New Quarter

For a teacher, the new quarter means only one thing... new seating charts.

I thoroughly enjoyed my break, spending the long weekend relaxing up on the hillside. There were movie nights, tavern nights, and health centre nights. I was cutting up some onions to make homemade pasta sauce when I hit a rather dense centre. The next thing I know, the blade slips and instead of shedding tears I'm shedding blood. Good thing my father taught me the virtues of using sharp knives. I can't be certain but I think I might have hit bone. I can't imagine the shape my thumb would be in now had the blade been dull and rather than slice through my muscle it tore it apart. Anywho, I couldn't staunch the bleeding myself so I made the trip down to school and the nurse on duty cleaned me up and wrapped my thumb in enough gauze to make me look like the barnyard dog's after it gets hit with a hammer by ol' Foghorn Leghorn.

Yeah, about like that.

Not to worry, the thumb's fine now. Had to get a tetanus shot though. My arm was killing me for about 2.5 weeks.

Anywho, this quarter's only just begun and we've already been thrown into pandemonium. We took the first Friday of the quarter off for our inter-house sports day. It was a rather uneventful day. The entire middle and high schools go down to watch (not necessarily cheer on) students from our three houses; the eagles, merlins, and condors; as they compete in track and field events. I was not terribly interested in watching kids shot put all day so I brought a copy of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time with me and read about black holes and why they're not quite so black. Well, the highlight of the day (for me at least) was the staff relay. I got talked into running for my house (merlins) on one of our three (guys') teams. I hounded my students for a pair of running shorts and track spikes. When I finally found some I found that I was last to run for my team which means I get all the glory when I cross the finish line fifth out of sixth. As I got the baton the only person still running was our principal so I gave it my all and passed him as we were nearing the finish line.

Oh sweet, sweet glory.

The entire Merlins running crew. Four teams in all.

By the way, if you, like me, have been wondering what the hell a merlin is, I can tell you. It is a pigeon hawk. Thank you wikipedia!

There wasn't much celebration afterward. Merlins came in last and points apparently got tallied wrong so everyone was confused. I trudged my way from the lowest point on campus up to the highest and had some dinner and friend's birthday cake before turning in for a well deserved rest.

Last week was crazy with suddenly shortened school days, days cut out to go to the inter-school sports day, days put back in and not going to the sports day, etc etc. It was interesting to say the least. Saturday, however, truly was. For those of you not up on your Hindu festivals and holidays (and I think there's been about four since Saturday) this past weekend was Diwali. I don't think I mentioned Diwali last year as I didn't really do much for it. This year, though, I went into the bazaar with some friends to see the colours and everything and then went down to the dorms to watch fireworks. I don't know what to really say about it. We were only a few metres away as they set them off and were getting pelted with bits of firecrackers. At one point one fell short and bounced off the roof of one of the dorms. One fell and exploded on the ground. Another exploded quite low, just above the students. It's very interesting to see how much more lax India is about public health and safety in situations like this. Well, I'll let the pictures say the rest.

A local family celebrating Diwali in the traditional style.

Firework tube fort.

This guy followed me up the ramp to my place. He's my neighbor's dog and is the only thing that has been consistent with my Diwali experience. Last year he followed me down to another friend's place and kept running around like a idiot. He's not the brightest of dogs on the hillside.

So, what else have I been up to? Well, a few things. I spent a good portion of my quarter break looking up schools to apply to. I've found a few in Hong Kong, Korea, Istanbul, Beograd, Romania, Greece, Germany, Croatia and a few other places. I have a meeting about extending my contract later this week so I'll see how that goes and I'll have to make a decision by the end of the semester. If you know of any schools in those areas (Hong Kong, Korea, or eastern Europe) in need of a chemistry teacher, let me know and I'll check them out. I have also been reading a lot of comics now thanks to big brother Mike. I hadn't read one really since I was ten or so. In college I had picked up a few of the Marvel Essentials books and enjoyed them but Mike was really the catalyst that got me into them. I plow through the box fulls he sends and have worked through others as well. Most recently I completed the first four books of Sin City (the last three are on their way), The Tick, Usagi Yojimbo 1, Cerebus 1 and am currently reading SCUD: the Disposable Assassin. No real complaints. They were all good reads. Usagi was a bit short but the collection comes from before it got its own monthly book so the stories had to be truncated a bit. I'm hoping that wherever I end up next pays well for shipping because I'd hate to have to leave any of these books behind. Maybe I'll just stay on the hillside, become a chemistry tutor and make comics full time.


