Jimmy and I just laughed harder than we have in quite a while (and we laugh a lot). It's about 10:00 on a Saturday night and I'm proofreading and he's grading (exciting lives we lead). I'm proofreading a teacher's guide for this book on Chinese history and one of the lessons is about the abacus. One of the questions (that the teacher is supposed to ask the students) in the guide (with suggested answers) is: Can you think of any situations in which you would rather have an abacus than an electronic calculator? (if batteries die or during a solar eclipse) So I get Jimmy to read it because I can't figure out for the life of me why you'd prefer to have an abacus during a solar eclipse. We assume it must be in case your solar-powered calculator dies because of the eclipse. The thought of it just made me laugh so hard. "Well, it's completely dark out here thanks to the solar eclipse and my calculator isn't working. Where the heck is my abacus when I need it?" A number of things popped into my head. Solar eclipses don't make it completely dark. If it is completely dark in the middle of the day, can't you go inside and let the artificial light power your calculator? Wouldn't you be so weirded out by it that you would forget about your calculator and think about the fact that it's dark in the middle of the day? If it's dark enough so the calculator can't be seen, can you really see the abacus anyway?
Maybe Jimmy and I will go out and get an abacus, just so we can be prepared during the next solar eclipse.
1 comment:
That made me laugh too. :)
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