One day, after returning from a weekend in Edmonton, a student and I got into a discussion on how to get rid of people who come to your door, trying to convert you. How did we get onto this topic? Over the weekend, I had answered the door to my parent's place and, standing there, were two eager individuals, waiting to save my immortal soul. However, they took one look at me, excused themselves, and left. Why, you may ask? It may have had something to do with the fact that I was wearing a shirt that read "Evil Mutant Science Teacher."
So, back at school, I was telling my students this story, expressing my pleasure in how effective the shirt was for warding off unwanted evangelizers. That's when Anne proposed another method for getting rid of them: using the Force. Simple enough. "You don't want to convert me. You want to go convert someone else." (Obi Wan voice and hand actions included, of course).
My next suggestion was to keep a physics textbook next to the door and before they got going say "Wait! First, a reading from my bible. The book of Einstein, chapter 4, verse 2: And Einstein sayeth 'e=mc2'."
Anne then told me about her dad's preferred method: open the door, and before they can say anything you say "Did you know that God is a girl and his name is Eros? Well God is a girl and his name is Eros. Do you have faith? All is lost without faith. I sure feel sorry for you if you don't have faith!"
However, I will say that the prize for best way to handle door-to-door converters goes to Pamela, who, instead of turning them away, agrees to listen as long as they do her housework. Well played!
Life Lesson: There is always a beneficial solution to a problem. You just have to get a little creative.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Escape Hamster Variable
Part way through my first year of teaching, I acquired a hamster for my classroom. She had belonged to one of the foreign students who was with us for a few months, and when he left, she came to live at the school. Originally, her name was Ham. Thinking that wasn't all that original, I changed her name to Tantalum, after the element.
Well, who knew that naming a hamster would cause so much controversy. Ryan lead the great hamster name rebellion, actually getting the majority of the students in the school to sign a petition to change her name. He succeeded, but only to the point where we did change her name. His ultimate goal was to get her named Optimus Prime. Seeing that she was a she, I pointed out that her name would have to be Optima Prime. After an extensive vote, we ended up naming her Petri LeBonbon.
Now, I am convinced that Petri was Houdini in a past life. In the time I had her, she had three different cages, and managed to escape all of them. Her first cage was the traditional wire kind. It wasn't long before she learned how to pop the front latch on it, and was escaping regularly. After we realized what she was doing, we wired that hatch shut, and just used the top one. Well, didn't she go and learn how to scale the cage, use her back paws to pop the top latch, and then flip herself out. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it possible. That particular stunt earned Petri the nickname SpiderHamster. Once she learned how to open the top hatch, it was time for a new cage. This time, we got her a plastic one with pods and tubes for her to run around in.
Around this time, she went to live in the 1-2-3 classroom for a few days. One day, Julie (the teacher) came in an found one of the latched was popped open, and Petri was gone. Julie was so afraid that we would end up finding Petri's skeletal remains in one of the elementary classes that she came in over the weekend and spent hours moving everything around in the school, trying to find Petri. Eventually, Julie found her under a bookshelf in the Library, which it turned out was her favourite hiding spot (and the first one we checked whenever she escaped after that).
One of my favourite escapes happened one day while I was cleaning Petri's cage. Whenever I cleaned the cage, I was in the habit of putting Petri in her hamster ball to run around. The whole time she was in there, she would roll around the room (and hallway if I opened the door), banging into whatever was in her way. One day, as I was cleaning the cage, there was more banging than usual. And then suddenly, I noticed that the banging stopped. I looked over, and there was an open, and empty, hamster ball. Petri had managed to hit the hamster ball into the wall so hard, the lid had popped off. That was the end of unsupervised hamster ball time.
Petri got her third home as a result of one of her unfinished escape attempts. Because we had become so diligent about making sure every latch was secure, Petri had started tunnelling out of her cage. Seriously. I discovered this one day when I was cleaning it, and realized that she had chewed through the plastic. She had done so much chewing, that when I went to put the cage back together, several of the connections collapsed. Her third cage actually outlasted her. She passed away over the summer holidays two years ago.
