Awkward List

Awkward moments and more weird stuff

education

When a horse gets an erection

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I went as a chaperone for a first-grade field trip to a park. I know the field trip sounds pretty lame already but it was a huge park with lots of things to do. It had rides, sandboxes and even a petting zoo.

 

Children love animals, and they love making noises like “eww” and making gestures that explain how they are feeling at the moment like the whole “someone farted” thing where the kid clamps her nose with her hand and points at me someone.. Even though its totally natural and maybe that person had a lot of green vegetables earlier that day.

We were walking through the stables when I saw a group of kids saying eww, which apparently also attracts a large group of them. One of the kids looks up at me and asks,

“What IS that?”

“What is what?” I asked, looking around waiting to see a cow taking a massive dump or something.

Then I see it.

 

That, my friends is a picture of “Lil Sebastian” from the television show “Parks and Recreation”, but it clearly explains what I saw. And yes it is blurred.

Kids have no boundaries when it comes to awkwardness. I tried to change the subject to the ostrich eggs but they kept asking about it so I did what any mature individual would do in a situation like that: I started singing Old McDonald had a farm… What? It worked for a little bit.

Yeah…

What would YOU have done?

 

Celebrating Round People and Things

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What the heck is Pi?

3.14159

That’s how I got to know Pi.

piIn early mathematics, they gave us that number to find the area of a circle, for finding circumference, and then the same idea got put into finding surface areas of cones, volume of a sphere, cylinders.. ah, so much great stuff.

Pi in Easy Terms:

The symbol Pi, which looks like a horse with really long legs that you’d find painted in some cave, is a number. That’s right, π is just some number. That number happens to be 3.1415926.. and it keeps going on forever. Without a repetition pattern of some sort (yet).

What’s So Special About Pi?

Ah.. that’s where this gets awesome. See, a long time ago, some dude named Archimedes, which may [or may not] have been know to his buddies as A-meds, was thinking about circles. He came up with a ratio, of the distance around a circle and the diameter of the circle.

Whoa there, take it easy man. You lost me.

Suppose you are in a running track that is shaped like a circle. The halfway mark is right across the track from where you’re starting, and you finish right back where you started to count as one lap.

If you were to run the whole thing fair and square (or fair and circle), how much distance would you cover? They don’t make rulers shaped like circles often, so when getting an accurate distance is important, the number Pi comes in. You can measure the distance directly toward the halfway mark (think of cutting a circle in half), and then multiply by Pi (3.14159), and MAGIC! You have the distance around it.

Uh, no dude. I don’t get it.

Alright, think of a tire from your car. We’re going to try some imagination here, people. You grab a ruler and measure how tall the tire is, and let’s say that it is one foot tall. What? You like your tires small. Anyway.. visualize the following: Suddenly, the tire turns all cartoon-status, and is now just a circle. A thin line going around to make a circle. See it? Ok, cool. Now, the circle turns into string (still in the shape of a circle). Now I grab some scissors and SNAP! I cut the circle one time and  I now have a string. The height of that tire, and the length of the string we have now have something in common. And that “something” is pi. The length of that string would be 3.14159 (aka pi) feet. True story, bro.

Pi is the ratio of circumference and diameter of a circle. It is close to 22/7.. but not quite.

Other Stuff

Pi was used way before Archimedes wrote out the ratio, it just wasn’t called Pi. But we knew those distances had something in common. I mean belts go around in a circle-ish around our waist, and I’m sure they had those back then. And before then, there were strings and robes and such. Ever taken off your belt and seen noticed how long the belt really is? Pi ratios!

People hold competitions to see how many numbers they can memorize of pi, since it really does go on forever. Shigeru Kondo broke his previous record set in August 2011 and has calculated (with computer programs and such) up to more than 10 TRILLION DIGITS!!

Freaky.

Thanks for reading and hey look! You learned something new today.

