Conversations

It is 8:20 am and physics class begins as it usually does: unusually.   The class is a mixture of nerds, strange nerds, funny nerds, and nerds-in-denial.

"Urhk..braaak!" Jason grunted while contorting his body strangely.

Poor Alka stares at Jason.

"Sorry.   It's too early in the morning." Jason excused himself, "Moonkeeys.   Penguiiiins."

"OH MY GOD!   I can't concentrate!   Dang it!   I CAN'T CONCENTRATE!" Joel Wang screamed as he wrenched his hair and scribbled down some calculus homework.

"Shut up, Joel," Eliot reprimanded him self-righteously and laughed, "Ha. Ha. Ha."

"Eliot you shut up!   I can't concentrate!!!" Joel screamed again.

In the popular side of the room...

"O My God, Scott.   I hate you.   Now I'm never lending you my gym shorts again." Minti yelled at Scott pretending to be angry.

"Gee I'm sorry," Scott lied, "I promise I'll never reveal your embarrasing secrets.   I promise.   I swear!"

"Alright fine.   Since I don't have PMS today, I'll give you some dating tips.   You know I'm the master when it comes to dating." Minti boasted.

"Okay, then what do I do?" Scott asked.

"First, you've got to pretend that you are too good for the person.   Then you've got to pretend that you aren't interested.   Then you have to pretend that you hate the person.   Then you have to send him nasty notes, letters, looks, and punch him whenever possible--are you writing this down?" Minti lectured and handed Scott a nasty note.

Meanwhile on the other side of the room...

"So, how fast is your cpu processor?" Sunil taunted Eliot.

"60 billion gigahertz, of course.   And, I've got a Voodoo Master Pro 3000 video card with framerate of 60 trillion frames per sec.   How fast is your 3-d graphics accelerator?" Eliot replied smugly and taunted back.

"Uhh..." Sunil found himself backed into a corner and replied, "Shut up Eliot."

They laugh like grunting hogs for no apparent reason.

"Shut up you guys, I'm trying to sleep." Jason groaned.

The class grows silent except for Minti and Amanda.   Miss Liver enters the room with a huge stack of paper.   She heaves them onto her desk and begins to wait.   She waits again.   No one understands what she is doing.   She waits some more.   Minti and Amanda are the only ones who continue to talk loudly.

"Jason!" Miss Liver said sternly, "Be quiet."

"What is that woman talking about?" Jason muttered to himself.

"Scott!   Be quiet and sit with your but on the chair!" Miss Liver said loudly, "Sit, Joel, sit!   Keep all four feet of the stool on the floor!   You too, Scott!   Class, this is your time you are wasting!"

Miss Liver waits some more and glares angrily at the class.   Minti and Amanda continue talking.

"How many times must I ask you to be quiet?   At this rate we'll never get the material done before the third quarter--Joel sit properly!"

"Sorry," Joel said as he continued to pull his hair and scratch down calculus problems.

"Sunil!   Are you quite done with your conversation?   I can't talk while you're talking.   It's against the laws of physics.   Scott, I told you to sit with--"

"Okay!" Scott said.

Assignments

Finally, after 10 minutes, the class is completely silent and completely still.

"Now that you've wasted 30 minutes of my time, I'm making all of you stay 2 minutes extra after class.   Jason, you have to stay an extra 3 minutes." Miss Liver gave us a Cheshire cat grin.

Jason shrugged and was not amused.

"I'm happy to say that last night I've graded every test of all 5 class that I teach.   I'm also happy to say that most of you have A's.   I have to make the exceptions with Jason though." Miss Liver announced as she handed back the tests.

"Miss Liver," Jason said, "Anna got the same things wrong that I did, but she got an A and I got a D."

"I doubt that."

"But, Miss Liver..."

"No BUTS.   I'll be happy to mark your test even lower if you'd like.   Now class we will learn about centripetal motion.   Now watch out.   I'm going to tell you a joke now.   Okay, ready?   Alright.   If anyone says the word 'centrifugal' instead of centripetal, you're in deep trouble. In my class that word is a curse word." Miss Liver laughs.

No one laughs.

"Centrifugal!" Scott shouts.

"That's it." Miss Liver says angrily and gives him a detention.   Then she proceeded to derive several equations on the board.

"Miss Liver, don't you mean F cosine theta instead of F sine theta?" Jason asked.

"Hmmm.   I can't believe this.   I've been teaching this wrong for the last 10 years.   Well thank you Jason." Miss Liver thanked him heartily and gave Jason a detention. "Oh yes.   Remember the assignment that I gave you the day before yesterday?   I originally made it due for tomorrow but I change my mind.   Do you realize that we are 3 days off schedule thanks to all your chit-chat?   So the hundred point assignment is due today.   While we're at it, let's have that 200 point homework assignment due today too."

"OMIGOD!" Joel screamed as he frantically searched for the two major assignments in hopes of finishing them in two minutes, "I can't take this anymore!   I CAN'T concentrate!!!"

"Ha.   Ha!   Look at that!" Andy proudly weilded the two assignments because he was a freak of nature and did not procrastinate.

"Hmmm..." Miss Liver looked at her daily planner and made a few adjustments.   Then she declared, "We are still 2 and a half days behind schedule.   We MUST be on schedule!"

The class was busy doing the two assignments that she made due that moment.

"Hey Andy what's the answer to number 3?" Amanda asked importantly.

"Andy can I just copy all of your answers?" Minti asked, "I've been so busy and you know I'm too stupid to do any of my homework anyway.   After all, you're so manly, Andy. And any manly man would give a womanly woman, like me, their homework to copy."

Andy was sincerely flattered by Minti's insincere flattery and he promptly surrendered his lifetime achievement to her.   A mob gathered around Minti to copy answers.   They all told Minti that she was "The coolest" and that she was "Awesome."   Basking in the glory of fame, Minti punched Scott.

"Ow!   What was that for?" Scott cried.

"I hope you aren't just copying answers off of each other." Miss Liver said innocently as she looked at Minti's group. "Well since we have some time, I'll give you ten more minutes to wrap up your work."

5 minutes passes.

"Come on guys, turn in the work.   I'm not telling you again.   Turn in the assignments now.   Because none of you did your assignments at home, we are now 5 days behind schedule.   If you don't turn the homework in now, I'll have to make more assignments due today."

"But you didn't give us any other assignments yet." Jason said.

"Then I will make the unassigned assignments due today." Miss Liver retorted. "Come on hurry up.   We are almost 7 days behind!   Alright fine, I give in.   If you don't hand it in today, I'll still take it tomorrow but it will be 3 letter grades off."

"What if we hand it in 10 minutes from now?" Sunil asked.

"2 letter grades off."

"5 minutes?" Jason asked.

"Are you stalling for time?" Miss Liver asked suspiciously and glanced at her stopwatch. "Now we are 2 weeks behind schedule!   If you don't hand it in now, I'm taking 20 points off of everyone's grade!"

A few brave students dashed to Miss Liver's desk to turn in the assignments.   The bell rings.   Exuent all