Ytterbium

The whole blogging once a week thing is a killer. There have been so many exciting things in science and education, and even some mildly blog-worthy things about me. As a super-speedy rewind with a promise to explain at length in other posts, here are some tasty morsels:

School
I gave out 4 lunch detentions the other day. Instead of feeling righteous and powerful, I felt like the ultimate scumbag (Lunch detention gets handed to you if you amass 3 tardies for a single class). I'm pretty sure the next time these kids walk in to class, I'll get a scowl in return to me saying "Good morning!" But hopefully the lesson in lunch detention will be received: get to class on time.

I got to teach a full lesson! My mentor teacher asks me (somewhat spontaneously) if I wanted to teach the class that was coming in (literally as we were speaking). I of course say "Yes!", after waiting ages to pull out and use the techniques loaded in my back pocket (as another point of imagery - there are so many, I'm surprised my pants haven't fallen down). The lesson went as well as what is to be expected with approximately 5 minutes of preparation, but the kids seemed attentive and my mentor teacher even took some of the things I did and used them when she taught the lesson the next period.

While teaching, two of my kiddos were one step away from getting into a huge fight. As in they were standing up, with looks of pure aggression, and I was at the front of the classroom trying to remain calm and hoping to talk them down. Turns out I didn't have to do anything, because this disruptive kid who spends more time out of his seat than in his seat gets in between the two of them and puts his hands up like Jesus and they both sit down. Sometimes I just don't question things...

Science
Apparently some scientists got neutrinos to go faster than the speed of light. This is worthy of a full blog post, but I'm not about to post this until I see some cold hard evidence that suggests the experiment was valid. I'm not one for salacious science gossip. 

Ann Arbor
It's finally Fall! With that comes a bazillion apples at the Farmer's Market and gorgeous mums. So excited!

Football season never ceases to amaze me. While walking to the Farmer's Market this weekend, I got stopped by a police escort for the football players on their way to the field. The players all pile into the U of M commuter buses to travel to the stadium and each bus says something goofy on the screen at the top of the bus like "Go Wolverines" or "En route to the Big House." It's even better that people line the street like it's a parade. Thank goodness the woman next to me was as utterly confused by this as I was.


Common Occurrences: Ytterbium is primarily found in lasers, but is also used in stress gauges that monitor land deformation from earthquakes and explosions.

Fun Fact: The mineral xenotime can contain either ytterbium or yttrium.