Oddly enough, the worst day of my recovery so far was yesterday. Yesterday morning I took my last Vicodin, but I’m not sure that it was working anymore for me anyhoo. So I switched to Ibuprofen (with Acetaminophen on the off hours if the pain is still there) when I take my Amoxicillin. Still, I had many moments of pain – like having overly sensitive teeth. I even pondered going home from school early. I ended up not doing that, but my afternoon was not as productive as it could have been.
Today, the pain wasn’t as much, which is nice. However, there was some time when one of my sutures came unraveled enough to get caught between my back molars. Very annoying. Either it’s finally broken off or dissolved, but the annoying thread is finally gone.
In the non-teeth front, my physics students had their egg drop contest today. They came up with some clever platforms upon which to drop naked eggs. There were two in particular which had some great physics in their design. All but 3 groups managed to survive the drop from the 3rd floor, which is very good. (We drop from 1 meter, second floor, and third floor. They get full points for the egg surviving each drop.) The winner of the contest had a platform that was only 16cm off of the ground. Pretty impressive!
The egg drop contest is the first of four engineering projects that my students do during the course of the school year. Next up (probably next week) is the Comeback Cans. Then we have the two bigger projects, both worth test grades. The catapult contest and the toothpick bridge contest.
What I’d like to do some year is create a few more engineering projects for later in the school year. After the toothpick bridges, we’re out of mechanics (it’s in the unit with scaling) so any further engineering projects would need to be wave-based.
BTW, the prize for this first contest was a pair of Sonic Sound Sizzlers (yeah, a bit repetitive for that title). It’s a pair of strong magnets in oblong shapes that, when thrown so they connect in the air, will make a fun sizzling sound. I love it when Walmart has cheap-o physics toys on sale!
Anyhoo. here’s hoping yesterday was the worst of it and everything is downhill from now on. I miss having crunchy foods! (I ate some peanut butter today because I’ve missed nuts.)
HUGS! Hang in there with the teeth. I always love hearing about the egg drop.
wow, they have to create something to drop the egg onto? When i was in high school, we had to develop a package to put around the egg to drop from one meter, the classroom ceiling, the top of the football bleachers, then the pressbox for extra credit. I don’t remember what I put in it, but know I used a tupperware container with something in it and it didn’t survive the pressbox, but got an A for surviving the bleachers. I thought the best design was the guy who cut hole in the center of a Nerf Football and duct taped it back shut. It survived the pressbox, but didn’t survive the pressbox the second time being thrown at the ground – the impact made the duct tape seam open up. Anyway, I think the ‘platform’ to land it on is SOOOO much harder… hehehe, glad I didn’t have to do that!
Anyway, I think the ‘platform’ to land it on is SOOOO much harder… hehehe, glad I didn’t have to do that! Heh, the worst bit is getting the egg to actually land on it. But I like the max width & length to be 1m, so they can make ’em pretty big. The second problem with the platform is if the egg bounces off & breaks. That’s considered a break. So they have to make sure the platform doesn’t let the egg bounce off. So yeah, it has its challenges. I alternate the platform and the carriage every other year. That way the seniors can’t give all of their secrets to the juniors. 🙂 Our biggest drawback with the carriage is getting it to fit out of the itty bitty windows over in the elevator room (where we drop the eggs from). They also aren’t allowed to do anything to make the egg travel much slower. So no parachutes. I’ve wondered what would happen if I combined my Egg Drop Contest with my Catapult Contest. Just imagine if they had to design a catapult to shoot an egg at a platform and the egg not break. 😉
After talking with you last weekend and reading your previous posts, I screwed up my courage and saw and oral surgeon today and made an appt. to have my wisdom teeth extracted next month. Had I read this before my consultation this morning, I might have waited to have the procedure done AFTER the holidays. As it is, I’m getting them out the week before Thanksgiving.
Eek! Well, most folks are fine by this point. I’m older & I heal slower. 😉 But the good news is that I saw the surgeon again today and he says I’m doing fine. Having a bit of food getting stuck in the gaps, but he gave me a directional syringe-thingy to direct warm salt water into the gaps. Worked great after my supper tonight. (I couldn’t stand my normal squishy diet, so I went to Taco Hell tonight. Got a bean burrito, soft taco (not as good as the hard ones), and, of all things, an enchirito. They brought the enchirito back! Yay!) Here’s hoping your recovery goes faster so that you can OD on Thanksgiving food like I intend to do. 🙂