Ha

quarter one just about down

Holy cow! It's been a while since my last post and SO MUCH has happened in the mean time.

Does that mean that I'll be posting a long blog today? Probably not, but I will give you some pictures. Firstly, here are some pics from class a few weeks ago. That is a pillar of salt (the sodium acetate kind, not the Lot's wife kind). You see, as far as solids go, you can only dissolve so much of one into a solution before it stops. That's why as a kid when mom finally let you make the Kool-Aid and you decided it would be so much better if more sugar was added you ended up with a slurry of red syrup at the bottom. Only so much sugar can be dissolved in the water... at that temperature. Now, if you were to heat up the Kool-Aid you could easily dissolve more sugar into each pitcher of childhood goodness. However, the problem with sugar is that it will tend to crystalise and precipitate back out of the solution as it cools down. So, unless you like a steaming cup o' Kool-Aid you had best stick to the recommended amount of sugar.


Now, sodium acetate doesn't have this problem. It forms a very stable solution. You just heat up the solution and add a few extra grains here and there. Once you allow it to cool down, the solution will remain clear and no crystals form. The solution is now considered to be 'supersaturated,' and contains more salt dissolved in it that would normally possible at that temperature. The sodium acetate will remain as a liquid until the solution is disturbed (sometimes it only takes a little bump to make it crystalise). In the picture below, I started with a single crystal of sodium acetate in the petri dish and started pouring out the solution. As soon as the supersaturated solution hits the crystals the dissolved salt has something to start crystalising on and the liquid immediately begins to form into a solid. The same effect can be achieved by scratching the glass (a common practice in my Organic II lab at ISU) or dropping the crystal directly into the solution.

Notice the liquid at the top and solid at the bottom. Science is amazing!

And also incredibly phallic at times...

Now, you may be asking yourself, 'What could possibly be the application of making penis shaped sculptures in chemistry class?' None really. However, the crystalisation of sodium acetate is extremely exothermic. That is, it releases a lot of heat. Enough to change the temperature upwards of thirteen degrees or more. This principle is used in some handwarmers and those of us who live in colder climes are all too familiar with. If you have a hand warmer that operates by popping a disc inside the chances of it also containing sodium acetate are pretty good. See, popping the disc gives a place for the crystals to start forming. As they form they release energy in the form of heat which one can then use to warm up. The nice thing about these hand warmers is that they are totally reusable. All you really have to do is drop them into a pot of warm water and allow the heat to liquefy the crystals again and then allow them to cool back down.

Anywho, science lesson over. On to show and tell.

A few weeks ago I was walking back up to my home after a long day of work and decided to take the longer, less steep route up to my abode. There's a path you walk up and I was lucky enough to stumble upon the carcass of a monkey in the middle of the road.

Warning, gross picture above!... whoops, too late

Typically, I would be somewhat saddened to see an animal torn apart like this, but as anyone who has lived with real monkeys knows (the Man in the Yellow Hat does NOT count. Besides, George had no tail, I'm more inclined to believe he was a chimp and not a monkey.) monkey's are evil! Therefore, I was less than saddened at the sight. However, I then realised that something had to have done this to the monkey. What could have though? My first thought was LEOPARD! Now, I have seen a leopard skulking around my area of habitation before and I know that there have been numerous sightings just up the hill from me but I never got to see damage. The monkey was torn apart and these guys are vicious and resilient. You have to be a tough guy to tear apart a monkey.

I'm hoping it was one of the dogs from next door...