Happy Pi Day, all! 🙂

Note: Pi day is true to us month-first people. We say the date as Month/Day/Year, instead of Day/Month/Year
Related articles

Being a College Student

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When I was in middle school, I felt like I wasn’t “old enough” to be there because in elementary school, middle schoolers looked tall and intimidating. In high school, same thing. I always thought about tv shows and movies that constantly showed that many people’s last memories of you will be of high school, and that they will always remember how dorky you were and how you always chose the same color for the bands of your braces.

In college, that feeling goes away after freshman year. Before you know it, you adjust to the college life and get to attend a lame frat party. You then experience some drama, learn that you don’t have to go to class, and then quickly unlearn that previous thing after getting your first F.

The greatest stories of my life are about college, and the biggest mistakes I’ve made are related to it. But it’s still awesome and awkward! For those of you receiving your letters of admission now.. congratulations! And for those letters of rejection, you’re not alone.. don’t give up!

What do YOU remember most about college?

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Oh, I almost forgot. My sister Jennifer from San Diego State University has a short message for a good cause that I’d like to share:

“Would you like to donate a few dollars to my cause? I am doing a walk for the National Alliance for Mental Illness on April 13th, 2013 and my minimal goal is to reach 100 dollars by that date. It’s just a quick transaction online on http://namiwalks.nami.org/jencov Anything will help! :)”

Mental illness is a serious issue, and I’m grateful for those who try to make a positive change.

Happy Monday!

Edwin

137. That instant when you realize you're wrong during an argument

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English: Waffle House Logo
English: Waffle House Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A physics professor told our class one day:

“Educated people do not argue, they discuss.”

People around me argue all the time. About solutions to homework problems, about the presidential elections here in the U.S., and about who came first: the chicken or the egg. Don’t quote me on this but I’m pretty sure the chicken came first. Who thinks otherwise? Let’s “discuss”.

Have you ever been in an argument, and suddenly you realize that you are 100% wrong!? Here is what you guys do .2 seconds after that realization:

  • Pause. Think of something to say while stretching out the word “Well…”
  • Get mad. You say “whatever!” and act all offended.
  • Admit it and apologize. Then take back the apology once the other person starts being a jerk about it.
  • If the argument is over the internet, you attack his or her grammar and punctuation.
  • Offend their mother.
  • Ninja-roll out of the scene, never to be seen again.

Why do people argue? Why do people fight?

They just make things awkward.

Last summer, I was staying in Florida. Before checking into the hotel, I stopped by for a really early breakfast at a Waffle House (we don’t have those in California! Why!?). There was one really big tattoed-biker dude eating on the counter, when three high school guys walk in and order.

“How much you weigh?” one of the guys asked the biker dude.

“245” the dude replied.

“Yeah right, you don’t look it,” the guy said.

The biker dude walks up to the high school guy, and asks the same question back. They begin arguing for some reason, and next thing you know.. the biker dude punched the high school kid in the face!

The waitress took off her shoe and threw it at the window. That was random and unnecessary, but anyway.. she kicked the biker dude out and left the high school guys stay. Next thing you know, my hash browns get cold because the police officer that got there about 20 minutes later wanted a description because the facility’s cameras were fake. Why do all of you business owners do that?

Whose fault was it?

Raise your hand to speak (or not)

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Professors have the coolest job. They get to pass on knowledge to students that will eventually make some huge difference in the world, they get to intimidate people whenever they want, they’re respected (or feared)…

…and they get to make you look pretty dumb in front of everyone. Sometimes even without meaning to.
You raise your hand to ask a question, and the professor doesn’t notice, but everyone else does.. so you’re stuck in this awkward position and must decide how to continue: Will you keep your hand up until he notices? Will you bring it back down?

As awesome as it sounds to say that you would speak up, you usually don’t, admit it. You just sit there with your hand up, and start to wonder how you must look like to everyone else.

