The Punniest Class in the World

School is done for the year (and there was much rejoicing!), and I'm regretting how many of the gems from my punniest US history class I didn't record, but here are the top few I remember:

One day I was explaining about how the Nazis were so stylish because Hugo Boss, and to a lesser extent Coco Chanel, designed their uniforms when...

Student A: So you're saying the Nazis had swag?
Me:Oh yeah, they had loads of swag.  They were the sexy men in uniform of the 1930s.
Student B: You mean... swagstikas?

Let's hope the German exchange student visiting us that day understands American humor...

Or the other day when they were trying to convince me to get a Tumblr:

Student: Then you'll learn cool school puns, like how when you get mad you can say "Oedipus!"
Me: Um.... what does Greek tragedy have to do with my anger?
Student: You know, like a school appropriate version of MOTHER EFFER!!!!

The worst part? Now I can't stop saying "Oedipus Rex!" every time I get frustrated.

Wins and Fails of the Epic Variety

First the bad news. Remember those horrible test answers I used to get in Ely? Last week I got a new worst test answer ever.

The questions was an easy one for bonus bonus points: "If you could award a Nobel Peace Prize to anyone we've studied this year, who would you give it to and why?"  The answer (in a US history class, mind you)?  "George Washington, because he was a good leader/general and he helped the North win the Civil War."

*crickets*

And to think... the answer started out so well. 

And now for the good news: two of my AP students made this epic rap battle between Richard Nixon and Andrew Jackson for their final project. It's so awesome and also terrible but the good kind of terrible. Enjoy!

 

Disclaimer for Steve-o: the students in the video are the ones who put it on YouTube, so me reposting it is totally legit. Kthxbai.

Today I learned

why Americans and Europeans use their forks in different hands. Turns out it's because France was only beginning to accept fork usage into polite society when the future US was colonized and gained independence. So in other words, France made up a bunch of rules to make it acceptable, and America liked forks before they were cool.

And also, we possibly eat like Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone. Because we're frontier cool like that.

Happy Valentines Day!

From some of the world's funniest dictators. Enjoy!

Or for the more literary-minded among you:

And I've Never Been to Boston in the Fall!

But I did get to go last summer with my family! I totally forgot that I took my camera on that trip (really? Who wouldn't take a camera with them to New England?) until I got it out for something else just now and found all these pictures. So without further ado, I give you our trip to Boston:

Mom and Aaron and I went on a Duck tour, which is an amphibious tour of the city/harbor in a vintage WWII landing craft. Some of them are more vintage than others, but I took a picture of this one because it looks significantly less ridiculous than the one we rode aboard. We also ate fancy dinner at the hotel that invented Boston Cream Pie, and let me say, it was delicious indeed.

The three of us also walked most of the Freedom Trail through Boston's Revolutionary sites. The picture above is a statue of Paul Revere in the foreground (too bad for the other guy whose last name just didn't rhyme with 'hear'), and the Old North Church in the background (where the signal lanterns went up). In a successful attempt to evade capture for hanging said signal lanterns, the man who hung them jumped out of a second story window and ran away. Way to go!

We also visited Cape Cod where it was great to just lay on the beach and pretend you're rich like a Kennedy. The sand and the water were just gorgeous!

Aaron did studly stuff like dive into one foot deep water and scrape the better part of his stomach off, while Mom and I did studly stuff like not let people take pictures of us in our swim suits.

We were actually staying in New Hampshire near Dad's work, and on the last day we stopped by the Minuteman national park or monument in Lexington or Concord and learned more about that poor guy whose name no one can remember...Revere is just so catchy! Then we went to Walden Pond, and first things first, we need to have a little talk with those New Englanders about what constitutes a 'pond.' It was very relaxing, especially the part where I made my travelling companions listen to the Little Women soundtrack multiple times.

The water level was really high, causing parts of the trail around the pond to be closed off, and apparently causing us to almost match our shirts.

Dad is not a good sport about being photographed, but he was a pretty good sport about the Little Women business, so I guess we'll keep him.

That's My Kind of Failure!

One month ago I took a Praxis II test for Social Studies. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a practice test. It is the teacher equivalent of the bar exam. Except that this is my third one. And I still have to take one more. Anyway, the social studies one was pretty beastly, as in it was a very poorly written test. I also thought I had failed it, so I wondered if my critique was fair. Now that I have a gold embossed certificate declaring me the nation's top scorer, I feel qualified to criticize that sorry excuse for test writing.

What was not the second most important objective of the Crimean War? Anyone? Bueller? How about analyzing the effect of the French Revolution on the Mexican national anthem? If history's not your forte, try naming the three areas of the brain most involved in processing economic thought. In descending order. Anyway, the point is, the test did what all multiple choice tests do: it completely disregarded the test takers' content knowledge (which is ironic because the name of the test is Social Studies: Content Knowledge) and measured only the candidate's multiple choice testing skills. So thank you, federally mandated testing monopoly. Thank you for charging me two hundred dollars to tell me that I am a perfect test taker. Guess I'd better go update my resume!