We also had our advisor night. I took my ten kids (now five boys and five girls since two girls went on exchange this semester) up to the top of the hill to Char Dukan (not sure if I'm spelling it right) which literally means four shops. There are four shops at which you can get food, tuck (snacks), etc. The kids enjoyed the night, ate way too much, and played some games.

We also recently had our annual school cross country races up at the top of the hill. I made the mistake of deciding to run this year without having run since being back to India. I finished the race (something like 5miles) but realised just how difficult it is. I came in almost last but I'm sticking to the fact that I was wrangling up the stragglers and 'encouraging' them (much in the same way as one of those big with no shirt on 'encourages' the rowers on those old-timey warships). I was sore as heck afterwards but I felt accomplished.



The same night as the cross country I had a few boys over for dinner. All kids I had last year in tenth grade. One of the boys organised it and invited ten others over. Now, I'm considered a sexist by the girls and racist by they Koreans b/c neither of their respective groups were represented that evening. I just can't win.

This is the food we had. A veritable feast of delicious food. We ordered from Kalsang's, a restaurant notorious for improper handling of food and making everyone sick. I eat there a lot and have never been sick (knock on wood). We had momos, a type of Tibetan dumpling made of meat, veggies, and spices wrapped in dough and steamed; shaptek (again, spelling?) a spicy meat dish; dingmos, steamed Tibetan bread; and various other things ranging from chips to smoked chicken. I literally had a bag of chips left at the end of the night.

We had fun eating, talking and watching The Last of the Mohicans (we couldn't decide what to watch so I put this in). Nothing like Natty Bumpo to make a good party a GREAT party.

Also big in the news here at Woodstock is that our gym has finally opened up. We had a big ceremony with all of the pomp and circumstance for the opening of a long anticipated building. You see, the gym project began 10 years ago but got held up in legal issues and only last year on Independence Day was construction finally able to begin. A little more than a year later the school finally has a gym again complete with basketball court, locker rooms, a climbing wall, weights room, and squash court. A building of this caliber is really unheard of in India. The kids are loving it and I'll probably be more motivated to do more exercising than just walking home if I can just hop over to the gym in the evening and do a little work out. Old teachers, donors, and alumni showed up for the opening and got special gifts of flowers and shawls.


The big guest though, was WS's own mascot, the tiger. As far as I know he has no name but the kids loved him. I got a kick out the fact that roar was actually a tiger's mating call.

Hey, wha's happenin' hotstuff?

And so the first quarter of a new school year ends on Wednesday. Lots of staff and students are going for trips over the extended weekend. I'm going to stay around the area and work relax. Maybe I'll do some day hikes in the area and hang out with others still on the hillside. I'll also begin looking up schools in Europe, Turkey, Hong Kong, and Korea. I think I've narrowed it down to those four places for my next excursion.

Grad school isn't out yet though I doubt I'll be able to make it for next year's session. I think I've finally decided what I'd like to go in for. I'd most like to do some work with implementing more instrumentation into high school labs. A lot of places use data collecting probes but I'd like to see if there wouldn't be a cheaper, easier way to get that out there.

Also, monsoon has ended. The ferns on the hillside have all turned brown and withered a sure sign that the rains and humidity are gone. It's sad because for as much hassle as it is keeping things dry and mold free in monsoon, the beauty of the hillside really comes out in the mist and rains. The colours are lush and vibrant and everything just feels alive. It will be nice, however, to be able to keep the green outside and not so much on my cushions or in my pipes.

Well, enough procrastination. I have to get comments written and grades finished. Enjoy this sunset while I work.

I am my father's child

I've always felt like I am a miniature version of my father. We both love scouting, Eagle Scouts, the whole chemistry thing, MTU (hey, a year still counts), &c.

Well, this past week I think it really solidified things. In my tenth grade IGCSE class we were discussing some covalent molecules. Ammonia was one of them. As we discussed the shape and arrangement of electrons and then went on to talk about some uses. They came up with the usual: fertilizers, cleaning supplies. I prompted them by asking if there were any boxing fans (surprisingly there was at least one in each class) and proceeded to ask them what they do to a boxer when he gets knocked out and they can't wake him up. After a bit more prompting they came up with smelling salts. Now, anyone who has opened a bottle of ammonia (even the diluted solutions you buy in the stores) knows that it has a characteristic smell and the vapours make your nostrils burn and your eyes water.

