bunches of new ones; <----go look over there!

"You need to laugh louder."
-Mr. Stibitz to Mike B., the one person in his class to get his joke

"Die Mauer ist gefallen!"
-Me on a fitting Facebook status message on the night of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the wall

"...it's been that way for a while now."
-Bri on the above

"That's the second time I've walking in here when I wished I didn't."
-Mr. Lyons on entering his classroom twice in the same class period to students working on design labs

"You got a satisfactory? WHOOO!!"
-Ms. Casazza on the 'above and beyond' category on IB rubrics.

"I'll send it off to the IB so teachers can send it up a flagpole and dance around it."
-Ms. Casazza on good internal assessments

"No, they don't actually do that."
-Ms. Casazza, moments later, on the above

"Windmills: Evil machines that gobble people up and put them in their place."
-Mr. Stibitz on the symbolism of windmills in Don Quixote

"The grades were either amazing or just....guh."
-Mr. Majask on testing

"Maybe they're prepping for the end of time."
-Mr. Wolf on the clocks breaking

"No, but I got a pencil sharpener that's also a wind-up robot."
-Simone on my asking if she got any Stabilos at the Dick Blick art supply store

Warning: the purchase and consumption of Smart Water has absolutely no effect on one's ninja abilities

2009-11-12T22:49:00.015-05:00

As I walked into fisix class this afternoon, I saw Mr. Giromini standing at the front of the room talking with Mr. Lyons. They continued to talk as the class filed in, Kyra H. coming in about three minutes before the start of class and taking her seat in the front row. Almost as soon as she sat down she realized she had forgotten something, and asked for permission to go get her water bottle. Mr. Lyons informed her that, because there were a few minutes left before class started, she was technically still on her own time and therefore could go where she wanted. "But do I have time?" she asked. "And what if I'm back thirty seconds late?" Mr. Giromini took the opportunity to assert that he would mark her tardy and have her suspended. However she did decide that she had enough time, despite having to go all the way to her car. When Mr. Giromini heard mention of the car he informed her that students were not allowed to go out to their cars during school hours. She protested, but he wouldn't change his mind.

By this point most of the time she had had was gone, leaving only about thirty seconds. She insisted that she was really thirsty and started to look for money in her bag. Once she had found it she headed for the door, Mr. Giromini reminding her of the threat of suspension. As she walked out and down the hall I heard him mutter, "You think I'm kidding..."

More than thirty seconds later she returned to find that, while class had officially started, Mr. Lyons and Mr. Giromini were still at the front of the room talking. Kyra sits closest to the door, but the path around her table to her seat was blocked by Mr. Giromini, standing with his back to the door. She placed her Smart Water on the table and hesitantly tried to find a way to circumvent him without drawing his attention (although he later claimed that he saw her all along). After faking right and left a few times she apparently decided that it was futile, as she quickly dove under the table and started crawling under table and chair alike. In retrospect it may be easy to point out that that managed to attract not only Mr. Giromini's attention but that of the entire class, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course he heard the unmistakable sound of an IA student diving for cover quite clearly, and crept slowly around the table himself. At about the point where her knees were passing under the chair he leaned down and barked at her. And loudly, too. The crash that followed shortly thereafter (caused by her legs smashing into the chair in shock) was loud enough to startle nearly everyone in the room, myself included. When I looked over to see her flipped on her back under the chair, quickly getting up while trying to look as composed as possible, I laughed so hard I cried. Literally.

Seniors zero, Supreme Chancellor of Olympics one. (Mr. Giromini: In case it's not obvious, I do expect to be able to come back next year on Olympics day to find you with the crown, cape, and staff we discussed. It was your idea, after all.)

A cool new idea

2009-11-11T18:24:00.007-05:00

Today, someone at school gave me a suggestion that I've heard several times from several people over the course of the past few days. I like the idea, so I'm gonna try it out. Inspired by sites like FML and the far-superior MLIA, I am going to begin posting stories in a similar format. (Do not fear; these will neither replace nor inhibit the posting of other material.) Now here's the fun part: these stories will be submitted by you. Yes, you. Just send an email to Submissions@OnlyAtIA.com containing your story and how you would like your name to appear (if at all), and I'll post it if I like it (and when I get to it). If yours doesn't get posted the first time, don't worry! You many submit as many different stories as you like, so there are plenty of chances to get published. I plan on posting them in the sidebar then transferring them to a post just like I do with the quotes. Here are the rules and guidelines for submissions:

-The story MUST be true! Since I will have no way of verifying some of the stories you submit, I have to trust that you will not make them up. If I find out later that a story is not true, I reserve the right to change or delete it.
-Please use proper grammar. As I hope you've figured out by now, I like the stuff. I also reserve the right to make any corrections to the story before posting, and really bad grammer (like spelling grammar wrong) will lessen your chances of success.
-The normal format will follow that of MLIA and FML: Today, [insert a story that could only happen at IA]. OAIA (Normally not more than three or four sentences. Variations from this format are OK, as long as they make sense and/or are comedically effective.)
-Have fun with it! Try to keep it original, witty, and hilarious!

