Why is it that after teaching this course for 13 years, I have a student that is trying to micro-manage me. Seriously. He keeps telling me how to handle when people leave or to tell me that he agrees with the pace for the class that I have set. He even keeps telling me to remind the students that I'm available to help them until about 6pm. No shit, Sherlock. You who have never taught a group of adults (or herded cats, since they are both very similar skills) are telling me how to handle future potential issues that are so common I deal with them on an almost weekly basis? Really? Oi.

I found this article in the New York Times yesterday and thought that I would share it with my friends. It's about the history of treating depression. I knew about the theory that depression medication worked on the notion of increasing serotonin in the brain, usually by making it stick around longer, but there are some other really interesting, scientific findings about how there may be something to neuron development, activity, and genetics (though this last one I also knew about, but they were a smudge more specific than what I knew.) If depression, brain chemistry, and or brain development are of interest, it is definitely a good, albeit long, read.

When it comes to weather, California is crazy. There is a thunderstorm and they issue weather warnings and interrupt TV shows to show you the progress of the storm. There's hail! So, everyone stay inside! Be safe! There may even be a tornado if the air starts spinning (yes, that is what they were jumping around and saying last night for about half an hour before I decided that there must not have been any news)!!

Really? Are you kidding me? Ok, granted I grew up in Indiana where this is commonplace, but this is NOT worth stopping all news like it is some big deal. It's interesting, sure. CA rarely gets any of those, but it's not stop the world and panic time. Oh, and even I know that there won't be a tornado in my area with this system. It takes a completely different setup of weather systems hitting to get one. And the sky is grey, not olive green. The closest my area has had to a tornado in the past 15 years was last year when a funnel cloud came down and took 3 tiles off of someone's roof. No joke.

I wonder what the weather people here would do if any of them got shipped out to the mid-west somewhere. They'd probably die from panic induced stress due to the fact that there is weather.

First random thing:
If you know of Vampire Knight, then you will understand this: I saw Rima at the drive-through at Wendy's today. That was my first thought when I saw the girl. I swear, I had to bite my tongue to not say anything!

Second random thing:
WTF is going on that employers think that they can 'ask' for your login and password to facebook?!? (see here or here for more details if you haven't heard of this yet.)

( for rambling on this topic... )

Third random thing:
You have got to see this! It's a bit wtf but the end makes it SO worth it!

Some of you may remember that I bought a bunch of bricks last year with the intention of making a small patio out of them. Well, I have finally done it! Actually, my parents came for vacation and my dad and I made it, but regardless - it is done!  It only took about 100 pavers, though likely less (out of the over 500 total that I had), 15 bags of sand, 22 bags of gravel and three days work. I went from this to this.

Unfortunately for my parents, those were the only three days they were here that it was sunny. It rained for the next 5 days. They went home today, and while it's not sunny, it isn't raining either. Go figure!

I would have to say the weirdest question that I have yet to be asked (that I remember, at least) was in one of my programming classes when a student asked 'How do I know that the if statement is true?' After explaining that the contents of the curly braces { } after the 'if' only run if the if statement was true, she continued with 'But how do I know that it really is true?' 

Uh... magic? I have yet to figure out how to answer that second 'how do you know...' to someone who clearly doesn't understand computer logic much to begin with.

If you guessed Dr. Seuss, you would be correct! And I'm sure that there is NO connection what-so-ever with that and the fact that the Lorax is officially out today. None at all. =)

If you are in need of a little Seuss-ical quirkiness today, have a look at this list of quotes:
30 Dr. Suess Quotes

about 30 lbs.

I have officially decided that lj_photophile is my favorite community on LJ. Anything that can randomly come up with gems like this is definitely worth watching on a daily basis =)

Originally posted by sergey_sk78 at post