As fate would have it, there were quite a few kids who didn't know what it smelled like. So, of course, I rummaged through the store room to find some. The stuff I got was pretty concentrated lab grade stuff. So, as soon as I opened the bottle my eyes and nostrils are burning and figure this won't do. I pour about 10mL into a 50mL beaker and keep my hand covering it so that the fumes don't get to me. I slowly walk around the room wafting the vapours to the students who all have the same reaction: to squish up their faces like Andy Rooney and quickly turn away. After I get through about half of the class (and as I'm right in the middle of the room) I accidentally hit the beaker as I waft towards some more students and the whole thing falls to the floor and shatters sending 10mL of ammonia all over the floor and the vapours immediately begin to diffuse throughout the entire place. I send one kid to get a broom, another to turn on the fume hood and one last one to open all the windows.

I got it all cleaned up but the entire time all I could think of the phone ringing at home during dinner and the person on the other end saying, "Charlie, we need you to come back to the plant, we got an ammonia leak."

"An ammonia leak!"

I am my father's son.


Note: I figured that this is really only funny to my brothers and sister so a bit of explanation might be in order. You see, my father is a retired chemical engineer. He used to work at plant in town that manufactured shortening and salad dressings. During my childhood I can remember my dad coming home after a long day's work only to receive a call (inevitably during dinner) saying that there was an ammonia leak out at the plant and they needed him to come back in and help take care of things. It's become a bit of a joke between us now and I feel like I've come full circle.

Relationships

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My Birthday or Moldovan Independence Day

Thursday was indeed a milestone. Not only did it mark the beginning of the twenty-fifth year my beautiful face gracing this good Earth, but it also marks the anniversary of the independence of Moldova.

For those of you not hibby the shibby on Moldova, allow me to help you out a bit. First of all, Moldova is located in eastern Europe. It is a tiny little, landlocked country nestled between Romania and Ukraine. It's the same region as Wallachia and all that jazz. Being an old Soviet Bloc nation, Moldova was hit hard by the downfall of the USSR. Currently, they are the poorest nation in Europe.

That brings me to fond memories of camp. See, each year we would get exchange scouts from all over the globe. Germany, South Africa, Serbia, you name it. Well, as it turns out we had one scout visit us all the way from Moldova. A sweet, innocent, angel who just wanted a fun international experience. Well, as luck would have it, I was Dumitrita's boss at camp. Now, I love working with the international scouts but sometimes I get a bit carried away. Case in point, Chris, a buddy of mine, and I laid into her one week at camp. We made bad jokes at her expense. Things like, "In US of A, your money say, 'In God We Trust.' In Moldova, WE HAVE NO MONEY!" We took it so far as to kidnap the camp's mascot, a rubber chicken named 'Cluck Norris' and framed her by planting a ransom note in broken eastern European English.

Anywho, back to the country at hand. Moldova holds a distinction shared by only one other country, that country being Paraguay. That is, Moldova's flag is different on either side. The obverse shows a blue, yellow, and red tricolour (much like the flag of neighbouring country, Romania) with the coat of arms of Moldova in the centre. The reverse contains only the tricolour.

Obverse.

Reverse.

The majority of you out there in cyber-space fairy land probably know Moldova best as the homeland for hit boyband O-Zone. Their biggest hit, Dragosta Din Tei, was featured on the hit viral video Numa Numa.

Here's to you Moldova! You chose a damn good day for independence. I raise my glass and have a drink for you.

Jai Hind!