For example:

Today, an IA student posted as their Facebook status message, "Why do the weekends go so fast?" Another student commented with a link to an article from BBC News entitled, "Why having fun makes time speed," complete with a thorough scientific investigation into the matter. OAIA

Today, I realized that we IA students dread and complain about having to go to the "pep rally," one of the few sports-related events at our school, yet look forward to and greet with thunderous applause the assembly about Indian culture and dancing. I laughed at the irony. OAIA

Remember, just send an email to Submissions@OnlyAtIA.com. Be sure to include your name, as I will give credit to those who would like it. Thank you in advance for your submissions! OAIA

IAtionary: Tener Divertido

2009-11-10T21:03:00.001-05:00

Ten-er Di-ver-ti-do [tehn-ehr dee-vehr-TEE-doh] v.

1. To be in posession of fun; Tengo divertido en mi bolsa, y quiero usarlo durante la clase de historia (I have/am in posession of fun in my pocket, and I want to use it during history class)
2. To make a mistake in Spanish grammar; He generally does well on Spanish orals, but he always teners divertido (also acceptable: tiene divertido) when there's too much pressure
3. To say something incorrectly in Spanish that demostrates the need to review basic grammar; "I cannot tell you how many of you are tenering divertido" -Sra. riggs

The Spanish verb meaning "to have fun" is divertirse, literally more like "to enjoy oneself." Unfortunately, many Spanish students try to translate our way of saying it directly, with the result above.

Eakspay Igpay Atinlay Ayday

2009-11-08T13:59:00.000-05:00

This past Thursday was Speak French Day, when everyone in FHS who wants to participate wears a French flag and speaks only French for the entire day. On Speak French Day last year I wanted to participate, but alas, I do not speak French. I came up with a plan, but by then it was too late to implement it that day. I saved it for this year, and it turned out quite well. The plan was this: print a picture of a pig, pin it to myself like the French students do with their French flags, and speak Pig Latin all day. Unfortunately, I did not know that Speak French Day was Thursday until Thursday morning, so I was not able to print a pig. Fortunately, I was sitting in front of David when I realized this, so I asked him to draw one for me. This is what he came up with:

Very nice for such short notice, and more than sufficient for the task ahead of it. My first class was ToK, and Mr. Wolf gave me permission to speak English (a rule which applies to all those participating in Speak French Day) for pretty much the entire hour, so nothing Pig Latin-related (other than the drawing of the pig and my search for tape to attach it to my shirt) took place. Second hour was Spanish, where we are required to speak entirely in Spanish for an hour and a half. I used Spanish Pig Latin (which I found out is not quite as hard as it sounds) during my conversations with Sra. Riggs, and she seemed quite impressed. We were reading our novel aloud in small groups that day; I tried it while reading to my group and got through several paragraphs before they noticed. However I then reverted back to regular Spanish, as of course I wasn't internalizing any of what I was reading in Anishspay. Going a bit out of order, fourth hour was math, during which I didn't speak all that much, and when I did Miss Hessler let me speak English.

Third hour, history, was (I feel) the most enriched by Speak Pig Latin Day. We were discussing the concept of a just war, i.e. different rationales for going to war and the validity of each. We were divided into groups, and each group was put in charge of an imaginary country. I was with Moose and Shriram, and I wanted our country to have an awesome name. Mr. Majask hadn't planned to give the countries names, but I asked if ours could be pig-themed. Laughing, he shrugged off the question. "How about Pigland?" I suggested, but quickly realized that that sounded dumb. Jokingly, and from across he room, Mr. Majask suggested Pigonia. I liked it, and that became out country's name. We then got to work thinking of ideas for our military's code of conduct, like that it is acceptable to fight off an invading nation, but not to go to war over natural resources. We also had to decide which sorts of targets it was OK to bomb, from a list of places like bases, military hospitals, schools, etc. When we shared our ideas for acceptable reasons to go to war, one group suggested that if a large number of a country's citizens were attacked on foreign soil, that country would have the right to go to war with the attackers. To clarify, Mr. Majask gave an example of what he thought the group meant. He explained: if a group of three hundred Pigonian citizens on an airplane were shot down by Butcheronia, Pigonia would have the right to declare war.

