Getting in the Spirit!

This was a happening week, abbreviated though it was (4 school days thanks to President's Day). Every year my school has a fundraising event commonly called a jogathon. Well, at Pine View it is Peramathon. It is held on a Friday in February (this year that would be this week just past) and this year it was COLD, the coldest peramathon anyone could remember. I did not participate but many did. The campus was filled with parents and other family members volunteering to keep track of all the laps run and funds pledged, bottles of water and help with the general organized chaos. Lots of people. Good times.

On that same Friday the high school classes have a dodge ball competition. This is the finale to Spirit Week. Each day students are to dress according to a different theme (e.g. superhero, tacky tourist, and similar). Many choose not to but enough do that it is definitely noticeable as you walk the campus and see the students as they enter class. The learning environment is slightly altered but you adjust.

Then Friday evening we had a fundraising concert to benefit Jamie Myers, a senior who is battling brain cancer. I did not attend but from videos posted online and descriptions from students in attendance, it was a great time. When the things we take for granted every day are suddenly taken, we take a closer look and if we are made of the right stuff, it draws us together, uniting our hearts and spirits. Jamie has done that for his class and our school.

As full as it already was the weekend was not over. Saturday evening we had Astronomy night. The astronomy classes have star gazes regularly throughout the year, but once a year I open it up to the Pine View family and friends. This is scheduled months in advance and all I can do is hope for clear skies and decent temperatures. Well this year the temperature was great. The skies were less cooperative. There were several objects of interest to see in the sky: the crescent moon, Venus and Mars is conjunction, Jupiter and its 4 main moons, the Orion nebula and other lesser lights.

Saturday started clear but clouds moved in as the sun was about to set. As the skies darkened, we were struggling to find clear spots between the clouds to glimpse the heavens. With a great turnout I was hopeful that they would be able to see something. We did have minutes when the clouds parted enough to see the moon, Venus, Mars and Jupiter, but not much else. After an hour or so of this, a clear spot appeared low in the south (thank you, Steve Dacey, for spotting it first.). That was good news, since the clouds were moving north. It took 20 minutes or so for the hole to pass over head and as the skies cleared, a cheer went up from those who had been able to stay. We had about 20 minutes to a half hour of clear skies. Many had left but those who remained were rewarded with excellent views through the seven telescopes and viewing stations we had set up. At the very end, as I started to take down the equipment, a particularly enthusiast boy ask if there were any other planets we could see. Yes, Uranus. But I warned him that it was not big and bright like Jupiter or Venus, or even Mars, but he was insistent.  I set the scope on it and it was there: a tiny (3 arc seconds in diameter), faint, pale blue-green dot, twenty times as far from us as earth is from the sun. Not much to look at but I told everyone there that now, when they talked to their family and friends, they could say that they have seen Uranus. It got a small laugh.

I was so happy we had not been shutout. This was my final Astronomy Night as a teacher and it ended well. Many thanks to those who came and for the students who helped setup and take down. Also to Mr. Steve Dacey for manning the big dobsonian telescope. M42 was a grand sight through it.

My final thoughts revolve around this blog and the future. Another mark along the way. If you look at the main page of this blog, it has a countdown clock. As of today, Sunday, February 22, 2015, I am down to double digits left in my teaching career: 99 days. As I like to say, Tempus fidgets. The other thing is my upcoming big announcement. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading this.

My Last Valentines Day

Today is Valentine's Day. Yesterday was the closest school day to it , so I celebrated it in my classroom. Since this was my last Valentines Day as a teacher, I went, what is for me, all out. I adorned my room with 18 valentines that I had gotten in an email from a physics teacher a few years ago. I don't know the original source of these, but each one is devoted to one scientist and makes generally bad puns in a stretch to make their work applicable to the holiday. So this is a nerdy homage to Valentines Day. If you don't get the reference, I am sorry, but you will have to ask or look it up. Most of my students enjoyed it or were very polite in ignoring it. To top it off, I printed small versions of these and gave one to each of my students (unsigned so they could pass it on to their valentine)

In addition, I stole (borrowed?) a poem that I include here:
Emission nebulae are red,
Reflection nebulae are blue,
The universe if expanding
As my love for you.
This was set on a background of these two images

I also had heart shaped Sweetarts to increase the student's sugar level. I had fun doing this. I hope the kids enjoyed it as well.
Next Saturday evening is Astronomy Night, 6:30 to 8:30, at Pine View. It is open to the whole community. Come bring family and friends. There will be telescope set up for you to look through and students to help you understand what you are looking at. Featured objects will be the crescent moon, Venus, Jupiter and it's moons, the Orion Nebula, and more. It will be on the service road by Lake Largo on the south side of campus.

Remember, I will be making a big announcement in a few weeks. Stay tuned for that.

Variety Is the Spice of Life

Friday evening I escorted my wife to this year's version of the Pine View Variety Show hosted each year by the sophomore class as a fund raiser. I am not sure when the variety (sometimes called talent show) started but it was after I came to PV and before we moved to the new campus, so that would make it between 1989 and 1994. There may have been occasional shows like it prior to then but that would be before my time there.

I was closely involved with two of the shows, with the classes of 1997 and 2001. I was a class sponsor to each of those, so that would mean the Variety Shows of 1995 and 1999. They are huge undertakings. First, there has to be talent that auditions to perform. Then there has to be students willing to act as stage hands, sound and light people, program designers, schedulers, etc. For several weeks before the event, the auditorium is abuzz with activity rising in crescendo until the dress rehearsals and the actual performances of the show.

This year's effort was themed Hawaiian Luau. As one would expect, flowered leis were everywhere, helping to set the tone. One feature I particularly liked was the house band performing before the show began, during intermission, and again during a break in the program, when a performers track could not be found. The band, "The Flipside", composed of mostly (all?) sophomores, did a credible job throughout.

There were numerous issues with the mics and the sound system, but the show went forward and my wife and I both found it entertaining, one of the better variety shows that I have seen. There were many singers, both solo and groups. I'll mention a few. The Serteen club performed All About the Bass with two of the group signing the lyrics. Joanna Malvas sang She Was Mine accompanied on the guitar by her brother, Joe. I particularly enjoyed the singing of Arooj Khan. But for me the top act (I know, they were all great for getting up on the stage) was Claire Opal-Lavine who hula hooped. She was quite good and my wife and I commented mid act about how we were enjoying her performance, when the lights went out and the hoop lit up with LEDs and a multi-colored display dazzled us. I told my wife I wanted one of those hoops.

In addition, each class (grade) had an act. They were Pine View specific and had a lot of inside jokes that I am not sure parents and other family members fully appreciated, but I found many of them hilarious. The junior and senior class acts were videos. Here is a link to the senior video: http://vimeo.com/117727296.

All this brought to mind the variety shows I have been involved in. There are many good memories there for sure. I wonder if you have any special memories of a show. If you do and would like to mention it, this post is both on my blog and on facebook, to facilitate commenting. These events are fundraisers, sure, but they are also memory makers. I have found that you only get as much out of life as you put in. It takes effort and is not always comfortable, but is almost always rewarding. My thanks to all those who made the effort and took the time to participate in this variety show and those from long ago.