Today, August 15 2009, marks the 62nd celebration of India as an independent state. We gathered at the school this morning to take part in the traditional flag raising ceremony. Due to Independence Day being in the middle of August and therefore monsoons, we got rained out and had the festivities in our auditorium. Things were a bit cramped but worked out nicely. We had a guest speaker and a traditional song before the student who has been at school the longest unfurled the flag and we all stood at attention while singing Jana Gana Mana, the national anthem. I have a few photos from the day but I didn't realise that my battery was so low and it died on me without a spare. An interesting note, today is also South Korea's independence day. Due the large numbers of Korean students at the school there was the singing of the Korean national anthem along with a traditional dance.

The Indian music students performing a traditional song along with some staff.

And so, the school year has begun. We just finished our first eight day cycle. So far, I am enjoying myself. It really feels like a majority of the staff has not let the drama of last year get in their way. That's good because I feel like we're focusing on what we all came here for, the kids. Teaching seems a bit easier this year. Probably has something to do with the fact that I'm not planning quite so much since I have all of my notes from last year. Now I'm just trying to organise things into a coherent curriculum that I can pass on should I leave Woodstock when my contract runs out and that I can use elsewhere. My application for the DOD schools has finally been completed and approved. I'll begin looking elsewhere as well. I'd like to stay international for a while and gain a large scope of culture and experiences from across the globe. More updates regarding that as they arise.

On a completely different note, I went into the bazaar last night. I've gotten around to organising a weekly get together at one of the local watering holes and decided to go in a bit early. I had a few errands to run. Stuff like paying for my new lab coat (which looks pretty stellar), shopping for an external hard drive, and going to the local book store. See, last year Mike got me hooked on comics again. Sure, I have picked up a few over the years but nothing quite like this now. Anywho, I went to the local bookstore and began by looking for some Kurt Vonnegut. I picked Breakfast of Champions from the school library and so far am really enjoying it. Anywho, I was going to pick up a few books by him when I started just browsing. Let's just say that I got distracted and ended up picking up two comic books and two Roald Dahl books. Oh well, at least I'm reading.

That's all for now. Here's a couple of random pictures.

My Summer

Well, I did not really post a lot over the summer holidays. Can you blame me? I was on vacation and keeping this thing up is a lot like work. I'm back in Mussoorie for those not in the know. I'm currently poisoning my fruits with a little KMnO4 to make them edible. Odd isn't it? That's what makes this place home. The little things like that. Anywho, on to the summer.

What I did

Well, as soon as the meetings were finished I caught a taxi with three other people and made the haul down to Delhi. Now, Delhi is about as far from Mussoorie as Chicago is from Jacksonville. That's about a four hour drive in the states. Of course, things could never be that simple here in India. The drive is super bumpy. The roads are full of all sorts of things: cars, carts, tractors, animals, people. There are even trees that literally grow out of the pavement. The drive is also a little over eight hours. Eight, bumpy hours.

Well, travel was travel and I ended up in Charlotte, NC a little later the same day I left Delhi even though the flight was something like 17 hours long. Racheal was the only one to greet me at the airport because apparently Cindy came up and kidnapped Kaylee and Mike was too busy dorking out at his comic convention to care. Well, I got showered as Mike eventually showed up and we three decided to get me some food (a burger from Five Guys). We proceeded to tour the happenin' Sunday night downtown scene while waiting to go to a soul-food place for second dinners. I had a wonderful plate of macaroni and cheese, pulled pork, and stewed apples. Of course things were made much more interesting by the fact that one of the gals working at the restaurant changed channels to TLC right at the moment of a birth. I'm sure Racheal's salmon cakes tasted that much sweeter.

Well, the week was spent at a lake house we rented. I did a lot of sleeping, playing with nieces, eating pork and beef, visiting aunts and grammas, having gastro-intestinal problems due to said beef and pork, etc. All in all it was a great week and I had a lot of fun. Probably one of the best things was renting a boat and tubing. Personally, I didn't tube. I did, however, have a great time lounging in the boat watching dad unsuccessfully attempt to climb in the tube.

This man was once in the NAVY disarming bombs and protecting us from commies named 'Charlie.' How's your confidence in the world's greatest military now?

A not too uncommon sight at the house. Dads and uncles are great for playing on. Especially when they make forts for you out of couches.

Easily my favourite picture from the vacation.