Also, when I went to write the name of the country in my iPod so I wouldn't forget before I wrote this post, it auto-corrected the word "Pigonia" for me. Furthermore, a Google search for "Pigonia" yields 89,400 results, yet there is no Wikipedia article with that title. Generally speaking, of course, this is sufficient grounds to conclude that something doesn't exist, but I'm curious about this one. Most of the useful-looking results are in Polish, so could someone who speaks Polish help me out on this one? It's IA...I know you're out there.

Die Zeit Fliegt

2009-11-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

Starting sometime last week, all the school's clocks have been frozen, slow, fast, and in a general state of anarchy. Luckily most have been fixed by now, but today in German Language Culture, Mr. Uhelski noticed that the one in his room was still several minutes off. This continued to mix him up throughout the first part of the hour as he kept glancing over at it to keep himself on schedule. Shortly thereafter, he asked John D. (that's junior John D.) to take care of the problem. Or, more accurately, he asked for someone with decent artistic skills and handwriting, and John volunteered, saying his artistic skills weren't great but his handwriting was acceptable. Mr. Uhelski then gave him the instructions to cut out an orange circle the size of the clock (because that was the color paper he had readily available), write a certain message on it, and tape it over the clock. Here's how it turned out:

,,Die Zeit fliegt," (dee TSAHYT fleegt) means "time flies," and apparently that helps us remember that the clock is broken. Well, it worked for me anyway. Yes, it's a bit of an oval, and yes, John heard about that, but he did volunteer based on handwriting after all, so I'll let that one...well...fly.

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

2009-10-31T17:02:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-25T14:18:00.009-04:00

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?

2009-10-22T09:20:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-18T16:01:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-15T10:47:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-12T19:43:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-10T20:28:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-06T19:35:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-05T14:48:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-03T18:20:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-01T16:53:00.000-04:00

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:

Some Fun and Out-of-Context Quotes, part XXX

2009-09-29T20:13:00.002-04:00

Extra-special thanks to Lizzie D., who provided me with this entire post's worth of quotes:)

"Would you like a dinosaur as a pet?"
-Lizzy to Mr. Giromini

"That's not quite the word I'd use for it, but general in my evil army of the night, maybe."
-Mr. Giromini on the above

"Let's not be violent, there's too much paperwork involved."
-Bridget

"Do me a favor: go be productive."
-Mr. Giromini

"It reminds me of a frying pan."
-Bridget on a viola

"I forgot my question, come back and get it later."
-Lizzy

"Get drastic, get sarcastic."
-Reem

Campi! The plural is campi!

2009-09-27T21:04:00.000-04:00

This year, in order to honor the founder and first principal of IA, a couple of changes were made. First, IA Central (which has always been just 'IA,' unless being specifically contrasted with the other campi,) is now the Lambert Okma campus. Second, a portrait of Mr. Okma now hangs in on the wall at the end of the office's hallway. The latter was used to advertise the Welcome Back Dance, as shown in this picture that I find entertaining:

And the answer to the obvious question is no, I do not think he was really there, although this fact(oid) has not been officially confirmed.

Safe School Policy...Win?

2009-09-24T19:40:00.000-04:00

In ToK a couple days ago, Mr. Wolf commented that the left side of the room was always the most talkative. In every single class, the left side was the loudest. He then said that, on the bright side, it would be convenient if he were driving in England: they would be the easiest to hit. A group of students on the right side of the room didn't completely understand what he had meant, and started arguing about it. Each person had his or her own idea of why it was supposed to be funny, and each insisted that his or her own interpretation was the correct one. Upon hearing them arguing, he proceeded to tell us the story of the first fight he ever witnessed at IA.

It was his first year at IA, and he was standing outside the music room (which back then was still the lunch room) when he heard two boys yelling at each other. "No you can't!" "Yes you can!" they shouted back and forth. Fearing they would resort to physical violence, Mr. Wolf went over to them to break it up. "Best to let them throw the first punch," he thought to himself. That way, he figured, there would be a winner and they would separate more easily. As the shouting escalated and one of the boys looked as if he was just about to punch the other, he held back and instead shouted, "You don't even have to worry about getting a car to stop in a frictionless vacuum- you could never get it started!" The other boy slammed his fist downward into his palm in frustration, yelled, "Fine!" then turned and stormed off.

