Introduction to IPS (Introduction to Physical Science)

I am right now listening to a song on the country radio whose lyrics are "I've done some pretty stupid things, thats how I got to be this way......"  Pretty appropriate introduction for the things that Im about to write in the next few blogs......
One of the best classes I ever took in my young days was my first class of high school, Indroduction to Physical Science, an advanced science class where you do experiments, write up your results in often 4-5 page long typed disserations on a weekly or so basis.  Very challenging.  Very fun.
I was luck to have a great lab partner.  He is now actually a high school chemistry and physics teacher.  So it was a good class.
I will relate one personal experience that was indeed "stupid" though, I attest unavoidable as I attest I had not been a recipient of the warning that our teacher mentioned was given to the class.  Was I not there or did I miss the warning? I guess so. 
We were doing experiments whereby we would take a magnesium strip and drop it into I believe a vat of Hydrochlroic or maybe Sulfuric Acid.  In the end we got Hydrogen which we prooved to exist by lighting it on fire and getting a stream of combustable gas.
That was pretty neat.
But when the lab was dull, I went to the front of the room and found a few magnesium strips.  They are slick silvery grey pliable pieces of metal that are in strips that are a few inches long and about .25 inches in width.
I decided to test as to what would happen if one was exposed to flame on a bunson burner.  I was astonished that the magnesium strip lit up like a flare.  Like a flare.  The light was intense, I was basked in the glow of this incandescent light for a few moments.   I report that no harm was done. No damage. It was controlled and probably ended up on the lab table. 
That said, the teacher was very upset.  I was not disciplined, but I was ashamed.  I really had no idea that it would light up like that. I had no prior knowledge of magnesium and I had no intent to be a destructive instrument in the lab.  So no harm done, but I do hope that precautions were given out much more legibly in the future. 
I was surprised almost 4 years later when I read my senior year year book that one of the students who was a neighbor who I had known quite well as a child growing up described me in his year book as the "IPS Pigro".. Did he mean Pyro? I think he got the right idea, but likely wrong words.  If he did wish to express I was a 'pig' of sorts, I will only call to you his own disruptive behavior as we were younger.  No problem.