Student Essay Insanity™ #68!

Picture from Engrish Funny

A big "Howdy!" to all you Student Essay Insanity™ fans out there! It's been way too long since the last installment of this E&P feature, so I hope this will make up a little for lost time.

While there have been rumors that the Regents' Exam may soon be abolished, I've been telling my students not to hold their breaths while waiting for that frabjous day, calloo callay. No matter what, the Board of Regents and the Georgia Legislature will requires students to take the Regents' Exam—even if they don't actually call it "the Regents' Exam."

So here we are in another Summer Term, and another Regents' Essay Exam prep course. Happily, this summer's class is a good one. They have a good sense of humor, and they're willing to ask extra questions and do extra work so they can finally get this awful, pointless, dated, mind-numbing standardized test out of of the way. And they can laugh at the mistakes they make in their practice essays—which is always a good thing.

I've put the (always dumb) Regents' Exam topic/prompt in bold, and the blooper immediately below it in plain type. As always, these are real bloopers from real essays, and they were written by real students.

I shit you not.

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What, in your opinion, are some of the reasons so many people have pets? Discuss.
In my life, pets have become a staple.

Same topic as above, but from a different student:
Pets are an on-growing trend in the world today.

Apart from chronological age, what are some major differences between an adolescent and an adult? Explain.
Adults understand the powder of the mind.

Which college courses were most difficult for you? Discuss.
My three most difficult classes were English lit, allgibra, biology and world hist.

What makes one college class more enjoyable than another? Discuss.
Universities have really not changed and have the same set up as they did compared to when they were first created.

Knowledge can be gained from books and scientific observation. What are some other important sources of knowledge, and why are they valuable?
But I was not well informed on the information.

Why do so many people like to have collections of something (antiques, coins, stamps, dolls)? Discuss.
Another reason why people have collections of things is just that they simply have nothing else to do, such as older people.

Chicken Monday Tuesday: 6/29/10

Okay, so I don't have a picture to post—this is proving so far to be a crazy week—but I want to let everyone know that the peeps are doing just fine. They've doubled in size in the nine days since they hatched.

Naturally, I'll post video and pictures once I have a few extra minutes to spend with Henrietta and the babies. For now, I just run out to the chicken pen, pour clean water and fresh feed, and then leave once I'm sure my feathered friends are all right.

UPDATE: PeepWatch 2010!

Still only two peeps (baby chickens), but they're doing just fine. Henrietta moved her nest down to the floor of the chicken house, abandoning the remaining EIGHT eggs in the process. (More on that later.) The peeps' fall must have been cushioned by the four inches of fluffy bedding on the coop floor. Whew!

Chicken Monday: 6/21/10Or, Tell Me Again—What Holiday Was Yesterday?

It was Father's Day, right? Celebrating fathers? Are you sure it wasn't Mother's Day, too? Because, ummm...



But WAIT! There's MORE!



Oh, and the rooster crowing in the background? That's a very proud Papa—my Leroy. Really, though, this is such an awesome coincidence! Chickens + Father's Day = EPIC POULTRY WIN!

And guess what else? Henrietta is still sitting on five more eggs. I'll keep you posted!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY 2010!

Picture from I Can Has Cheezburger, of course.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there! Hope today is a good, fun, relaxing day for you.

Friday Kittehs: 6/18/10

Emmylou, with her one cream-dipped paw, is a beautiful Friday Kitteh. Wide Lawns, when are you going to come get your sweet Chick-Fil-A-loving girl? Sorry about the flimsy content on E&P lately. This week is the first week of Summer Term, and I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

He ain't nuffin' but a...

Original post here, from I Has A Hot Dog.

Don't hurt that kitteh!!!

Iz nawt its fault! It can't help its hoomins made it wear a hat, Mama!

As El Seebeno says...

...it's been "hot as fuck" here lately in Small Town, GA. At 6:00pm yesterday, the temperature was 93 degrees with 67% humidity—making it feel like 103. Nasty, nasty, nasty hot. So there really hasn't been much to do except sit indoors in front of the air conditioner, since outdoor activities are limited to early morning and late evening. As a rule, the weather doesn't generally get this hot until late July or early August, and then stays that way for a couple weeks before tapering off.

The weather forecast calls for more of the same gross, muggy weather all next week. BLEH. Here's hoping that all our A/C units hold up...and that the early-summer weather in your part of the world is much nicer so far.

Gardenia glory

This gardenia looked pitiful at the end of this past (unusually cold) winter, and I didn't expect it to do much this year. But it's a tough little plant; it still managed four heavily-scented blooms, one of which turned out just perfectly.

