More from Science

Don't you just love it when scientists make a big announcement that they have proven some thing or other is really beneficial?  Take, for example, chicken soup.  For absolutely ever scientist said there was no empirical, scientific proof that chicken soup really did make you better.  It was all an "old wives tale" they said, poohpoohing all the wise old women who knew better.  Only after some bright bulbs decided to actually test chicken soup and found that it really did have healing properties did science take things seriously.  In the mean time I think I heard millions of "Old Wives" laughing up their collective sleaves.  Now, it appears, that scientists have once more proven what anyone with a brain already knew.  Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, is really good for you.  It has, so they say, an effect on the body that helps lower blood pressure.  So not only does chocolate taste good, it is now scientifically proven it is good for you. So does this mean now that when someone tells me to boil onions and add honey to the liquid that I need to find some scientific journal, or for that matter, scientist to give me the go ahead?  What about genetically modified onions?  Do they count?  Will it keep away the mutant mosquitoes?  How about regular ones?  Vampires? - oh wait - that's garlic.  Personally I can't see why I'd want to drink onion juice, honey or not, but many of the women here swear by it as a cold remedy.  True, it would certainly put off anyone who didn't have a cold from hanging around, but where's the data?  Where are all the nice tables of numbers and graphs and charts?  Where is the double blind test to prove this?  I have no idea, but if the Old Wives around here swear it works, I think I might take their word over some scientist, even if that scientist did test the theory (see chicken soup).  Until next time, I'm taking something less potent for my cold and eating a big bar of chocolate.

Mutant mosquitos

Maybe it's just me, but somehow having mutant mosquitos flying around just seems wrong.  It's bad enough with regular mosquitos - you know - those irritating insects that buzz in your ears and bite and leave you itchy and uncomfortable at best.  Hmmm sounds a lot like my students but without the biting part (they are, after all, teenagers and unless they happen to be vampires, don't usually bite).  Now scientist have done something that could be incredibly stupid or incredibly smart, but only time will tell.  They've genetically modified male mosquitos.  I'm sure their intentions were good, but then so was Dr. Frankenstein, and we all know how that turned out.  Besides, mother nature already did the whole mutant insect thing, and look what  happened.  In my opinion, scientists should have left the whole blood sucking thing to vampires and left mosquitos out of the equation.  They do a good enough job as it is (vampires and mosquitos, not scientists).  The question then is, what happens when the mutant mosquitos mutate?  We all know they have a very short life span, but how many generations of mutant male mosquitos will it take before we have man size mosquitos buzzing around looking for lunch and giving us their multifaceted eye as the next snack?  Personally, I would prefer my mosquitos, as irritating as they are, less than human size.  Maybe a little bigger so they are easier to see and kill, but not much.  One of my coworkers has bats in her roof (as opposed to bats in her belfrey) and they do a fine job of controlling mosquitos.  Does this mean that if things get out of hand, scientists will mutate bats?  What about other mosquito eating insects like dragon flies?  Will they get bigger too?  Shades of Jurrasic Park!!  Until next time, I'll be watching out for giant mosquitoes.

Behind the 8 ball and other stuff

It never fails.  Just when I think I'm on a roll and things are going smoothly, I find myself playing catch-up (not to be confused with the Katchup we use on or in food).  This year I'm trying to sort both myself and my students out so that we can have a semi-productive year.  I say semi-productive because it takes the first year at a new school to learn both the written and unwritten rules of a school.  What do I mean by unwritten rules?  Well, you know, everything that's not covered in the student or teacher manual that you are supposed to know because you learned to read minds in university - well ok, maybe not read minds exactly but certainly guess accurately.  It's all part of the fun of being a new teacher.  That combined with learning a new language (or in this case new dialect of a vaguely familiar language), dealing with students whose reluctance to do anything remotely related to work (they make the most stubborn mule seem obedient and placid) and parents who firmly believe that either a)  their darlings are absolute angels or b) all the problems in class are the teachers fault because, you guessed it, their darlings are absolute angels.  So between that and dealing with a combination of cold and allergies (I still haven't figured out if my cold is allergic to something, or I'm allergic to colds) life has been grand.  Could be worse, could be better, but definitely worth a comment or two.  Now that I'm mostly sorted out life should be getting back to normal.  Which reminds me - what exactly IS normal anyway?  Until next time, coffee is calling me.

Which stars are green?

