Well, they've started to come back! I've had some months off, and my first visiting school group of the school year came by...

It was a 5th grade group. They were a little excitable, but not too bad, and mostly appropriate.

I started by talking about the moon. It's a good way to get the lights down quick, with a picture of a big moon up there, eyes can adjust to the dark a little more easily.

The teacher mentioned that they were talking about meteors. The moon is a good way to segue into that. I talk about the moon's craters, and how they are caused by asteroids flying in and smacking up the surface.

I then ask them, "Well, if the moon is being beat up by rocks, and is our closest next-door neighbor in space, is that something we should be worried about here on Earth?"

"NO!" they yelled back, which is what I expected.

"Well, we do need to worry about BIG asteroids. But really, most asteroids that head towards the Earth, we don't need to worry about, because we have a protection around the Earth that The Moon really doesn't have. What is it...?"

Usually 5th graders know it's the atmosphere. And this was a smart group. But it just got quiet for a second, until one brave soul ventured: "...Life Insurance??"

I updated the Blog template to use the newish, groovy, template editor in Blogger. Maybe it will motivate me to blog more often.

Actually probably not for a while, it gets REAL quiet around here in September...

Stay tuned!

This is just a quick entry... not sure how I could mangle it into a full story; it's a random odd comment by a visitor.

I have a group visit today from The Tabernacle of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (This is not going to end with anything religiously odd. This time...) The show went pretty fine, and at the end I show a little music video from a DVD hooked up to a digital projector. When I pull the lenscap off the front of the front of the projector, they can see the DVD menu for a second before I hit 'play'.

When that showed up on the dome, one kid yelled out, "OOH! Are we gonna watch XBox 360 commercials?"

Not "Are we gonna play XBox games?" or anything like that, he was just excited at the prospect of watching XBox 360 COMMERCIALS. Seemed odd.

I had a group of first graders yesterday from a camp. They were cool. I got them laughing in all the right places, and got them super, super wound up. they were all bouncy as they left. You're welcome, counselors!

Just a funny moment: I try to keep the kids interacting a little throughtout the show. It's a dark, comfy room. I do my best to keep them awake.

One of the interactions involves me asking simple questions. They can confidently answer, and feel they are part of the program, as well as feel good about knowing something useful in the show.

I was discussing Venus, and mentioning that it has a thick atmosphere. There's usually murmurs of "Ooh, does that mean we could live there...?" as I say that, so I quickly lead into a discussion of the fact that the air is not breathable at all.

So I yell to them, "We have an ingredient in our air that we need in order to breathe...?" I pause at this point in my psuedo-question because sometimes they immediately know what it is and yell it out. First graders sometimes need a tiny little bit more prodding, so I went on with the prompting, "...it starts with an 'O'...?"

A girl sitting right next to me excitedly shouted out, "OCTOPUS!"

We all laughed (including her). When I (and the rest of us) got my breath back, I asked her, "Did you just say...?"

She made a fake pouting face and said in a quiet pouty voice, "yes."

We all laughed again.

This happened a while ago, but I just stumbled across the evidence on my desk, and I haven't made an entry in a while, so I thought I'd jot it down. It made me laugh, but most of the other people I let in on this are shocked and horrified. You be the judge!

A couple weeks ago I had a group of third graders here. It was a good group, and this report actually has nothing to do with the show itself. It was after the show, when I was drifting around the Planetarium hoping to find some dropped money to offset rising gas prices. (Current money collected over 6.3 years: $53.25... $52 of that all at once in a wallet. Which I DID turn into Lost and Found, but after 60 days of no claimant, posession got turned over to me!) Cash found this time: exactly $0.00. I did, however, find a partially crumbled piece of paper with kid writing on it. A note! Cool! Maybe it'll be something I can turn over to Found Magazine.

