Opposites Attract

Fourteen motors spinning! 104 magnets, 28 nails, 280 feet of copper wire, 7 - 6volt batteries, sand paper, 12 feet of wood, 14 shish kebab sticks and some yellow, red and black electrician tape. Oh, and 13, Grade 8 students. The classroom was an electro-magnet factory for three morning lessons. And a couple of lunch hours and recesses too! It was a delightful end to our Physics block - with everyone being successful. I am always so nervous about teaching Physics, but I can count this one as one of the most relaxed, and the most fun. I also think they learned alot about hydraulics, aero-dynamics, magnetism and electricity. Can't complain there.

But when you work with magnets you learn that opposites attract and like poles repel. Attraction is of interest to 13 and 14 year olds. The thought you might be attracted to someone who is different from you is a scary thought. The thought that the people who bug you the most are really the most like you, is equally scary.

I said that they may be a neat freak, who loves to socialize, and go to restaurants and they will fall for a recluse who loves to cook, and leaves his socks on the kitchen table! - oh wait, that might have been my story :). Except I am not a neat freak - I just don't leave socks on the kitchen table.

Anyways, suffice it to say it was food for thought. And, it is true, at least for me. Melancholics kind of annoy me. I totally understand them, but still. Sometimes they should just suck it up and get on with it. (Note to self: are you listening?)

And, as it always is, one block ended today, and a new one starts on Monday. So, tonight I was already leaving Physics behind and browsing through my World Geography notes. I like to do this block via the economic realm. Where do all the things we use, eat, wear, buy, and want come from? In my daily life, who are all the people that, in one way or another, support me, by either harvesting the sugar that I like in my afternoon tea, to picking the cotton in my comfortable cotton bra?

I bet some of them are just like me. I bet some of them are just the opposite.