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Last weekend, I competed for the 3rd time in the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships. There are 2 events in the competition. In the Punniest of Show, contests perform a 90 second monologue on a topic of their choice. They are ranked on a scale of 1-10 by 4 judges.

The Punslingers event is a tournament style format that pits 2 contestants against eachother. A category is revealed, and the first contestant has 5 seconds to think of a pun. Then the next contestant has five seconds. Puns alternate back and forth until one contestant comes up empty. There are 30 contestants in each event, and last year, I was lucky enough to place 2nd in both events.

Here’s my entry for this year’s Punniest of Show. I got 39 out of a possible 40 points making me the new World Champion! (stay tuned next week for my Punslingers video)

This semester I learned 2 new things: how to play the guitar and what the horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulcus is (it’s a part of the brain that does number processing and it’s abbreviated “HIPS”). Combining the two resulted in the Science & Math Education Band aka The HIPS. Our first performance was last weekend at the SME End of the Year Picnic. Feel free to sing along!

Love Me Do

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All y’all from H-Town know this classic!

Love on the Highway

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Brown Eyed Girl

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This is a song from The Cherry Blossoms.

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The SME Song

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The Pina Colada Song

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Here’s another video from my road travels last summer!

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Last May, the head of the math department at my high school was retiring and moving to Georgia. I rewrote the lyrics to “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and the Pips, and some other crazy math teachers decided to sing the song for her at her retirement party. We couldn’t find a lot of time to practice, so they day of, we took all of our students, brought them in my classroom, and had them watch as we practiced the song a few times at the end of the school day. We had a “choreographer” from the Houston Bar Association’s Night Court come in to help us, and of course, we couldn’t have pulled it off without the vocal talents of Melinda (aka Gladys Knight).

I think Diana enjoyed the musical tribute to her time at SWHS, and I hope she’s enjoying life in Georgia even more.

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My birthday was exactly one month ago. I took my video camera around with me from the moment I woke up to right before I went to sleep. It was a great day packed with work on the Washington math standards, lunch at Pei Wei, crazy cupcakes for my coworkers, laser tag, Catch Phrase, cake, charades, Dutch Blitz, the Winking Game, and Mafia! Thanks to everyone who made it so special!

If you haven’t seen last year’s birthday, click here.

Featuring “Happy Birthday” by Three Men and a Tenor and “Happy Birthday” by Ebron.

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For my Curriculum History & Development class, we had to do an Inquiry Mapping Activity where we picked a topic, learned as much as we could about it, and mapped the process that we went through to do so. I chose to study laughter! Ma ha ha! This video gives an overview my research into the physiological, psychological, and social aspects of laughter. Among the laughers chuckling in the video are professors and students from the Science & Math Ed. department and my friends from the Longhorn Center for Academic Excellence. Enjoy!

Featuring “A Happy Beat” by Kumbahya.
A special thanks to Sam Cox for allowing me the pleasure of learning from him.

Below is my friend Tom’s inquiry mapping video. He was a bit more ambitious than I was choosing to study Hyperbolic Geometry. His awesome bass and accordion playing is in the background.

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This week we have a guest artist, Lauren Michelle Petrick, my lovely sister. She is a studio art major, and this is her original animation. Enjoy!

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Foosball enthusiasts have been waiting all year for this battle: a match up of the world’s best foosball player, The Top, against foosball’s newest phenom, Carmen. Who has the foosball skills to prevail? Who’s got the kicks to send the other spinning away from the table? This championship match will have you biting your nails right down to the finish!

Featuring “I’m the Champ” by Chain Gang Productions and “Jiggy” by Deegan.
Note to foosball purists: House rules = spins allowed.

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On January 2nd, Lauren, Kathleen, and I made our fourth annual ski trip to Angel Fire, New Mexico. We stayed in my aunt and uncle’s cabin, aka “A Bit of Home”, went skiing and snowmobiling, played games, observed the wild turkey and deer near the cabin, watched movies, went for walks, and of course, played in the snow. This year, when Kathleen went for a walk, I waited for her to return, and when she did, I pegged her with a snowball! This, of course, started the snowball effect…

Featuring “Red Dragon vs. Phoenix” by Solace.