##Push, Loop, Block

A virtually unknown Chinese teenager pulled off the biggest upset win in the world table tennis championships here, beating world number one Timo Boll of Germany in the men's second round on Wednesday.

Exciting action in the Table Tennis World Championships being held now in Paris, France. In an exciting finish, Chinese novice Qui Yike came outta nowhere and defeated the front-running German Timmo Boll. Read about it in the China Daily. Also, more at the ITTF website. ##Thirty-Six High School Juniors Rubbing Balloons on their Heads Brea Olinda carried out the state achievement testing this week, know as the STAR tests. For some reason unknown to me, a lot of teachers were out so I got called to sub all five days. The last three days were for Mrs Davis, who was out with a respiratory bug. On Wednesday, I lectured about electric charge, induction and polarization of conductors and insulators, and static electricity. On Thursday, we used a bunch of balloons, Mylar (metallic) balloons, soda cans, plastic rods and rabbit fur to carry out experiments that involved electric charge moving between objects through friction, induction, or polarization. Then I asked the students to diagram their experiments on whiteboards and explain them in front of class. They did a pretty good job, I think. On Friday, I lecture on test charges, electric fields, and electric field lines. I told them that they may enjoy when I sub for Mrs Davis, but that if I taught the whole year they would probably get bored of my lecturing! I had second thoughts later; I'm probably sensitive enough to notice that students are bored of my class and would eventually think of more creative activities for the students to carry out. Partly, I lose sight of the reality that some of these kids will never take physics again in their life and don't need a deep understanding of the intricacies of the subject, and partly I like it so much myself that I tend to go on and on and not imagine that it could ever get boring. I spent four years at Caltech, where 98% of the students thought this stuff was fascinating, so it's hard to imagine otherwise. ##On the Book Front Wow, all three headings in one day: China, California and Books. The La Habra Borders is gearing up for a visit from the Big Cheeses in a week. The management is working hard to get the new shelving categories up, which means that a couple guys are pulling an all-nighter tonight to get the Kids section re-labelled and re-shelved. Computers will also get a big overhaul by mid-week which is cool because, along with Science, it's my pet section and maybe they'll appreciate the good order I keep it in. The book I'm reading, El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez Reverte is keeping me deeply engrossed. Although progress is slow--it's in Spanish, for heaven's sake--the plot is great and, like I said before, it's got high old Europe snob-factor. And it's a mystery about books, which is a hard subject to beat for book-lovers like myself. I bought a CD at work tonight. On Saturday and occasionally Sunday evenings we have performers at the Cafe section of the store (random trivia: Borders used to pay these performers a small fee for coming, but no longer does). A particularly persistent songstress has been coming to our Borders for the past few months, a woman named Marla Reid. I wouldn't normally listen to the kind of soft-pop she sings at the keyboard, but it has grown on me and the customers seem to like it. Also, I feel a sort of obligation to support live music. So tonight, I went over to talk to her and buy a CD. It turns out she has a website, and her music is sold on cdbaby.com, therefore she must be cool.