Getting Quasi Published!

During my last semester at BYU, I worked as a research assistant for a professor who was writing a book about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Germany during the Second World War. I did a little editing and a lot of poring through German microfilms and internet databases trying to track down the fate of soldiers who were listed as MIA. I also got the opportunity to go and help with a few interviews where we met with survivors of the war or their descendents. We listened to their stories, got as much detail as possible so we could compare it to other accounts and verify as much as possible, and took pictures of their old photos and surviving keepsakes. Anyway, the book is finally done and published and will be hitting the shelves on September 21st! I'm pretty stoked! At one point there was talk of crediting all of the research assistants who worked on this project (for we were many), but whether or not that actually happened, I still feel pretty special. Anyone who's interested in more info, or wants to order a copy can visit the publisher's website.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

My mom offered this book to me as a quick, easy, and entertaining read over the long weekend, and it was super fun! It's set in the Channel Islands between England and France in 1946, and the whole thing is written in letters between the various characters. It was engaging, human, and a something I'd recommend to anyone interested in an excellent read!

T minus 71 hours and counting!

I just thought the world should know that I made it through the school year both alive and mostly sane! And there are only 71 more hours left until I move!!!!!

Oh, and the best answer EVER came in on the US history final. The question was about various groups connected with the Civil Rights movement. Drum roll please....
"Well at this time many people hated the Jews, and many blacks were Jews, so they decided to get together and form the Nation of Islam to fight for their right to get abortions."
There you have it: A Muslim is really just a black pro-choice Jew.

I have failed as a history teacher.

Clearly math is not your forte

From an essay on our WWII test "Hitler went all crazy and killed thousands of people, six million of which were Jews."

A face made for radio

And apparently I have one, but not in a bad way. Just in the "KELY and KCLS need a guest political analyst to discuss the nation's budget troubles and the new stimulus and recovery bill" kind of way. I just finished my first 8 minute segment, and I must say, I feel just a little bit famous!

Mister Teen South Ely Anyone?

This is the word for word and letter for letter transcription of a student test answer I received today. The prompt was "In two paragraphs, discuss the motivation and importance of the Declaration of Independence. (Why Jefferson wrote it, what impact it had on the colonists, and what impact it had on England)." And no, he's not an English language learner. I swear.

"Importance of the Declaration of Independence, was to give English more independence and advantages. Also to have more of a organized environment. but that wasn't to important. At the time it was written, English need more to gain and that was something no one would think of. cause it was something diffrent to gain as much and accomplish as much that English did."

Yup... the English sure do need independence from those oppresive colonies!

And from the runners up:
"Jefferson wrote the Declaraion of Independence to make peace with the colonist and England. I think it had more impact on England then the colonist. To have colonies in America & being in England, I think England had more power for being in America as in England. I"

"The declaration taught the colonists realized that they had duty to their country. England realized that they were not happy with their old king and wanted something new."

I promise... I do actually teach them something...lots of kids got full credit... just not these ones...

Things I've done in the last 48 hours

In mildly chronological order:

Listened to a youth speaker talk on the Jonas Brothers (and chastity I think, but mostly just the Jonas Brothers)

Listened to her father give a talk on the Utah Utes football team (there is no gospel oriented 'and' here. It was really just on the Utes)

Traced my ancestry back to Clodius (Clodie) I who was born in around BC 10. Turns out I really am emperor for life!

Taught a 15 year old how to spell his own middle name (Dimitrius). When I showed him the correct spelling he said "Man I was way off! There's not even a ch in there!" Yup.

Walked out of my classroom door straight into a horse's derriere. There was literally a live horse in the hallway after school today, complete with both front end and backside.

Got my cute new rainboots in the mail and wore them around the house all evening. It turns out there's nothing like a little online shopping to make me feel better about living in Ely!

A little bit ghetto and a lot bit magical

I tried out the local movie theater today, and it was a little like stepping into the movie "The Majestic" except without Jim Carrey, which is generally considered a vast improvement. It's all scary looking with no lights on the outside, and then when you go in there's a handwritten note that says "We are sorry to no longer be able to accept checks debit cards credit cards CASH." I could only assume that meant that they do accept cash, or tonight was free movie night. Then it starts to look like a grand old theater with the small candy counter and these big wooden double doors leading into the auditorium, which is mammoth huge. It's not super wide, but it is really long and the screen is kind of small. They still have an actual hand drawn curtain over the screen, and they only have one showing: weekends and Mondays at 7:00pm. As the movie started, I noticed an odd clicking sort of like rhythmic rain and eventually realized that it was the sound of the genuine reel to reel projector in the booth behind me. For some reason that sound just made the whole movie experience feel grand and magical. It's also funny because everyone in the theater knows each other so it's almost more like watching in someone's house than a theater, what with all the girls whistling at Edward Cullen and the boys groaning or yelling shut up.