Thursday, August 31, 2006
I think I already wrote about this and I may be repeating myself word for word, but that is a problem I have and there isn't much I can do about it. If you get a chance to talk to me for longer than 4 minutes, you'll notice I repeat myself constantly. Rory and Sachin can probably attest to this. The worst is my habit of saying something like,
Me: "Oh my god, did I tell you that the other day this guy totally got tackled by 2 secret service agents in the park and then somehow he escaped on foot while screaming something about the president??
Person I'm with: "Yes, you've told me that already. In fact I'm the one that told you about the guy in the first place. And like I told you 10 times, it didn't happen for real, it was an episode of 24."
Me: "Oh yeah. Well did I tell you about the time I was working on a chocolate candy assembly line and the candies started coming too fast and my friend Ethel and I had to start shoving them down our shirts?”
Person: "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I beat you into a bloody, cowering mass of mangled flesh?"
Me: "No... was that on CSI last night? I didn't get to tape it."
Well anyway, like I've said before...I'm nervous about school starting. It's this coming Tuesday! Sure, I have my nerdy little backpack and my lab goggles and my Trapper Keeper and my Caboodles for all my pens and stuff...but I still feel unprepared. Eek! I'm most freaked about physics. I already took Physics once back in HS and I somehow passed physics with a B. Of course it wasn't a legitimate B. It was a B graced by the most forgiving grading curve in the history of education. If you applied that curve to Rob Schneider, he’d come out as George Clooney. Ok, no he wouldn’t. Nothing on this planet could help that poor leprechaun. But the point is…I completely did not earn my grade. Which was fine for me at the time, but now I realize that I retained nothing from that class. In fact, I think I actually regressed a bit. By the end of the year, I forgot which end of the fork to use when eating. I almost lost an eye thanks to that.
This problem all started when my physics teacher came in on the first day of class and said something to the effect of, "Guys brains are wired differently than girls...so guys will inherently understand physics better.” Now, I loved Mr. Serrapere. He was probably my favorite teacher, next to Mr. Edelman. (I guess I had a thing for older men whose teaching styles were shaped by alcohol, nicotine and the part of the 60s when no one bathed.) Anyway, I loved Mr. S but once he said that, my brain took that as a cue to exit, stage left. "It's not physically possible for me to understand this stuff? Well fuck this, I'm out. I'll see you at lunch...I think it's Pizza Hut pizza day, woohoo!" Mmmm. Brain like pizza.
Physics was the one subject I encountered that actually rendered me cross-eyed. With every other subject in high school, it was all a matter of how much I applied myself. It wasn't that the material was too challenging, it was that I was too lazy. But some concepts in physics were literally beyond my mental grasp. It was like teaching a fish to sing. I just. didn't. get. it. My physics homework took me weeks and most of my answers to test questions broke the laws of time and space. Yet, as I already mentioned, I still passed.
At the time I thanked the gods of public school mediocrity. But now as school approaches yet again, I'm thinking that it was probably bad that I was able to spend an entire year in a class and come out confused about gravity. To this day I’m fuzzy on the details. It involves fruit, I think. Or Fig Newtons? I dunno, it doesn’t cost anything, so I don’t worry about it. I'll let you know what I find out in class, in case you are all confused too.
Me: "Oh my god, did I tell you that the other day this guy totally got tackled by 2 secret service agents in the park and then somehow he escaped on foot while screaming something about the president??
Person I'm with: "Yes, you've told me that already. In fact I'm the one that told you about the guy in the first place. And like I told you 10 times, it didn't happen for real, it was an episode of 24."
Me: "Oh yeah. Well did I tell you about the time I was working on a chocolate candy assembly line and the candies started coming too fast and my friend Ethel and I had to start shoving them down our shirts?”
Person: "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I beat you into a bloody, cowering mass of mangled flesh?"
Me: "No... was that on CSI last night? I didn't get to tape it."
Well anyway, like I've said before...I'm nervous about school starting. It's this coming Tuesday! Sure, I have my nerdy little backpack and my lab goggles and my Trapper Keeper and my Caboodles for all my pens and stuff...but I still feel unprepared. Eek! I'm most freaked about physics. I already took Physics once back in HS and I somehow passed physics with a B. Of course it wasn't a legitimate B. It was a B graced by the most forgiving grading curve in the history of education. If you applied that curve to Rob Schneider, he’d come out as George Clooney. Ok, no he wouldn’t. Nothing on this planet could help that poor leprechaun. But the point is…I completely did not earn my grade. Which was fine for me at the time, but now I realize that I retained nothing from that class. In fact, I think I actually regressed a bit. By the end of the year, I forgot which end of the fork to use when eating. I almost lost an eye thanks to that.
This problem all started when my physics teacher came in on the first day of class and said something to the effect of, "Guys brains are wired differently than girls...so guys will inherently understand physics better.” Now, I loved Mr. Serrapere. He was probably my favorite teacher, next to Mr. Edelman. (I guess I had a thing for older men whose teaching styles were shaped by alcohol, nicotine and the part of the 60s when no one bathed.) Anyway, I loved Mr. S but once he said that, my brain took that as a cue to exit, stage left. "It's not physically possible for me to understand this stuff? Well fuck this, I'm out. I'll see you at lunch...I think it's Pizza Hut pizza day, woohoo!" Mmmm. Brain like pizza.
Physics was the one subject I encountered that actually rendered me cross-eyed. With every other subject in high school, it was all a matter of how much I applied myself. It wasn't that the material was too challenging, it was that I was too lazy. But some concepts in physics were literally beyond my mental grasp. It was like teaching a fish to sing. I just. didn't. get. it. My physics homework took me weeks and most of my answers to test questions broke the laws of time and space. Yet, as I already mentioned, I still passed.
At the time I thanked the gods of public school mediocrity. But now as school approaches yet again, I'm thinking that it was probably bad that I was able to spend an entire year in a class and come out confused about gravity. To this day I’m fuzzy on the details. It involves fruit, I think. Or Fig Newtons? I dunno, it doesn’t cost anything, so I don’t worry about it. I'll let you know what I find out in class, in case you are all confused too.
# posted by yellow_mustard_girl : 3:38 PM
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The curve when I took physics was normally about 70% of whatever I got on the test. So whatever letter comes four before A, that's the grade I got.
I know, I'm awesome.
I know, I'm awesome.
The only things I remember from physics:
fishies
weebles
and
placing the tube connected to the gas in a bath of soapy water, turning the gas on, watching the bubbles float to the ceiling and then lighting them on fire. seriously.
brad anthony, bill pruss, and steve eisenstatt were in my class, and mostly i just talked to them the whole time.
fishies
weebles
and
placing the tube connected to the gas in a bath of soapy water, turning the gas on, watching the bubbles float to the ceiling and then lighting them on fire. seriously.
brad anthony, bill pruss, and steve eisenstatt were in my class, and mostly i just talked to them the whole time.
# posted by 
: 10:47 AM
: 10:47 AM
Hey Emily! I remember fire too! I think it involved filling a box with gas and lighting it on fire...it released a fireball that almost always singed Mr. Serrapere's face. We never had a question about that on the test though. Dammit.
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