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

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

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

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

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

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?

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 non-Spanish speakers, 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

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

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...

...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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

"Toppings!"
-Bridget on ice cream

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

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

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

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

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

IAtionary: Grammage

Gram-mage [GRAM ij] n.

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


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

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

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

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

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

et cetera

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

IAtionary: Philosophizer

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

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

Language of Origin: Wolfian

IAtionary: Paradoxidigm

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

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

Language of Origin: Super-Dhooperan

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

eXDee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iambic Pentameter: Results

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

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

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

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

Iambic Pentameter

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

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

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

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

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

IAtionary: Death Energy

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

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

Language of Origin: Lyonese

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

Curves

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


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


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

Thanks to Justine and Moose for the screen shots.

Let's be realistic

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


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

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

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!

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?

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"

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.