I guess it could be worse. Wait a minute, I know it can be worse. Have you ever actually asked something at what you considered to be an appropriate volume, and your professor straight out ignores you? It happened to me over and over with the same professor one semester.
In her defense, she was partially deaf. Everyone kept telling me that she had said that in the beginning, but I guess I didn’t hear her. It got pretty funny sometimes, which left us feeling like the meanest people on the planet.
I feel horrible.
Ok anyway, despite all of those awkward moments in a classroom, the one I still clearly remember to this day is raising my hand to answer something super matter-of-factly and getting it wrong. Way to go me.

108. Awkward Moments in Middle School

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..Middle school has its awkward moments.

The bell buzzed.

I guess it can no longer be called a bell if it doesn’t ring, but I’m so used to the bell at Glazier Elementary that it still feels strange to call that thing a buzzer. Instead of ringing for recess, it will buzz for “nutrition”. It even sounds boring that way. Middle school will be different. We no longer have just one principal and support staff, but a principal and two assistant principals plus a staff that all look equally scary.

“That bell isn’t for us,” some tall kid said, who apparently still had the whole buzzer and bell thing confused, “our classes start at 8:20 A.M.”

“Thanks man,” I responded, “but I still have to find the HR, what ever that is.”

“I think it stands for home room, my older brother says that we will have more than one teacher so I guess that’s where we will meet first,” he said, “I got room 196, you?”

“196, I guess we’re in the same room.”

And so my first day in middle school started. We found the home room, had our dumb introductions (name, what school you come from and an interesting fact about yourself), broke in our brand new notebooks and pencils, and went through the usual uncomfortable first day stuff. I had absolutely no idea about the awkward moments waiting to happen in the next three years of middle school.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was not in elementary school anymore. A question many of us had but did not dare to ask was “where the heck is the playground?” all we saw was a bunch of benches and other areas to sit. Were they expecting us to sit around and actually talk to each other? It reminded me of how strange it was to think that older people sat around just listening to music. At least we weren’t being pressured into eating the horrible cafeteria lunches anymore. All the cool kids didn’t eat cafeteria lunch. There were many other differences, such as the introduction of school security, increased seriousness in the word detention, and the creation of cliques. I remember asking for cooler-looking underwear since I would be changing in and out of gym clothes in front of other kids. And it all went crazy from there.

You see, middle school is supposed to be filled with awkward moments. There are kids that still haven’t hit their growth spurt, so you end up with a random assortment of short and tall kids. You cannot tell the difference between a sixth grader and an eighth grader just by looking at their height. Some kids are freaking out because of the first signs of pimples. Some girls actually have boobs now and some are flat out ..well, flat. Some guys have the whole deep voice thing going, some sound comically feminine, and others are still experiencing heavy voice cracking. Everyone goes through a bunch of changes in their bodies, some more embarrassing and more noticeable than others.

Suddenly the opposite sex doesn’t seem that bad, but the thought of a boyfriend or girlfriend seems way too serious for your age. Of course, there are those exceptions out there that claim to already have had 4 girlfriends and are not afraid to write love letters and ask someone out to the dances where girls stand near one wall, and the guys stand by the opposite one.  For the first time ever, you experience what its like to blush at the sound of someone’s name and have those perfectly planned conversations in your head completely fail after the first word. And then you figure out what it feels like when she starts liking some other guy who probably plays basketball and sort of has facial hair and all you have going for yourself is the top score in your pre-algebra test and band trophies and it leaves you bummed for a whole two days! Ahem. Uh, anyways..

Middle school is a planned chaos. It appears as though the school system thought to itself:

Hmm.. kids are usually going through a lot of things between the ages of 11-13, lets put them in a school together, yes this is a great idea!

But it didn’t kill us, so I’ll trust the guy that came up with the quote and assume it made us stronger. No more unoriginal yearbook signings that say “Hope you have a great summer! See you next year! K.I.T.” or the need to take food out of your braces. It must be safe now to say congratulations, you made it through some of the most awkward years of your life!

What awkward moments do you remember about your middle school/junior high life?

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