Sunset from three days ago

Astronomy/Physics

This time-lapse sequence of a lunation is one of the coolest Astronomy pictures of the day that I have seen. I’m going to use this animation in my classes. (Is this some kind of disease that teachers get? I’m starting to look at everything from the teacher’s angle – how can I use this in my lessons? How bad is this going to be, say, 20 years from now?)

St Elmo’s Fire

What is ball lightning? There are some explanations and background information in the links from this MetaFilter thread: Ball Lightning. I’ve never seen it, but I’m tempted to try and produce a ball lightning in the microwave oven – the one we bought arrived today. However, I don’t think that André will let me try this at home… More unwise microwave oven experiments were posted here previously.

Mathematics

I don’t have time right now, but I should read the article about Tensegrity by Kenneth Snelson tomorrow or whenever. Link via MetaFilter.

School

School started yesterday, and I’m already exhausted after just two days of school. Everybody told me that working full-time as a teacher is very hard for the first couple of years until you get used to it. However, I think it’s not just the stress at school, but a bug that’s trying to get me down. I try to get enough vitamins and sleep to fight it off.

The first days with the new students went well so far. Two classes I will spend a lot of time with/on are a fifth grade of 25 students for which I’m the Klassenlehrer (I guess you could roughly translate that with homeroom teacher or something similar), and an advanced maths course in 11th grade, which I’m looking very forward to teach until they get their Abitur. There are only 14 students, half of which I know from last year.

But now, there’s some more school work before I can call it a day and go to bed…