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

2009-09-22T20:24:00.004-04:00

We spent a good ten to fifteen minutes in fisix class yesterday talking about 'fisix examples gone awry.' It was quite entertaining; Mr. Lyons has a vast store of them. When we talk about electric current he compares the electrons to sugar-crazed kindergartners running around chaotically, but having a net displacement when we tip the floor of the kindergarten room. Then we usually introduce voltage by picking up the kindergarteners at the bottom of the room and placing them at the top, and resistance by inserting all sorts of things for them to smash into. I also like the school dance analogy for resistance: when there is fast music (high temperature) playing, there are people going in every direction like crazy, and it would be very difficult to run across the dance floor. When a slower song (lower temperature) comes on, the electrons pair up and move slowly, generally not going too far from one spot, and sometimes going far too close to each other. Now it's much easier to run across the dance floor. When things cool down enough, it becomes a middle school dance, and the boys run to one side of the room and the girls to the other, leaving no one on the dance floor and nothing to block the runner's way: hence, superconductivity. The first quote here obviously resulted from our class' lack of Mr. Lyons as a ninth grade fisix teacher...so that's about all the context I can give you. And besides, who needs context anyway? Read the title, people.

"I never taught you guys projectile motion, so we never bombed the orphanage. Which was located next to the bomb factory. Which was where the kids worked."
-Mr. Lyons on the bizarre analogies he uses in class

"I would pay to never see that again."
-Mr. Lyons on Quidditch

"When it looks like a photo-negative rainbow, it's a bruise."
-Abby on Marie's and my argument about the definition of a bruise following her horse-related concussion

"It was a perfect linear function."
-Mr. Lyons on his falling grade in his college Ancient Greek class

"It's obeyed about as much as most laws in this country are."
-Mr. Lyons on Ohm's Law

"Oh, you got a thirty-three, are you taking it again?"
-A typical IA student on the ACT

"Todos los problemas del mundo son masculinos."
-Sra. Riggs on the word problema being masculine

"You love this word 'cause you think you're swearing."
-Frau Boyle on the German word for 'bright'

"Don't run means stop running!"
-Srta. Fernández on insubordination in the hallway

amUity

2009-09-19T05:50:00.003-04:00

In history class, Mr. Majask had a PowerPoint presentation on the board about the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the territory that Germany was forced to demilitarize after WWI but managed to remilitarize before WWII. One of the bullet points read, "March 36 German troops reentered Rhineland." Upon reading this line, Mr. Majask was assaulted with questions about what it meant. Of course, he had meant it to mean "In March of 1936, German troops reentered Rhineland."

One student thought that they marched 36 troops into the Rhineland. Mr. Majask did an impersonation of what this might have looked like: "36 guys marched into the Rhineland saying 'We claim this for Germany!' No one did anything, so they marched another mile: 'Germany!'"

Another student thought it meant that all this had happened on March 36th. I'll just leave it at that.

Arrr, an' I mustn't be foregttin' t'wish ye a v'ry happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

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

2009-09-15T20:35:00.000-04:00

"When I smile it looks really creepy."
-Moose on senior pictures

"If you think I read these ahead of time, you're sorely mistaken."
-Mr. Lyons on assigning homework problems that won't be on the test

"I have opinions about everything."
-Sra. Riggs on the decision between HL and SL

"I always write these lists of questions to ask people, but then I always misplace them."
-Sudheer on forgetting what he wanted to ask me

"How can a timer freeze?"
-Mike on using hi-tech devices for fisix labs

"In with the Buddha, out with the Hitler."
-Kenny on relaxation

"I fall on normal ground."
-Julia on how standing on a chair was making her look unsteady

"I thought I would get out without you noticing me."
-Sra. Riggs on sneaking into a math classroom, getting caught, and being asked to stay and learn math

"I used to have a life. Then I started cheating on it with IB, and me and life got a divorce."
-Kyra H. (originally from here)

"Yeah that was me trying to be cool. And I failed."
-Mr. Stibitz on the phrase 'you go girl'

"Do you have Asian friends? Do you want to know more about their culture?"
-The Asian Student Association on how to word their announcement to get people's attention

"It's all sausage to me!"
-Frau Boyle on the literal translation of the phrase ,,Das ist mir Wurscht" meaning "I don't care"

IAtionary: Xeroxedly

2009-09-13T20:57:00.000-04:00

Xer-oxed-ly [ZEER-oksd-lee] adv.

1. In a way similar to that of a Xerox machine
2. Identically, similarly enough to pass for a Xerox copy; Sra. Riggs: Your quiz will look very similar, like Xeroxedly similar, to this paper.

Language of Origin: Riggsean

Improvement

2009-09-12T00:25:00.001-04:00

I'd like to direct your attention to this post. Now I'd like to add on that its so much funnier now that I have ToK in there.

IAtionary: Pipe Bomb

2009-09-09T08:32:00.001-04:00

Pipe Bomb [PAHYP bom] n.

