The addition of Alkalai metals to water. . . . Boom!

This is a great clip of some roudy chemists playing with metals that shouldn't be played with.

On a better note.

So, now that I have voiced my frustration I can talk about something pretty cool. I had the chance to run my class for the whole day last Thursday by myself. My mentor was out watching a sick family (not good) and I was given the reins for a day (good). My mentor's co-teacher was even absent! The only other adult I had in the room was a substitute that was more than happy to stand aside and watch. I ended up assisting another class's pig dissection lab and then teaching four 70-minute periods by myself. Everything went great and I couldn't have asked for a better day. I even had an effective resolution to one my few problematic students causing an issue. All was well at Romulus High School, and my mentor was quite grateful.

Losing steam. . . . .

Wow, I seem to be losing steam here in the last few weeks. We have a holiday break coming up so I hope I can recharge myself a little bit, but I'm honestly struggling lately. I seem to have been a sort of "even keel" for people in this program to help get their bearings and stay the course. I've talked in the past about just getting things done and making it to the final goal (the end of this program), but I'm faltering a bit I feel. Not enough to stop me, but it feels like that dream that you are running in but are not going anywhere. My high school placement is one of the things that keeps me going in my usual jovial fashion, but I'll be honest when I say that I've had some rough evenings on campus lately. I'm thinking I just need some time to decompress.
For those that read this, its really just a little venting in word form. Hopefully after I have my fill of good food and some cold weather camping I'll get my old spark back.

At long last . . .

Well that was quite a gap in my blog frequency there, my apologies. Since my last entry at the end of the summer semester I have gotten married, and had a crazy fun honeymoon. I have been student teaching at Romulus High School and loving it. And I have been taking quite a load of classes at U of M. I have been told by several people that this is the time of year when MAC students hit their wall and start to have break downs. I mention this because in my last post I talk about using our break in August as a decompression period. This semester has indeed been different from before and full of stresses, but I am continuing to plug along and smile along the way.
Yesterday in our technology class we had the opportunity to make claymation videos. My group and I has some fun doing it and I can see its possible use in a biology classroom. If the resources for this are available, this could be a good way to make certain concepts stick into the minds of the students. They would surely remember the various steps of mitosis and meiosis if they made a frame-by-frame video of it.
I look forward to getting back on the blog wagon, I'll see you soon with more on what has been going on in my placement.