Uncontrollable Laughter #1

     Today, in organic chemistry, I felt uncontrollable laughter for the first time in a long time.  Dr. Montchamp, our professor, was attempting to show us why this specific carbene would not react with a base.  The reason behind this was that the carbene's molecular orbitals were sterically hindered.  Dr. Montchamp attempted to draw these orbitals, but upon its completion, it seemed as if he had drawn male genitalia on the bored.  Nobody wanted to be the first person to laugh.  Unfortunately, Brad, my friend who sits next to me, could not control his immaturity and began to giggle.  It had been long enough before he started laughing that the rest of the class had already moved on and gotten over the drawing silently.  So of course, Brad was the lone giggler- however, this was not the case for long.  This was due to Brad laughing SO HARD that his glasses came unscrewed and the lens fell out.  I could no longer hold back my laughter.  So as Brad and I are laughing so hard that we can't breathe, my friend who sits on the other side of me, Elli, attempted to take a picture of the board because the next reaction was too difficult to draw.  However, Elli forgot to turn the flash of her camera off.  Dr. Montchamp looked up, and at this point, all three of us were dying from everything happening in such a short amount of time.  Dr. Montchamp just shook his head and after a few minutes, all was calm.

     Obviously in this case, the uncontrollable laughter was a distracting agent.  Brad first distracted me and our laughter distracted Elli.  By the point that all three of us were laughing, we were also distracting everyone within a three row radius of us.  Distraction is often looked at as a con of laughter, but I don't think it was necessarily a bad thing here.  On top of it being an extremely stressful environment, I had a terrible morning and this helped turned that around.  While we were distracting, the only thing going on at the time was copying drawings off of the board, so I do not think we hindered anyone's learning; in fact, I would like to think that we made someone's day better with our laughter.

Conversation Partner Reflection One

     My conversation partner is Deo Mahanga and he is from Rwanda.  Deo and I met at the IEP center because he told me he only knows "IEP and Lupton-BLUU."  We introduced ourselves with a very awkward handshake- he told me that he is still working on his "greeting skills."  We asked each other basic information to break the ice.  I learned that Deo is 34 years old, has a wife and two children, previously lived in Oregon, and works as a cab driver on the weekend.  As he finished telling me this, the lady who was in charge of pairing us together walked by.  Deo stopped her and asked why we are doing this and what is required of him because he was confused about the whole program.  After hearing that this is designed to help develop his conversation skills, Deo seemed excited and really began to open up.

     Since it was so nice outside and Deo is so unfamiliar with the campus, I decided that we should have the remainder of our meeting while walking around.  As soon as we left the building, we ran into a tour group.  Deo was very curious about the purpose of this group.  He did not understand why students were visiting and, even more so, why there parents were with them.  I guess all of his schooling has been by his own will and independent of his parents.  Either way, we continued on with our own tour.

     As most males do, Deo and I began to talk about sports.  We shared the ability to watch and enjoy any sporting event, but I wanted to know what his favorites were.  He couldn't really decide, but he picked basketball and soccer.  I told him that I like baseball and college football, but I also told him that I play a lot of ultimate Frisbee.  He looked very confused and told me that he did not know what a Frisbee was, so I promised to bring one to our next meeting.  The remainder of our tour was him asking questions about the dorm and stopping mid-sentence to make sure he was using certain words correctly.  I really admire how committed he is to learning English and how seriously he took our conversation.  I look forward to our next meeting.

Jokes for 2/12

"A man died and was taken to his place of eternal torment by the devil.
As he passed sulphurous pits and shrieking sinners, he saw a man he recognized as a lawyer snuggling up to a beautiful woman.
'That's unfair!' he cried. 'I have to roast for all eternity, and that lawyer gets to spend it with a beautiful woman.'
'Shut up,' barked the devil, jabbing the man with his pitchfork. 'Who are you to question that woman's punishment?'"

"I just read a book about Stockholm Syndrome. It was pretty bad at first, but by the end I kinda liked it."

"There are 2 types of people in the world. Those that can extrapolate from incomplete data"

"Freudian slip: when you say one thing, but you mean your mother."

"Have you heard about the corduroy pillow?

I hear it's making headlines."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qnydFmqHuVo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-BbpaNXbxg