1. Any dangerous-looking item, especially tubular ones that involve fire; Hey, what's that flaming thing behind you? Oh, that's just the pipe bomb.
2. A device used to intimidate others, usually with little to no actual potential to do harm

Language of Origin: Fisixian

My freshman year in Fisix Club, we built a contraption officially known as a "flame tube." The idea was this: we had a fairly long piece of PVC pipe with a line of tiny, closely-spaced holes drilled in it. We would hook one end up to a supply of natural gas, and the other to a speaker and frequency generator. By playIng the frequency, we could create a standing wave inside the pipe. When we lit the gas coming from the holes on fire, the height of the flame at any given point along the line would depend on the wave inside, making the height of the flame look like a wave. It was really cool to see the wall of fire with the varied heights- it really did look like a wave on top. Oh, and we could spray it with chemicals to get it to flare up in any color we wanted. Anyway, naturally we started calling it thePipe Bomb. Mr. Lyons told us it was bad PR and we should stick with Flame Tube, but it had already (sorry) caught on.

La Comprensión

2009-09-06T23:17:00.000-04:00

In Spanish class a few days ago, I was talking to my friend Sudheer. Since it's Spanish class, we're supposed to speak exclusively in Spanish, so I was doing my best to do so. After a fairly long-winded explanation of some grammatical concept or something, (I can't remember anymore...I really should write these things sooner!) he repeated what he had understood to be sure we were on the same page. I was trying to talk quickly to test my fluency, and he was missing a few key elements. He then (paraphrasedly) explained his method for understanding my Spanish: "Everyday I try to understand one more word of what you say. I'll find out how many words of each sentence I get today, and tomorrow I'll try to understand one more. Eventually, I'll be able to understand the entire sentence." Amused, I asked him how many words he had reached by that particular day. Holding up the appropriate number of fingers, he replied, "Cuatro."

Military Pack

2009-09-02T23:25:00.000-04:00

The first Friday of the school year, after my last class of the day, I was in the hallway when I saw Bridget walking away from me. Not so unusual, except that also walking away from me was the single hugest backpack I had ever seen. Intrigued, I caught up to her and asked if she was planning to stay at school for two weeks at a time this year. She said no, and that she had the huge backpack (fittingly enough) to carry all her books. She explained that she kept her materials in her locker, and carried everything but her books to each class individually. I still don't really understand her system, buy hey, if it works for her, why not? It was, however, an entertaining sight, and she agreed to pose for a (poor-quality cellphone) photo which she gave me full permission to use on OAIA. Thanks Bridget:)

Oh, and when I asked her where she got it, she said, "Joe's Army Navy." Figures.

IAtionary: Kagan

2009-09-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

Kagan [KAY-guhn] n., v., adj., adv., ...

1. A generic swear word, able to be put in place of any other; What the Kagan are you doing?!
2. An expression of anxiety or frustration, always used in place of a swear word; Oh, Kagan! I forgot to do my history homework!

Language of Origin: Historian

In IB2 History, we are doing a series of assignments involving a book called On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace by Donald Kagan. Somewhere along the line, someone commented that Kagan should be a swear word...so now it is. Enough said.

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

2009-08-30T22:13:00.003-04:00

This is the most quotes I've ever put into a single post. I'd like to say there's some just reason for this, like that it's the beginning of school and I've gotten a lot, but really I've just been to lazy to transfer th-- I mean, Harvey wills it!

"We have a pizza delivery in the front office for a student named Brian."
-Mrs. Hartman

"There's a back to every worksheet. There's not always something written on it..."
-Mr. Lyons

"Sometimes efficiancy becomes very inefficiant."
-Mr. Lyons on ordering and purchasing notes

"You just have to hope to God that the people around you are dumb... or dumber than you."
-Sra. on the IB exam being graded on a bell curve

"It's where electric dasies grow."
-Mr. Lyons on electric fields

"Woah! The chair moves!"
-Marie on a róllisilla

"It's digital ink, it never dries."
-Mr. Lyons on possible corrections to the seating chart

"I only created the important stuff: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. And calc."
-Harvey on how much of math He created

"Moodle senses how badly you need the information, and will shut down."
-Mr. Lyons

"It's like two degrees... Kelvin in here."
-Harvey on the fisix room (and fun phrases that annoy Mr. Giromini)

"I got a bike so I don't have to walk to school anymore."
-Tejas (who lives a minute from IA) on how he spent his summer vacation

"You don't choke T-Rexes, they bite!"
-Julia

"Todas tus base son nos pertenecen."
-es.wikipedia.org on All Your Base Are Belong To Us

"The IA lockers are too small to stick people in."
-Elizabeth O. on being nice to freshpeople

Pictures 'n' Stuff, Part V

2009-08-29T23:58:00.003-04:00

Yes, there are a lot of xkcds. You see, I've endeavored to read all of them until I'm caught up; I'm up to 520 at the moment (later: done!). And some of them I just can't help putting here. Besides, it's summer (or it was at the time)! What else is going on?

