That's What Friends Are For

I can't recall hearing an awesome song on the radio today, but I did wake up singing Elton John/Dionne Warwick/Gladys Knight/Stevie Wonder's "That's What Friends Are For," a song that plays in the Kinder Friends commercial on tv, and that seems appropriate for today, so my earworm picked well at 6 this morning.

Today's entry is going to consist of fun anecdotes from school, because today was full of them, meaning there was lots of laughter, some of which I might be able to electronically transmit.

Starting in Chemistry (always funny anyway):
Chubie: It's so cold in here!
Tobi: We could huddle around the bunsen burner for warmth.
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Today in Chemistry we played with some sort of poisonous liquid, or rather Frau Collin did behind like 3 windows, but we were still all coughing from the fumes. After going through this long process of being super careful with the Brom (this is the German name, I am too lazy to find the English one) she went and squirted like a whole dropper full on the behind-windows-for-protection lab counter. She did eventually get the Brom mixed with the Hexan, and then brought it out of the glass case thing to show us the reaction, meaning there was a flask of liquid producing some sort of white fume right in front of where I was sitting. A snippet of Chemistry class conversation:
Student: Frau Collin, is this solution poisonous?
FC: Um, not that much. I mean, I'm still alive. (picks up flask, removes protective cover, things spews smoke although it is totally not hot at all) It smells rather nice, actually (class is coughing) Who wants to smell it? (takes large whiff herself, has coughing fit) Well, it's still a bit too strong, we'll wait a little while.
Then she lectured for a bit and then a few brave people did smell the thing, and we all left Chemistry with a cough that we didn't have before and my throat's still a little sore. Fun, fun.

There was an English test today, and Herr Kunst figured it was silly for me to do the reading comprehension bit, so he told me I could try translating what they were supposed to read instead- without a dictionary. He expected me to get through about half of it, but I finished the whole thing (it wasn't quite a page long, typed), so I think that means I'm pretty cool, although I had very little clue what the German word for "equality" is nor how to express the concept of "working class."
That was not supposed to be a funny anecdote, more of those follow.

Religion:
Currently reading some weird passage that led to group work where my group did a mini-presentation on why Food equals Love. You see, love is a chemical reaction produced by hormones in the brain, which is fueled by food- without food, your brain doesn't work and you can't love (or do many other things for that matter, but that's beside the point). Children love their parents because their parents feed them, and pass that love onto other people through food and otherwise taking care of said people. It's this big cycle, you see. What it has to do with religion, I don't know, but I was pretty hungry during class and I wasn't feeling inclined to love anyone, then I ate some chocolate chip cookies in my free period after religion, and I felt much more able to love the world, and I also loved myself for making yummy cookies, although they look rather flat and wrinkled.

Lunch Pause (or that hour of the day when 5 or so Germans became incredibly creative and hilarious):
Niko: Did you know that 70% of British children don't know French Fries are made of potatoes?
Sebastian: What?
N: I read it somewhere. 70% of British kids.
S: What do they think they're made of?
N: I don't know. . . eggs. . . fat. . . who knows?
Someone who wasn't listening: What's this theory you're talking about?
N: Right, the French Fry Theory- we aren't certain what's in them, but we're hypothesizing. . . (we all collapse into laughter)

French Fries somehow led to talking about Cookie Monster, and it turns out that most Germans do not know the difference between Sesame Street and the Muppets, and are fairly certain that Bert and Ernie and Kermit and Miss Piggy are from the same show.

Then Michi started a huge debate when she asked (related to physics homework): How do you convert cubic cm to cubic m? Niko started this long explanation in which he ended up having her divide something by a million, which I'm fairly certain isn't right, and then Sebastian went to get some conversion chart that he had, but that was for things like cm to inch, and then I had to tell them all what an inch is, and went on to explain things like ounce and gallon and foot and then we still didn't have an answer for Michi and, the longer I listened, the more confused I became. We only stopped when Viktor went to pour himself some apple juice from the carton sitting there, and stopped because it had some sort of chunks in it, and the sheer disgust made us forget cubic meters and centimeters and math in general. Also, pizza showed up.

Viktor was studying something or other for art, and suddenly randomly asked (I'm sure it had to do with what he was studying): What's syphilis?
S: I think it's some sort of sailor's disease. . . no, that's malaria. Syphilis. . . it's an STD, right?
N: What? No way.
S: No, it's defintely an STD.
V: Yeah, he could have got it from monkeys.
N: What?! No! Monkeys?
V: He was sick!
S: Haven't you ever heard of furries?
N: Yea, like with hamsters. . .
S: No, hamsters wouldn't work, Niko. Not at all.
So after that weird conversation and lots of laughter, we somehow got onto the topic of the pope. Specifically, poping names.
Someone: Why'd he pick the name Benedict? (current pope) I mean, 15 other dudes already had it- wouldn't you want to be new and unique?
Sometwo: Maybe he liked the number 16.
1: Yeah, I'm going to pick this name just so I can put a 16 behind it.
Somethree: What if there were a Pope Jürgen?
2: You can't pick some farmer name.
This led to random naming of crazy potential Pope names, like Hans-Werner and Hans-Peter and Horst and whatnot, which was pretty fun.

Unfortunately, the lunch break has to end eventually, and it was on to biology, where I actually have homework: a paternity test! I think I am in the Jerry Springer biology course- we just finished up with hermaphrodites, and now it is on to how to tell if he is your Baby Daddy or not.

And Rosi was busy when I needed to get picked up after 7th period, so I rode the train home with Babsi and she's a pretty cool person and I'm glad I'm getting these opportunities to just hang out with random people and talk to them and get to know them.

And tonight was a nice continuation of hilarious anecdotes- Miri came over for dinner and for some reason was obsessed with tongue twisters, so I taught her to say the one about the seashells and the woodchuck and the sick sheep and she taught me German tongue twisters about goats and whisky mixers and fishers and we laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. Laughing is very good- I like to laugh.

It was Numb3rs night- yay Numb3rs! And Mel Brooks' History of the World was on Kabel 1, so I flipped to it on commercial breaks and Mel Brooks is still the foremost comedian of our time, and I don't just say that because I find Yiddish accents to be the hottest thing ever, bok yok.

Remember, Food is Love.