Friday, October 29, 2010

Here's your Sign

I'm driving home from work and see this sign the other day, thinking to myself "I have to take a picture of that tomorrow."  First of all, why choose "Who"?  Oh yeah, because then you could fill in the blank with some god.  Secondly, how fortunate it is that the big bang had a fuse!  Would we not be here if it didn't?  Did some sort of early cosmic episode of the ACME company forget to add a lighting mechanism to Wile E. Coyote's bomb?  And last but not least, the question is framed from an uneducated perspective.  But then again, what would you expect from a church that is most llikely suffering from low attendance?  If they did some reading, combined with a little open-mindedness, they might just learn about the multiverse theory, which essentially states that what we conceive of as the "beginning" of our universe, wasn't really the "beginning of everything".   The moment people of religion do this, the more wonderful this world will be.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Ethics in Pizza Ordering?

Here I am getting lesson plans ready for my Algebra II class on z-values, confidence intervals and the central limit theorem, getting ready to order some pizza for dinner, when I go to the store's website and find this message:

Any Delivery Charge is not a tip paid to your driver. Please reward your driver for awesomeness. Our drivers carry less than $20.

Well...then...why charge a delivery charge? It doesn't cost the store any money to deliver, just the driver paying for his fuel. I believe the charge is $2 or $3, which is what I would tip a pizza guy anyways. Ever since pizza delivery has begun charging for delivery, I have stopped tipping the driver, because I thought they instituted this charge to make up for cheap asses not tipping. Now I get this message when ordering pizza online? Sorry, but if they are going to charge me what I would have normally given to the driver, why would I give them anymore?

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Bible Study at the High School

Another crazy friday was winding down after a spirited pep rally where I was the anchor of the staff tug-o-war team pulling against the seniors in which we got demolished. We all filed back inside from the football field for the end of the day announcements. "Next Tuesday there will be a bible study in Mrs. Pullin's room." I heard that and spoke out loud to my students, "Whatever happened to separation of church and state?" Well I researched the legal aspect of this and found out that it is legal to hold religious group meetings in public education buildings. This is only my third year teaching and I never really thought too much about this. I learned something new.

But this isn't why I am posting this. We had a "religious" discussion in lunch the other day and it was no secret what my thoughts were. Mrs. Pullin never addressed me directly but the way she conversed with the group and the way she became defensive in her posture told me she had a problem with this. Let me remind you that we have had a perfect working relationship in my first 2 years. All of a sudden she organizes a bible study to be held in her room by her (I did find out it is illegal for a non-educator to hold religious meetings in a public school). Now I have no reason to link the 2 events but it seems to me a little more than coincidence. If there is a link, I want to know if this is an offensive move to combat any possible discussions on the topic occurring in my class? The topic does come up in brief snippets here and there but naturally, I am careful with my choice of words. I am considering sitting in on this study and offering an open-minded opinion of how to interpret and read the bible - READ THE WHOLE DAMN THING!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Self-Deception

I was reading an interesting post by Explonential, found this video and had to steal it. By the way I don't condone kissing the monkey...unless of course...