Click all to Enlarge

The really scary part? I do this sometimes.

This one also applies to me.

Wikipedian Protester:

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"

2009-08-28T01:04:00.000-04:00

In physics class this year, I sit near the front of the class. One day I looked up at the projector on the ceiling, and noticed something interesting: there was a Wiimote hanging from it, aimed at the board. Cue photo:

Naturally, I asked Mr. Lyons to explain. He said that (since he doesn't have a SMARTboard in his room) he was trying to compensate. He referenced this video, saying he wanted to try it:

Pretty cool, right? He had bought all the supplies and done everything needed to make it work...but the school system reused to let him install the software. Hopefully someday they'll be able to work things out...because that would just be totally awesome.

Special thanks to Theodore Roosevelt for the title of this post.

Damien

2009-08-23T14:14:00.000-04:00

Today I'm gonna take us back in time a bit, all the way to my freshperson year. I was in choir, along with Zoë and Chase. I can't sing for my life, but I tried, and I think I improved a little bit. I first met Chase (who's a year older than me) when I sat next to him in choir. Anyway, my birthday is on June sixth, and Chase and Zoë found this out one day (I don't remember how). This was less than a year after 6-6-06, which (for me) had been preceded by everyone in my middle school pretending(?) to be terrified of me for several months. Chase and Zoë, upon hearing about how people had run in terror whenever I came by, took it upon themselves to keep the tradition going. At this point 6-6-06 was over, and people were pretty sure that if the devil was planning on destroying the world in one massive attack, he had picked another (less obvious) date. Nonetheless, they thought it would be funny to continue pretending to be scared; hence, I soon got the nickname Damien. To be honest, it was annoying for the first few days, but I soon got over that and realized that it was actually kind of funny. Eventually I began to have some fun with it: once I messed with the timer on my watch until I managed to get it to stop at 6.66 seconds, then made a big deal of wondering what time it was, being shocked, and showing Chase. My favorite of all, however, involves a particular song we were singing in choir at the time: Brighten My Soul with Sunshine. It talks about how hard it is to keep going, and asks (presumably Harvey) to...well, insert the title here. One of the lines says "The devil's calling and he's pulling hard." The first time that line came up after the Damien thing started, everyone involved suddenly found it difficult not to burst out laughing in the middle of the song. Every single time after that, at least three people (spread out around the room) would turn and glare at me for the entire duration of the line. I took to slapping Chase's arm (I still sat next to him, mind you, so he was the only one I could reach) to discourage him. As I said, I also found it hilarious, but letting them know that would have ruined all the fun.

On a somewhat related note, I've recently come across an interesting idea that may help explain why some people get annoyed with my sense of humor, and I'd really appreciate your opinion. I tend to tire of jokes much less quickly than most people. Hence, I'll be saying an old line long after others have lost interest and still find it hysterical. (I mean I just found 14 relevant links in like ten minutes.) This was one of those cases: everyone else let the Damien thing go long before it had (in my opinion) worn out. Do you think that's true? I'm really curious about this...please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!

How do you feel about school starting?

2009-08-19T20:12:00.003-04:00

In the few days leading up to the beginning of the school year, I created a poll to measure the attitudes of IA students in regards to said event. I was amused by the first several votes; after five, four were for "Can't wait!" Only at IA. As you can see, this option still won, but by a smaller margin after those who don't check OAIA constantly over the summer started voting. (BTW, in case you fall into that category and it's not obvious, I love you;) ) Despite this, the results still ~~show~~ demonstrate, illustrate, and portray some interesting information about the IA community...or at least the portion of it that reads OAIA. Here they are, myself as always having not voted:

Blech! More summer, pleeeease! 11%
I could use a bit more time, but it's gotta happen sooner or later 29%
I sorta wanna get it over with 23%
Can't wait! 35%

I love it. Thanks to all who voted!

Career Cruising Dot Com

2009-08-18T07:16:00.000-04:00

I should start by saying that I'm sorry for having already given away the punchline to this post. It was previously posted as a Fun and Out-of-Context Quote, but after thinking it over I've decided that it deserves a bit more background information. I'll put a link to the quote at the end, but (especially if you haven't seen it yet) please wait until you read the rest before clicking it.