I don't know.  Why would stars be green?  Aren't they supposed to be white?  Or was the headline talking about movie and TV stars?  If that's the case then the original question I posed stands.  Why would stars be green?  Are they eating too many veggies?  Perhaps they're green with envy.  If that's the case, who are they envious of and why?  Do they dye their hair to match their faces?  Are they all trying out for the part of Elispeth in "Wicked'?  Do they come by their green-ness naturally or is it another form of body alteration, and why green?  Why not crimson or violet, fuschia or magenta?  How about teal?  That would certainly make an interesting contrast.  Even good old orange might be a nice change.  Which then begs the question, can these stars change their colour depending on their mood, or do they have to stay green?  What if they don't look good in green (hair, make-up, clothes, etc.)?  Are they social outcasts because they don't look like everyone else?  Why would anyone who is a star want to?  Oh.  Wait.  The article was really talking about stars who are practicing environmentally good things, not their colour or the way they feel about someone else (though given how some of them look, it could go either way).  Until next time, when I think vaguely about colouring my hair - not green.

Wriggling and Giggling

So here I am in Colombia, teaching middle school English, which might not be so bad.  Except for one thing.  I've forgotten how wriggly and giggly twelve and thirteen going on fourteen children really are.  To sit still for more than ten minutes is a challenge, to actually work for 50 minutes even more so. Add to this the penchant for children to spend most of their time socializing, interfacing on thier cell phones and the need to check for text messages ever five minutes or less, even when they shouldn't, makes for a very - dynamic - classroom.  Way too much energy, not enough places to use it up, which is why I generally like to stay away from this age group - as far away as I can.  Unfortunately my job is to teach these darlings.  Really need to check my sanity pills to up the strength for this one.  What will happen this year?  Well, let's see ... the thirteen-going-on-fourteens will continue to wage the battle between wanting to be little kids and raging hormones that say otherwise, which makes them, as my mother would say - snorty.  The twelve-going-on-thirteens will suddenly hit the hormone wall, which will turn them from children into - well even more wriggly and giggly teens.  Then, they have to relearn to work in English which is not their first language (even though they've been taking English as a subject for the last seven years it's like they haven't had any before - see hormones above).  So who will survive the year?  That's up for grabs - and it's only September.  Until next time I have enough brainpower to write this blog.

Hi honey I'm home

I'm back.  Finally.  It's funny how a person misses things he/she didn't realize he/she was missing until the thing he/she was missing isn't there.  Awkward, I know, but grammatically correct.  This she missed having a washing machine, coffee pot and toaster.  Not major applicances (well except the washing machine), but definitely things that make life a little easier.  Being on the road, I find there are all kinds of things I miss, mostly things of convenience, like a good cup of coffee first thing in the morning, or being able to drop a load of laundry into the washing machine any time I feel the need, or urge, or lack of clean clothes.  It makes me wonder how women in the past managed, but then I'm sure there were "modern conveniences" that were available that they also missed when they got to travel, which wasn't often.  I've missed blogging, not because I couldn't but because life, as always, seems to get in the way of things I want to do. It does that, you know.  Get in the way of things that are interesting and/or fun. The last few weeks have been hectic.  Getting a visa, travelling, settling into a new place, new language (my dab of Spanish is semiuseful here) and new school routine.  It takes up more time and energy than a person realizes at first.  Eventually I'll be so settled it will feel like I've been here forever.  Which of course is one of those time folding things and before I know it the year will be over and I'll feel like I've just started.  In the mean time, I'll get back into the routine of doing the things I enjoy, and will be here much more often.  Until next time.

Excuses, excuses

It's been a very long time since I last posted a blog.  Not because I couldn't (well, ok, it was difficult to get online in N Ireland for some bizarre reason), but mostly because intertia took over.  It's very hard to overcome the need to do nothing - or at least to convince yourself to do something when doing nothing is much easier.  I can list tons of excuses for not writing - that's easy.  What I can't do is give good, solid reasons for not doing my blogging.  Kind of like my students when they have tons of excuses for not doing their homework, but no real reasons.  As such, I would appologize for my laziness, but in truth can't because sometimes being lazy and enjoying doing as little as possible is often exactly what we need to do.  I was far too busy visiting family and friends to bother, and that was important.  I got to check up and check in with my sister, my mother and my sons (though the one in Canada missed out on a one to one because of circumstances, but next year we'll do better).  I was also able to spend quality time with my lifelong friend and her family - something I haven't really done for a very long time.  Which brings me to visits.  Some visits you can't wait to be over and others you wish would last for much longer. Case in point - my lifelong friend's hubby has relatives up the hoop, and this summer was the summer of the dreaded "drop in on short notice and visit".  This made for a lot of congestion and a lot of tongue biting on my friend's part, but she survived and will probably not have to do this again for another two or three years.  The second was indeed the case this year.  I enjoyed my month of visiting, but it is time to move on, so I head off into the great blue yonder to my next adventure in living.  I'll be out of circulation for a little while longer until I get internet connected at my new home in Colombia, so consistent commentaries will have to wait - again.  They will come, just not for a bit.  Until next time, I'm dashing off to the airport.