I smoothed out the paper. On one end it said, in third grade quality handwriting:

to michelle

Good start... I glanced at the other end, which had simply the following:

oscar likes girls boobs and so does matt

I thought it quite hysterical. But whenever I relay the story to anyone else, at the part where I expect laughter I just get, "THIRD graders!? Oh, that just too young to be thinking about boobs.

I don't care. It's still funny.

I had a group from a place called "Metro Church Summer Camp" this morning. It was an odd start to the day.

First of all, and I don't mean to sound judgy in this next little bit, in the spot on the reservation form where it asks what I should cover in my Planetarium show, they stated the following: "Focus on God's creation of the sun, moon, and planets." Where do I begin with the problems here...?

Let's see: first of all, this is a public Planetarium. Sure, it's a private show for their group, BUT I would imagine they can assume I steer a little clear of topics like that. Folks who chose a career in the astronomical arts RARELY are tied to creationism. Second, and perhaps, more important, even if I DID decide to talk about that, wouldn't that show be rather short?! "Yep, kiddies, God created the sun. And the moon. Planets, too. I guess he chucked those stars up there while he was at it." Long pause. "Isn't that nifty?" What would I do for other 58 minutes??

So when they got here, I figured I'd try to get a handle on what they'd talked about. I should let you know these kids were SMALL. 3 and 4 years old. I found someone who looked to be the adult leader of the group, and watched her settle in to the middle of the group. Once they were all seated I asked her, "So, have you been talking about anything related to space?"

She actually answered: "Oh, yes: Creation." (Geez, she's stuck on this thing. Maybe you could talk about something that happened AFTER that!) And then she said, in what can only be described as a loud whisper, "We're creationists!" She said that last word in such an odd way -- as if she didn't like the taste of it. It's a lot like people who are trying not to sound racist, so when they describe a race they do it in a sort of hushed tone, and it always makes them sound ultra-racist: "He was so helpful to me in the store. And he was a black person."

I asked if they evere thought of mentioning aspects of the moon, stars or planets to her students. She said, "Oh, yeah, we mention those." I decided I'd better just 0start talking rather than ask what was mentioned about them. I imagine it would sound something like: "We tell them they were created by god. We're creationists."

So I talked about the moon. They seemed about as engaged as 3 year olds could be. I moved on and talked about some constellations. I describe Cygnus the Swan, and put his image of a big white swan soaring across the sky up on the dome.

One kid's immediate reaction to that image was: "I wanna eat it!"

"Eat it?" I asked.

"Yeah. Eat it," he said. He said it in kind of a vicious way, like he was actually angry at the bird.

"But it's a swan," I said. "Not like a chicken or a turkey. We don't usually eat swans."

"Don't care!" he said back, still sounding angry. "I wanna eat it!"

I figured I'd better move on.

I showed them Taurus the Bull. Guess what happened when his picture went up? You guessed it: "I wanna eat it!" the kid said again. I asked the adults if the children had skipped snack time today. I was just trying to be funny. There was no response.

For a creationist, this kid was rather hell-bent on destruction.

So I moved on to Orion the Hunter. His image pops up, "I wanna eat him!"

"But that's a PERSON!" I was slightly horrified.

"Don't care. I'll eat him." He was less angry this time, oddly. More matter-of-fact.

Now, I always figured CANNIBALISM was quite against a creationist's ethics. ENOUGH SO that an adult would correct a child expression an interest in eating a human. I was wrong. No one said a thing.

I got a little freaked out as I now imagine I was speaking to a room full of Creationist Carnivorous Cannibalistic Children. I expected them to listen quietly until they were sick of my lecture, and then all rise up as a single horde and devour me, zombie-style on the spot, while the adults looked on with approval.

I mean, as long as they don't suggest that the universe was more that a few thousand years old...! THAT would be disturbing...
( ^--- REALLY obvious sarcasm... )

---

(My brain can be a scary place...)

For me?! Thanks! (sarcastically)

It has been forever since I've updated. Some great stuff has happened, too. I have made notes, and will likely jot down some of the fun stories when I get the chance in the next couple of weeks.