When we came back to school in the fall, the kids were after me to get another hamster, and having the cage and supplies already, I agreed. This time we got a male hamster. Have you ever seen a male hamster? They have the freakiest external genitalia I have ever seen. Let me put it this way - if human males were proportioned the same way, hammer pants would never have gone out of style. I know I teach sex ed, but having to explain testicles to a grade 2 student is not something I enjoy doing. Naturally, if I every get another hamster, it is going to be female.
Anyway, our new hamster, D'Artagnon, must have escaped from Krypton or something. One week after we got him, he Superman-ed the bars on his cage, and escaped. Unfortunately, D'Artangon, and D'Artagnon 2.0 were not very long-lived (each survived only 3 weeks). However, each one managed to escape the cage no less than 5 times.
Life Lesson: Determination - everyone has it.
Well, who knew that naming a hamster would cause so much controversy. Ryan lead the great hamster name rebellion, actually getting the majority of the students in the school to sign a petition to change her name. He succeeded, but only to the point where we did change her name. His ultimate goal was to get her named Optimus Prime. Seeing that she was a she, I pointed out that her name would have to be Optima Prime. After an extensive vote, we ended up naming her Petri LeBonbon.
Now, I am convinced that Petri was Houdini in a past life. In the time I had her, she had three different cages, and managed to escape all of them. Her first cage was the traditional wire kind. It wasn't long before she learned how to pop the front latch on it, and was escaping regularly. After we realized what she was doing, we wired that hatch shut, and just used the top one. Well, didn't she go and learn how to scale the cage, use her back paws to pop the top latch, and then flip herself out. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it possible. That particular stunt earned Petri the nickname SpiderHamster. Once she learned how to open the top hatch, it was time for a new cage. This time, we got her a plastic one with pods and tubes for her to run around in.
Around this time, she went to live in the 1-2-3 classroom for a few days. One day, Julie (the teacher) came in an found one of the latched was popped open, and Petri was gone. Julie was so afraid that we would end up finding Petri's skeletal remains in one of the elementary classes that she came in over the weekend and spent hours moving everything around in the school, trying to find Petri. Eventually, Julie found her under a bookshelf in the Library, which it turned out was her favourite hiding spot (and the first one we checked whenever she escaped after that).
One of my favourite escapes happened one day while I was cleaning Petri's cage. Whenever I cleaned the cage, I was in the habit of putting Petri in her hamster ball to run around. The whole time she was in there, she would roll around the room (and hallway if I opened the door), banging into whatever was in her way. One day, as I was cleaning the cage, there was more banging than usual. And then suddenly, I noticed that the banging stopped. I looked over, and there was an open, and empty, hamster ball. Petri had managed to hit the hamster ball into the wall so hard, the lid had popped off. That was the end of unsupervised hamster ball time.
Petri got her third home as a result of one of her unfinished escape attempts. Because we had become so diligent about making sure every latch was secure, Petri had started tunnelling out of her cage. Seriously. I discovered this one day when I was cleaning it, and realized that she had chewed through the plastic. She had done so much chewing, that when I went to put the cage back together, several of the connections collapsed. Her third cage actually outlasted her. She passed away over the summer holidays two years ago.
When we came back to school in the fall, the kids were after me to get another hamster, and having the cage and supplies already, I agreed. This time we got a male hamster. Have you ever seen a male hamster? They have the freakiest external genitalia I have ever seen. Let me put it this way - if human males were proportioned the same way, hammer pants would never have gone out of style. I know I teach sex ed, but having to explain testicles to a grade 2 student is not something I enjoy doing. Naturally, if I every get another hamster, it is going to be female.
Anyway, our new hamster, D'Artagnon, must have escaped from Krypton or something. One week after we got him, he Superman-ed the bars on his cage, and escaped. Unfortunately, D'Artangon, and D'Artagnon 2.0 were not very long-lived (each survived only 3 weeks). However, each one managed to escape the cage no less than 5 times.
Life Lesson: Determination - everyone has it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)