Kansas City RenFest

[hesperornis]

www.kcrenfest.com

Check it out. I might try to rustle up some people to go with me this weekend. I would like everyone even remotely associated with the Whitman RenFaire to note the theme of their faire, and to rejoice in the fact that We Did It First.

In other news, today I became officially certified to drive a giant 15-passenger van (though with no more than 12 people including the driver in it, per school policy). Certification involved watching a one-hour video. No actual driving practice was required. Hmm.

In other-other news, my students today couldn't distinguish galena from graphite, quartz from halite (taste it! I said. Eww, no way! They said. How are you going to know what it is? I said. Aren't you going to tell us? They said. Sheesh.), or calcite from anything else. I was running around trying to help where I could, but there was much confusion overall. Maybe tomorrow I'll make sure to remind them to _Read The Directions_ since clearly very few people bothered to today, costing some of them over an hour. *sigh* Maybe I'll get the hang of this one of these days.

Comments

[wealhtheow.livejournal.com]

Wait wait wait. Are you saying I missed a PIRATE-THEMED Faire this spring?!

(Although I will note that my Faire 2000 character was a pirate, and Twit was our captain.)

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Twit was pirate captain again. We played off of the Pirates of the Caribbean a fair bit, including a sunken mast in Lakum Duckum which Alice and Jenn put together. It was very impressive.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

Just remember, you are getting paid no matter what they learn.

7 weeks?!

[(Anonymous)]

That is a serious faire. Imagine how much planning it must take!

I recall my Intro to Geo final. We had things to identify. I was in a hurry, and looking at one mineral I thought to myself: "Aha! Halite! Lets make this quick and just taste it!"

It was not halite. It did not taste nice at all. I was sad. Especially knowing that 20 other students had handled it before me.

Black Jayne

Re: 7 weeks?!

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've tasted calcite without checking cleavages before. Bleaugh. The _worst_ ones are the ones that taste salty even if they're _not_ halite, because that just means that they've been sweated upon a little too much.

Have you ever _smelled_ your samples? Some oxides smell like metal, and I swear that some igneous rocks smell like gingerbread...

[aspend.livejournal.com]

Yay for pirates! Good luck with the teaching thing. I don't know if this will make you feel better, but I have no idea what ANY of the rock you listed are (with the exception of graphite because, well, that is carbon, and I know me my carbon). :-)

[hesperornis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the main issue being that some of them didn't seem to realise that graphite is what they were _writing_ with, and they clearly could not have written anything with the galena samples. Carbon is light, lead is heavy. Sheesh. :-) *Considers* Maybe they _didn't_ realise that they were writing with graphite. The core of a pencil _is_ called 'pencil lead', after all... darned misleading terminology. :-P