In the meantime, I'll send a big bottle of gardenia perfume to my sister, who really misses these Deep South denizens, but has resigned herself to the fact that they just don't do well north of Zone 7. Oh, well, Pixie—at least you can still have the florist deliver a blooming bonsai gardenia. Tiny gardenia is better than no gardenia.

Friday Kittehs: 6/11/10

Clark falls asleep in the bathroom sink while I'm repainting. He's certainly his Mama's kitty; he can sleep anywhere, no matter what's going on.

Find your inner Rickles

When I get frustrated with students who don't pay attention—who just sit there like so many bumps on logs—I wonder whether channeling Don Rickles mid-lecture would get a rise out of My Unique Little Snowflakes™. He certainly gets Paul Shaffer's attention near the end of this clip from Late Night with David Letterman.

I've never been to Las Vegas, but I've decided that I'm going out there, even if just for a couple days, so I can go to a Don Rickles show. They don't call him "Mr. Warmth" for nothing!

Chicken Monday: 6/7/10

Okay, so I messed up regarding a picture for this week's Chicken Monday—by the time I finally made it out to the chicken coop last night, I'd completely forgotten to bring the camera with me. POULTRY FAIL.

But for the POULTRY WIN:

Henrietta is sitting vigil on a nest of at least eight eggs.

To my calculations, which could certainly be wrong, they would hatch sometime around the last week of June. I'll post pictures as soon as I have some. Cross your fingers for my little red-feathered girl!

Disaster in 3, 2, 1...

Right after I snapped this picture, Beignet freaked out and began wailing away on Clark's head. The back claw marks on my face should blend in nicely with all the spots the dermatologist lasered off last week.
[deep sigh]

Friday Kittehs: 6/4/10

A Zen Buddhist koan asks, "What is this?" Koans can't be answered intellectually; rather, their puzzles aim to help students focus during meditation. "What is this?" keeps us focused on the physical and emotional here-and-now. Watching Joy semi-snooze on my lap, it occurred to me that kittehs are excellent meditators. They sit or lie for hours, eyes half-open, and purr contentedly. Are they asking themselves, a la Cheezburger, "Wat iz DIS?" Now there's something to meditate on.

As confused as a kitteh in a box

Sorry about the sporadic posting lately, folks. I've been feeling kind of like the look on Beignet's face here—a combination of clueless, overwhelmed, and confused. Or about to sneeze. That's what Her Evil Sausageness did right after I took this picture. A run-in with an angry student a couple weeks ago has left me feeling rudderless, completely adrift; how I dealt with it has left my supervisor (and me) wondering whether I should continue teaching. Jobs of any kind in these parts are hard to come by. I have a contact or two for writing-related jobs at a couple mid-size companies...but I can't help remembering the soulless, empty feeling that working in Corporate America gave me. As I clocked in my final time card at Carpets-R-Us nine years ago, I made myself a promise that, as long as I could help it, I'd never again subject myself to the drab, conformist, low-pile-carpeted walls of a cubicle. The continued administrative and budget upheaval at Division II University isn't helpful, either; our utterly incompetent president, Dr. D. Ingle Berry, was awarded a new contract a few weeks ago, despite having cost D2U $500,000 due to his not knowing what kind of fees an institution can and cannot charge. (How can a person have been in the upper ranks of higher-ed admin for 20 years and not know these kinds of things? The mind boggles.) In awarding Dr. Berry a new contract, the Board of Regents is circling the wagons—they don't want to admit that they really screwed up in picking this guy to be our Fearless Leader. The cloud of Dr. Berry's vengefulness hangs over many heads at D2U; many people won't know they don't have a Fall Semester job until June 30, the last day of the fiscal year. It would be just like Dr. Berry to wait so late to give out notices...when it's too late to hire on anywhere else in time for the fall. With any kind of recovery process—from alcohol, drugs, gambling, physical or mental illness, and so on—newly-healing recoverees are warned that things geenrally get worse before they get better. I find myself in this very boat with ADD. Since my diagnosis last July, I seem to have done a belly-flop right into an Olympic-sized pool of FAIL. And I can't even explain it to myself, let alone anyone else, which makes me look even more foolish, flaky, and incompetent. What the hell happened? Where's the Kitty we knew a couple years ago? Beats me. If I run into her, I'll let you know. So bear with me as I figure it all out. And I'll at least keep you up to speed on the kitteh and chicken silliness around these parts.