My Little Nerds

"Alright minions, you have been very cooperative with my activity so you get to play your pewpew games in the computer lab BUT FIRST! Rules! I don't care what Mr. Evan or Mr. Julian or Mr. Alex does, but today, this is my room and you go by my rules. I have two rules and three consequences. Number One: No swearing. First violation is a ten minute no pewpew time. The second violation, no pewpew for twenty minutes. Rule number two: If I hear a swear word but can't identify you, fess up. If you do not confess, I will unplug everyone's computer and no one gets pewpew time for ten minutes."

Fifteen minutes later:
"SHIT!"
"Stephen, time out for you."
"It wasn't me!!!"
"If it wasn't you, then someone else did it. The kid has ten seconds to admit he made mistake before I start unplugging computers." (inching over to the first computer)
Stephen's classmate (panicked whisper): "Stephennnn just confess! She's gonna dooo iiiiiit!!"
"Fine!!! It was me!!!"

These kids are too cute. It's kind of funny to see them mope during their time-out. I'm actually fairly lenient with it. They're allowed to move their mouse around to watch an on-going match; they're just not allowed to participate. After a while, I realized that I don't necessarily have to hear the kid swear. The kid's friends will hear it, even if I don't, and I'll see three round heads with mouths agape swivel back and forth between me and their buddy.

The no-swearing rule is in place because with shooting games, sometimes they get way too excited when they lose. They also stay relatively quiet, because the kids get paranoid of swearing on accident. I think it's a good policy to teach them about behaviors that may be acceptable at home, but are not acceptable outside of home. I don't like outright finger-pointing though. I don't like being thrown under the bus and I'm not going to create a situation that lets kids think it is okay to betray a friend.

Right now, my nerd group is doing two activities. They're building armor (from a video game of their choice) out of cardboard and designing their own flash game. These kids are tougher than I thought to manage. They also complain a lot in the beginning, but now they're easier to manage. It also helps that I'm using our "tiger tickets" as bait to keep the kids enthusiastic and invested in their activities. The kids collect tiger tickets to "buy" access to the computer lab on Fridays and field trips to places like 7-Eleven, KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) and the mall. The kids with the most creative game/armor will get tickets as a reward.

My students know that, aside from contests, I'm pretty stingy with the tickets. They know that I don't reward tickets to kids that say, "Can I help you with xyz for a tiger ticket?" They also know that anytime I give someone a ticket, I explain why the kid received one. The end result is that they're pretty good at cleaning after themselves and helping out without making a show of it, hoping that I might notice.

They don't know it, but I'm training them to be my minions and it's coming along very nicely.

Mingle Down!

I made one too many poop jokes last month, and so karma dictated that I needed to suffer from a bad case of The Runs. That was rough. I was also feverish and no matter how much water I drank, I kept feeling thirsty. It was so bad that my skin was dry. I went to bed Sunday night feeling 'off.' When I woke up with a fever at 6am, I knew I wouldn't make it to work that day. I was still feeling off on Tuesday so I took that day off too. It's kinda random how it just hit me out of the blue on Sunday night, because I had just gone on a pretty rigorous hike that morning.

I didn't work on my secondaries at all on Monday or Tuesday. I would nap for 1-2 hour stretches and wake up with just enough energy to eat and move my legs a bit. I am working on my secondaries now. I submitted one yesterday and am working on the next one today.

So far, I've been turned down for one secondary and one interview. I feel like I should feel more down about it, but I got over it fairly quickly. Probably because I still have more secondaries to work on, and so I still have hope (I hope). I also think that I should be writing more at a faster rate.Some of these schools have a December 1 due date for secondaries, so I definitely need to finish those first. Ideally, I would finish all of my apps before that time.

I really worry about my timing, because I had chosen to delay my app for another month to retake my MCAT.

I've gotten to that point where I can start reusing some of my phrasing/sentences to answer essay prompts, which definitely helps speed things up a bit.

Right now, I'm fighting off a cold. My energy level has been fluctuating on account of my being sick last week and this week. This post is kind of scattered because I'm a little woozy from the night-time cold medicine kicking in.

Next update will be about work.

Good night!

One Year Post-Op

It's crazy to think that a year has gone by since then. It was something I had wanted for a long, long time and the time had come. My family had opposed it for so long that, for a while, I was resigned to the fact that life would just be this way forever. People had asked me why I didn't just undergo surgery myself. At the time, it just didn't feel right to go through that without their blessing and support.

Interview on Accepted.com

Head on over to Accepted's blog to read my interview with them and other pre-med bloggers' interview posts! I get to procrastinate more by adding more blogs to my Blogroll. Woohoo!

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Last day was Friday.