A A A Handbag?

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

Se Busca

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


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


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

A few days later, I returned and found this:


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

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

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

Free Flip Video Cameras!

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

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

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

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

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


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

Brian: It's not even funny...

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

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

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

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

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

Nick: In Soviet Russia, equation differentiate you!

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

Brian: Your jokes are below average.

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

Brian: lmfao at IB1 Physics A2 = Soviet Russia

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

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

Brian: Wait, Ms. Gibson bothers you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brian: Where did you find these?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

IAtionary: Symbolic Symbol

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

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

Language of Origin: Majaskean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IAtionary: Racial Test

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

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

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

A Strange Game

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

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

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


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