In eighth grade, the year before I entered IA, our teachers told us that now (meaning then) was a good time to start thinking about what career choices were available to us. The time when we would have to pick seemed impossibly far off, but they said that it would come faster than we expected and that we should at least start to think about it. For several class periods, we had to go into the computer lab and answer endless questions on careercruising.com about out interests, what classes we had taken/planned to take, our plans for the future, ad infinitum. To be honest I don't think it helped much, as those who had no idea what they wanted to do just answered the questions, stared at the results for a few seconds, then forgot them, and those (like me) who knew what they wanted to do answered all the questions with the intent of making the site tell them exactly what they wanted to hear. It got pretty monotonous after a while, and I was quite glad when it was over.

Some time later, I found out that (per state law) we have to complete some sort of career preparation work each year at IA. Naturally, we use careercruising.com, which I still can never spell right on the first try. Why? Harvey wills i t. Thus, every year we have to sit down and go through the same questions over and over, getting more or less the same results. Most of the results are to be expected, and everyone likes when their results match the life goals they already had. We do, however, have a little fun looking at the results of a few certain people. Now I shall reprint the previously-published punchline:

"Number one was neurologist, number two was vending machine operator. Could they be more different?"
-Rachel B. on a career aptitude test

WARNING: Nerdier-that-usual humor may follow

2009-08-14T09:35:00.001-04:00

Yes, more than normal. It is possible, trust me. Don't believe me? Read on.

I was having a conversation with my IA friend Amy when she sent me a link to BlahBlahFish, a site that lets you enter a phrase, translate it into another language, and translate it back. (Although some of the top-rated ones are funny, many are not so kid-friendly, so be warned.) In response, I showed her this post. Then (with a few inserted links to help you follow along and some slight re-ordering to account for the fact that we were talking so fast that many a train of thought was interrupted):

Amy: i am glad she tells people not to insert words thoughtlessly into essays

Me: :)

Amy: literal translation is a big pet peeve of mine
Amy: *continues reading*
Amy: haha
Amy: so you could have made blahblahfish if you had been quicker
Amy: though i thought German ch was more like Russian kh?

Me: idk russian
Me: it can be
Me: velar
Me: or palatal

Amy: very nice

Me: :)
Me: i kn consonants
Me: i figured id try it
Me: most ppl just think im tryin to make them look dumb
Me: but i figured u might kn
Me: more likely than most

Then the 'creative discussion' began:

Amy: but i'm afraid "sh" is alveopalatal
Amy: not palatal

Me: no
Me: its post alveolar

Amy: alveopalatal
Amy: meaning behind the alveola, near the palate

Me: its the closest thing we have
Me: so we hear 'front ch' as sh

Amy: so you're saying that it is different, we just can't differentiate as speakers of English?

Me: yep
Me: well
Me: as uninformed speakers of english

Amy: ok
Amy: just didn't want to let you continue being wrong :P

Me: yeah yeah
Me: and its post alveolar
Me: ask wikipedia

Amy: technically
Amy: sh is a voiceless alveopalatal fricative
Amy: :P

Me: no

Amy: mhm
Amy: Phonology book > Wikipedia
Amy: :P

Me: its a voiceless postalveolar fricative
Me: OR
Me: if u wanna b RLY fancy
Me: SIBILANT
Me: ftw
Me: wikipedia>whatever it was u said

Amy: both are used

Me: o fine

Amy: the postalveolar and alveopalatal
Amy: means the same thing
Amy: *mean

Me: i is not able conjugating?
Me: jk jk
Me: lol
Me: (Here I did this cool huge laughing smiley that tries to hold itself back but fails)

Amy: i really should have gone to bed 4 minutes ago
Amy: i have to get up at 6:00 tomorrow
Amy: i'll ttyl
Amy: night

Me: ok well
Me: go get some voiced alveolar fricatives
Me: gn

Amy: haha
Amy: nice
Amy: night

Me: :)
Me: nerd humor

THIS IS ... wait a minute, where is this again?

2009-08-12T20:36:00.003-04:00

The prep day for Freshperson Orientation was today. It ran pretty smoothly; the volunteers all gathered to get job assignments, learn about what to say to the freshpeople, make posters, etc. I really like Orientation: it's a lot of fun to be involved with. Take, for example, the following sign made by Cat. We told the volunteers that despite IA's smallness, the freshpeople will think it's huge and probably get lost. Many signs with room numbers and arrows were created, including the one in question:

Awesome. And by the way, if there are any freshpeople reading this, the swimming pool is in the basement...there's nothing interesting on the roof.

L'anglais est plus important que le français??? Das stimmt nicht!

