Redacted Statement

How many times have you seen the moon and thought: how lovely. Right? How many times have you seen the moon and thought: that's a waxing gibbous, it rose at about 3 pm?

. . . You don't think that?

Well, I do and I guess I shouldn't have to apologize on my own blog for being a nerd.

When I see the moon I'm sometimes a little O.C.D. about identifying the phase it's in and thinking about what time it rose and when it will set. Yes, it's embarrassing but I really am just that nerdy.

*Alert* *Alert* *Alert*

This blog is about to get even nerdier. Nerdier that it has EVER been. Ever.

My sister's husband was watching Star Wars last night. As I wandered into the room and looked at the screen I saw this scene.

Being a nerd who loves moon phases. (As previously discussed). I quickly saw a problem. This is a sunset. The moon on the right of the screen is clearly a waning crescent.

I stood there thinking for a moment and said to my brother in law: That planet and its moon must rotate in the opposite direction of earth.

Quick refresher on moon phases: A moon like that would only be visible in the early predawn, rising a few hours before the sun and then disappearing as the sun gets brighter and brighter. By the time the sun set the moon would have set several hours before.

I walked out of the room thinking this was just one more reason that no one should ever watch those new Star Wars movies.

Just to reassure as well as recap:

Reasons to watch the original Star Wars

1. Han Solo

2. Princess Leia

3. Chewbacca

Reasons to watch the new Star Wars

1. Ewan McGregor

2. no other reason exists

So as I was driving home from their house I started thinking about what that would mean for Earth if she were to rotate in the opposite direction. What that would do to the coriolis effect and ocean currents. How the western side of continents, instead of the eastern side, would be

greener. The sun would travel across the sky in the opposite direction and the moon would wax from left to right.

It was a very satisfying thought process and dialog inside my head. Then my thoughts wandered to the southern hemisphere and I began thinking how the sun would travel across the sky from left to right (as it is normally observed in the North) instead of from right to left as it does now. When it struck me that I had overlooked the most obvious explanation of the movie scene. Coruscant rotates in the same direction as Earth but Obi-wan Kenobi and Qui-gon Jinn were in the southern hemisphere. Duh.

You'd think someone who lived in New Zealand for a year wouldn't suffer so acutely from hemisphere prejudice. I still suffer from an acute case of don't-watch-the-new-star-wars but I can't cite that they got the wrong moon phase as evidence to support my argument anymore.

Good thing the internet was quickly able to confirm my realization that I am not as smart as I think I am. *sigh*

Taken from this website.
From the southern hemisphere the moon looks like this:

Instead of like this:

In other news this little beauty has been hanging in my room all week, delighting me to no end:

A lovely Christmas present from my friend Jen. Get your own from here.

Merry Christmas from Middle Earth

I'm so excited for this movie!

Christmas!

I don't know when I've been as excited for Christmas as I am this year. Maybe it's because I started listening to Christmas music the weekend of Thanksgiving and never stopped. But I bought my first tree ever and decorated it. It's a sad, sorry little tree that doesn't stand up straight because I bought a tree stand for a much bigger tree. But I cut it down MYSELF. With my very own little muscles. With a saw. By myself. I know, very impressive.

I only had three ornaments, so I bought a bunch of chocolate Santas and tied them on. It's festive and has a future promise of delicious snacks on clean-up Christmas day. There are enough lights for air traffic control on the top and none on the bottom 1/3 because I didn't plan very well. But I keep resisting the urge to fix it because it cracks me up.

Also the star on top is a mirror ball because stars are spherical.

My tree reminds me of myself: cheerful, hopeful, and just glad to be along for the ride.

Also, this:

May your days be merry and bright and your nights silent and holy.

It's Easy Being Mean

Ok, so here's how it went down. I brought some liquid nitrogen to school. And right now I know the 8th grader in your soul is jumping up and down with excitement and interrupting me already so let's pause the story right now and answer the questions:

1. Yes, you can buy liquid nitrogen.

2. I don't know if they sell it to kids, you might have to take your parents and convince them to buy it for you.

3. It's free if you have connections, you just give them a $600 deposit for the container and they give you your money back when you bring it back.

4. No, liquid nitrogen is not radioactive. It's just nitrogen, but really, really cold. That's why it's liquid.

5. I know, right?! This is going to be so cool.

6. Ok kids, put on your safety goggles.

I started by pouring some liquid nitrogen into a styrofoam container and put a balloon in it. It deflated immediately but when I pulled it out with tongs it inflated right back up. It was pretty cool.

Then I tossed some mini marshmallows in and after pulling them out with the tongs, I crushed them up with a hammer. Everyone was delighted by this. Then I popped one in my mouth and when I opened my mouth "smoke" came billowing out. Everyone had to try this, so that took a few minutes. I could have ended it right there and been the best science teacher ever. But I had a few tricks up my sleeve; up my glove actually. Literally. Seriously.

I had a hot dog stuffed into the thumb spot of my glove. As I was setting up the next demo I let my “thumb” drop into the liquid nitrogen; it starting fizzy and bubbling and boiling away and freezing the hot dog solid. I made a few comments about how cold it was. “Oh wow, I can’t even feel my thumb anymore, it’s completely numb!”

So I pulled it out of the Nitrogen and set my hand on the counter. Then I picked up the hammer and sort of pushed it against my thumb and continued to exclaim that I couldn’t feel anything at all. Then I raised that hammer up into the air and smashed it down on the “thumb” and all heck broke loose. The glove and bits of frozen hot dog exploded into the air and rained down out onto the counter and floor around it. Before I even smashed it down though I was laughing and smiling and as it was smashing I was already saying things like it’s just a joke, it’s not real. I think only about 10 of the kids thought it was real and only for about 2 seconds. But it was AWESOME. Also, super mean.

I quickly won them over when I pulled a carton of ice cream mix onto the counter and made chocolate ice cream. I certainly wouldn’t say every day of science is this exciting but we have a good time in there.

Here's a pic of me mixing the ice cream with a flat butter knife, I tried to use a spoon but it didn't really work because the top froze solid when I poured the liquid nitrogen into the ice cream. I was using the knife to poke holes into the ice to get down into the liquid ice cream below. It took a second dose of nitrogen and a lot of stirring but it tasted great. Very smooth and creamy.

Fan Car

Although I enjoy being a teacher, I dislike going to teacher development trainings. Usually I am bored and keep thinking of all the other things I need to be doing in my classroom. Or in my life. Or just trying to stay awake enough to not annoy the presenter.

Last Friday I went to a science teacher training and was not as bored as usual. They gave us science equipment to play with, which dramatically increased my interest level. They had good snacks which dramatically decreased my grumpiness level.

Here is a fan car we were instructed to make:

But I made this:

Faster. Smarter. Better.

The fan on the left side had a slightly stronger battery or perhaps a faster motor than the other side so the car had a slight rightward veering motion when it was fully operational and cruising around the hallway.

I’m not going to lie to you, the rest of the training was pretty typical and uneventful, but this one bright spot made the other 7 hours not quite as tedious. Go Science!!!