But... just now I had a moment I must write about IMMEDIATELY. I had a group of ECO Explorers stop by. This group comes every year in early summer, and they are always pretty cool. Between seven and nine years old, well-prepared, great chaperons -- basically all the ingredients for a good show. And today was no different. They were laughing at all the right places. They shouted some stuff out, but mostly it was appropriate stuff, and when it wasn't it made me laugh anyway, so it was no big deal.

At the end of the show, as they were filing out, one girl, among the younger ones in the group, and who probably laughed harder during the show than anyone else, came up and stood right next to me...

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"Yes?" I said.

"Can I hug you?"

Now, I am not one to suffer from being touched by anything cute, but she was a cute kid, and just wanted to show her appreciation for the show, so I told her, "Sure!" And she did dive right in and clasp me around my legs (she was quite a bit shorter than me). It was very sweet. I gave her a little pat on the back. (Those who know me will be impressed by my incredibly generous response to the hug. Usually I am shrinking back in terror when the kids get a little too close...)

She released me and stepped back to the very same spot she was in before the embrace and looked at me again.

"Can I give you this?" she stretched a fist, holding something, up towards me.

"Sure!" I told her and held out my hand. Cool! I thought. Free toy or something!

She gently placed, in the center of my palm, a greyish-beige ball sized somewhere between a marble and a grape. It had little wrinkly folds in it. I had no idea what it could be. Looked like some kind of clay, maybe.

"What is it?" I asked with an air of wonder, marveling at whatever generous gift I had been given.

"It's a model of Pluto...!" she said proudly.

I nodded. I supposed it could be just that.

"That I made...!" she beamed with pride.

Oh. Cool. Homemade little toy. For me! It was a rather rewarding feeling that I had inspired this child to create something.

She continued, "...from GUM!"

That's when the unmistakable scent of classic Juicy Fruit gum hit my nostrils. This thing had to have been made with at least 3 sticks of it, fully chewed, and now balled up in my palm. ABC* gum. In my hand. Freshly chewed, by the smell of it.

I'm hoping she didn't think I was unappreciative as I reacted to her very generous gift with a high-pitched shriek and a dash for the hall garbage can. I turned my palm over and began thrusting in down towards the garbage. My suspicions of chew-freshness were confirmed by the fact that the Pluto model remained adhered to my palm.

With a little increase of speed and ferocity, I felt the chewed gum let go and heard it plop into the bottom of the garbage bag. With a relieved sigh, I headed back towards the exiting children.

"Did you like it? Wasn't it cool?" the gift-giving girl asked.

"It was cool. But also a little icky..." I told her.

She just nodded and moved on.

The girl behind her came up to me and asked, "Can I hug you, too?"

"OK," I told her, "but no gifts."

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* - in case you don't remember from grade school: Already Been Chewed.

OK, Ok, this is not Planetarium related, but it IS space related, and it is a question that does come up on a random basis in shows.

So, for all of you out there wondering this very, very important fact...


Created by OnePlusYou

And if you are wondering how long you could do the same, you can find out by clicking on the image above or, right here. By the way, that page is kind of wonky. If you get there and it is blank, refresh it a time or two.

(Note: I'm not sure how scientifically accuarate that thing is...)

Pampered and Pampered

It's been so long once again since I've posted. There has been lots of excitement, but the shows have had the standard sorts of things going on.

I just had a group of what I only knew going in as "special ed kids". Those are my favorites. This group was between the ages of 15 and 18, and they were a little less functioning than I am used to having in the Planetarium. I will give an example to try to show how...

When my reservationist/greeter person asked if, before the show began, anyone needed to use the bathroom, one of the teachers replied, "Oh, no, they're fine. We made sure they were all double diapered before we left school."

DOUBLE diapered.

We actually did have a very fun time. Not sure if the double diapering was a factor in that, but you never know...