2009-08-10T23:03:00.000-04:00

I found this snap on my phone and unfortunately can't remember the whole story, but I'll do what I can. We were in Product Team discussing the usefulness of various languages in today's world (because that's what we do in our free time,) and someone who takes Francias came to the board and wrote "English is more important than Francias" in Francias. I, a student of both Spanish and Juhrmen, had to stand up for them, so I then wrote "But Spanish is the most important of all," in Spanish followed by "Well, Juhrmen is also pretty important..." in Juhrmen. Oh, and "Das stimmt!!" (dahs shtimt), which is really fun to say, meaning "that's right!!" I don't know what the other thing in Francias is... If someone can help me remember who it was, that's be great. If it was you...sorry.

Something just occurred to me... why is Spanish the only one without a funny pet name? There is Chinese too... but at least it has "the middle language." Ideas?

Dog People

2009-08-08T17:08:00.000-04:00

While studying for the fisix final, I was going over the notes when I found an old problem that said:

A dog running chasing a ball runs at 5 m s^-1 off a 50 m high cliff. How far from the base of the cliff does the dog hit the ground? What is the dog's final velocity?

Noticing a particular mark I had made on the page, I remembered how everyone in the class had objected at once when Mr. Giromini read the problem, as there were several dog people in the class, myself proudly among them. He decided that our complaints were valid, and told us to change the problem. At his recommendation, this is what resulted:

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

2009-08-05T16:30:00.003-04:00

"The word for this in English is 'phonetics' and it is spelled f-o-n-e-t-i-k-s."
-Sheikh Darwish

"And the word for this in English is 'spell check' and it is spelled
s-p-e-l-c-h-e-k."
-Sheikh Darwish on the above

"I don't mean ready as in prepared, that's not possible."
-Mr. Giromini on asking if we were ready to begin the exam

"That's all the angels crying."
-Mr. Giromini on rain during the final exam

"It's either 'I went to Hawaii' or 'I was Hawaii.'"
-Sra. Riggs on the Spanish word fui

"Oh wait it's bolted to the ceiling."
-Bridget on the bench in front of the school

"Rain! Oh wait I'm getting wet..."
-Bridget on jumping dramatically out from under the canopy

"I have the license to be stupid sometimes."
-Bridget on the above two quotes

"I feel offensive!"
-Tricia C. on Mr. Giromini's blonde jokes

"I just love the technology in this school but it's not wanting to love me back."
-Srta. Fernández on trying to play a movie

"My advice to you, my friend, is to seek out food and sit on it."
-Gabe, to Will, on the latter's snacking in preparation for a history exam

"Did you just accuse me of being a physics teacher?"
-Mr. Giromini on entering a math room

There's no such thing as gravity, the Earth just sucks

2009-08-04T14:42:00.002-04:00

In Spanish class, we took our final the penultimate class so that we would have time to do test corrections. During the block designated to taking the final (while we were doing test corrections) Sra. Riggs came in to do some end-of-the-year cleanup. She was trying to organize some cassette tapes when she dropped a large pile of them on the floor. David turned to me and said, "There's no such thing as gravity, the Earth just sucks." I didn't get it, so I went back to work and shortly thereafter asked, "Wait, when you said that, did you mean 'sucks' like (here I sucked in air quickly to make a sucking noise) or like 'is bad'?" He told me that that was the point: it was a pun. He then continued, saying that he wished real life were like a sitcom, in which people always answer puns with other puns. Sometimes these conversations can go on for a very long time. Unfortunately, as he now realized, this doesn't actually happen.

"It happens sometimes between me and Harvey," I said. "Well," I corrected myself, "they're not puns per se." What really happens is that I ask Him a simple question (let's suppose it's " Watcha doin'?") and He answers with something that is true, but does not answer my question in the least. In this case, it might be "Breathing." Then I do the same thing ("Watcha breathin'?") and so on indefinitely ("Air." "What kind of air?" ... ). As the responses get more and more ridiculous, trivial, and/or nonsensical, we both try to keep straight faces for as long as possible. I usually lose. OK, I pretty much always always lose. But I almost won one right before the end of the year...and I have all of next year to keep trying. Try it with someone you know (not Harvey...I call Him), it's fun!

WARNING: Do Not Mix Subjects

2009-08-02T00:25:00.002-04:00

In Product Team:

David: I hate it when people use science words in literature.

Me: Like what?

I was expecting an answer like "crucible" or "power." Not:

David: Semi-permeable membrane.

Me: What!? (Laughing) Who said that?

David: During Song of Solomon, remember that picture with the headlights? When Mrs. Saxsma read the rationale, it said "The white line acts as a semi-permeable membrane."

Me: Oh yeah...

P.S. I'm back from camp! Hi! I'm now here to read your comments...so leave them!