not to be confused with "happy pills"

maybe You Know Who isn't as much as an imbecil as he lets on. maybe he has another motive to not support embryonic stem cell research, and he's using the religious argument as a disguise. i heard this on the radio (i've been listening a lot, i'm turning into a nerd), so as not to plaigirize. what do medications do? most of them just alleviate the symptoms - like if you have a cold, you take cold medicine and it stops your runny nose and cools your fever. but the bug still runs through you; there is no drug to completely eradicate colds. the drugs available for treating maladies like parkinson's do not cure one of parkinson's disease, they just make life more tolerable. so what happens if stem cell research leads us to a cure for it? guess who is out of business! drug companies. so isn't it fitting for their interests not to find a cure for these diseases but to just keep treating the symptoms? maybe You Know Who really is an imbecil for being so transparent.

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ok so what else do i have to update... i've already told of the Elementary School Saga with The Principal retiring. the current drama at school now is space. currently, the four kindergarten classes are at the other school in the neighborhood. for reasons unbeknownst to us, they are moving all four classes over to this school for next year. this year we did have two classrooms that were empty; however, one of them we used for the movie room during indoor recess. now that room will be occupied as well as the one opposite it. this forces someone to have to move their class down to "the dungeon" where the book-devouring dragon lives.

i met the new girl i am tutoring last night. she is actually the little sister of a guy with whom i went to high school. i don't ask for what reasons the student is on homebound; most of them are on homebound leave for mental reasons anyway. i feel like if the family wants me to know, they will tell me but otherwise it'd be rude to ask. anyway so last night at Megan's house the phone was ringing a lot. she kept having to get up and answer it. then she started to complain about how the "phone has been ringing non-stop these days, so i've been kind of on edge." then she asks me, "did you hear about the girl from b-town who got raped? that was me." awkward moment. fortunately she continued with explaining her mental status (she's been scared a lot lately.) anyway, that moment surpassed, we continue with arc measurements in circles. she knows my mom and is a really nice girl; i don't mind working with her. i just tutored another girl in geometry who was so unresponsive - i would ask her if the stuff made sense and she would tell me it did, but when it came time for her to take her quiz she handed it in with half the problems done. sooo frustrating.

am thinking of emailing my old physics teacher for some ideas on how to teach uniform circular motion. i have no problem explaining the equations, but how do you explain where they come from? usually i like to get the student thinking about a particular situation and ask him to come up with a generalization himself. i mean, i don't like to give the information outright, i like to guide the student through the thinking process that leads him to the information. i think it's better because one makes the student think, and when he can come to the conclusion himself, he "owns" that information, and if he forgets the equation he can remember the thinking process and come up with it again. for example, if he can't remember wether centripetal acceleration has a v or a v-squared, he can check the units to see which one will give you the proper units for acceleration, m/s^2. anyway those are my thoughts on that. i kind of like that, coming up with ways to make them think about a certain concept. it allows me to use my creative side for a black and white purpose.

and the quest for a summer job... is... at a dead end for now; a friend has provided me with a link to a job as a "secret flyer" (i forget the exact term.) i'd better not tell too much about it so as not to jinx it!

ooh i came up with something else about the anti-depressants continually confused with "happy-pills." as i've mentioned before in this blog i am mildly obsessive-compulsive. the reason i started to get treatment is because for the six months leading up to that point, i was swearing like a sailor. seriously, anytime i got frustrated or mad at something or inconvenienced by something or a slow driver happened to get in front of me, a stream of colorful phrases would flow from my mouth. i would try to stop it but i couldn't. once i started my meds, that was the first thing to go. and what these meds work to correct are the misbehaving neurotransmitters that cause these repetitive thoughts/actions. so maybe my swearing wasn't a characteristic of my blackening soul, but rather my obsessive-compulsive tendencies coming through. it had been a long time since i had done any corner-double-takes or pointing of objects, so the compulsions had to come out somewhere.

anyway it is turning out to be a beautiful friday. my plans for this evening? laundry, and maybe a movie. i do not feel like going anywhere!