practicality

So, on a total whim, I installed our copy of "The Magic School Bus Explores the Human Body". And wow, the memories.

For those of you not aquainted with The Magic School Bus series, it's one of those educational TV shows for kids that doesn't suck. In fact, I think it was one of the first shows my brother and I watched religiously, along with Inspector Gadget ^^ Basically, The Magic School Bus is about science, in small, kid-sized form. With a somewhat crazy but cool teacher named Ms. Frizzle, and, as you might have guessed, a magic school bus. It was a great show, and I loved it, and actually learned stuff from it.

Now, I think most of you know this already, but for those who don't, my mother is a doctor. And around the same time that The Magic School Bus was my show of choice, she volunteered to come in once a week, and do experiments with my class. She actually did this for a number of years, but the ones I remember the best were from when I was eight or so. There were a few times where she went to a local butcher's shop, and got some of the organs that were just going to be thrown out or whatever, and brought them in to show us. The two I remember the most were a cow's eyeball, that she cut up to show us all the different parts, and a set of cow's or sheep's lungs that she let us touch once we had rubber gloves on (because, you know, touching dead cow parts with your bare hands really isn't sanitary). I can actually still remember what those lungs looked and felt like, which is surprising for me, as I have an awful memory (I actually manged to forget my locker combination over winter break ^^;). And I loved that too.

This year, as I've been dealing with the Chemistry teacher from Hell, I've started to realize that I've lost a lot of that. And I really miss it, that practically unconditional love of science. Man, public school really is evil. Although, I think I'll have to see if The Magic School Bus is still on TV and check it out ^^