This is me helping Becky and Matt make chicken and dumplings. I'm the one watching Mike play with my new toy, a Bamboo tablet to draw on the computer with. People say we look alike. I'm still on the fence about it.

Another relatively common scene. Cousins love playing together. Most of the time.

I spent the next week at home. Not much of note to write about. It was mostly hanging around the house, organizing my things and seeing friends. One evening I got to go out to dinner with Mr Musch, my high school chemistry teacher and part of my inspiration for becoming a chemistry teacher myself.

This man was my inspiration?

The week after I spent in Chicago at Loyola's lakeshore campus taking a class on teaching AP Chemistry. It was interesting but didn't quite cover everything I would have liked. I met some interesting people though. One guy was working with the DOD in Korea and another was working in Columbia last year and was now moving to Saudi Arabia. We all bonded a bit and were even lab partners. Sadly, I did not bring my camera with me so I don't have any photos of my dorm room overlooking Lake Michigan, Loyola's beautiful campus, or Chicago at night from the top of the Hancock Building.

The last week was rather boring. I was back in Jacksonville and just about everyone was gone. My buddy Barrett made a good observation that every time I leave to go somewhere, be it college, India, or wherever, I am always left by myself the night before I go and he's always with me. Not always true, but pretty close. Some other highlights I had from my time in Jacksonville: clothes shopping with Cindy, dinners with my friend Trena, hanging out with my other friend Sarah, and being disgusted by Charles and Erin being all 'I'm gonna hit you playfully and cute stuff like that' on the couch as I sit right next to them. I also started filling out my application to the DOD. I've not decided yet whether or not I'll stay at Woodstock for a third year but I figured now would be the time to at least start dropping hints to places I'd like to go.

Before I left last summer Sarah and I agreed that she would knit me a scarf and I would make her a stuffed animal. Well, neither of us did. She decided she wanted a squirrel so the picture above is the result of a long night's work. I still don't have a scarf.

I also got the chance to make it down to camp twice to see some friends. I was lucky enough to make it down one night as they revealed a rock. Seriously.

Here are some pictures I've done using my new tablet. This first one is obviously Leonardo from the TMNT comics, not the tv show.

This one is of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man battling the two-headed troll dragon thing from the end of Willow.

What I Read

I brought a few books with me to read while home. I started a collection of Sherlock Holmes while on the plane. It's an interesting read but not really my favourite.

I'm sure that most people who read this blog are aware that I thoroughly enjoy a good comic and that was what I really ended up reading the most this summer. Mike was a good big brother and graciously picked up the first four collections of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics for me. They're a bit darker and grittier than the cartoon. Definitely more like the first movie. Also, collections of the other books would be great if anyone wanted to help ensure a young chemistry teacher in India was able to keep his sanity.

I also picked up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Dark Knight Returns, and Batman: The Long Halloween. All are good books in their own ways. TLEG does a great job of taking Victorian era literary stars and teaming them up as a gang of superheroes. The little nods here and there to other works of the era are fun to figure out. TDKR was a grim and gritty look at Batman. It's easy to see how it helped turn comics from a child centered medium to one with more adult themes. You wouldn't see Adam West's Batman snapping the Joker's neck. OOPS! Spoilers! C'mon, the books been out for 23 years. TLH takes the gritty Batman created earlier and gives more insight to his back story (and also Two Face's). The ending is a bit ambiguous as to who is the Holiday Killer but I'm pretty convinced it's Dent.

Anywho, I wouldn't come to India unprepared as I await Mike's next shipment of books. That's why before I left I picked up the complete collection of Bone. To paraphrase Mike, 'It's like The Lord of the Rings meets Peanuts.' I'm a little over half way through this massive volume and am truly enjoying it. It's a very interesting read and I'm starting to rush through the rest of this post so that I can read some more before bed.

So, that was my summer in a very quick round up. School starts Wednesday. I'm getting ready. This past week we have been in meetings just about the entire time. Some of the kids are here already and the rest will be filing in over the next few days. I'm looking forward to seeing them again.