Is This Thing On?

I’m dealing with some technical difficulties. Hope to have them all worked out soon. Be well!

Body-Part-Verbing

I am on my feet a lot when I teach, moving around the room, answering questions [or not -- read the instructions!], giving advice and demonstrations. This week we’re giving final exams. The last ones are tomorrow. It’s going reasonably well so far. My two least well-behaved classes had their tests on Monday. [Buh-Bye....]

Anyway, I’m on my feet while kids are taking their exams, too, but to keep from being a distraction I usually stand at the back of the room. I walk around a little to monitor their progress and pick up their work when it’s finished. This feels more tiring than teaching. Sometimes I doodle to keep from getting bored.

Yesterday I wrote this:

mind-numbing

Because, seriously, my brain was on situational Procaine*.

I’d rather, I thought, be doing something mind-blowing. To some of my students, though, the test is probably nerve-wracking. Maybe even stomach-churning. [Is that better, worse, or the same as gut-wrenching?] I had an eye-popping list started by this point. Not exactly spine-tingling excitement, but it was keeping me from taking a bone-jarring header into a concrete wall.

And that kept me entertained for a while. Until I saw some of the scores. That was heart-rending.

*On two different sources that I checked “Novocaine” redirects to “Procaine.” I never knew….

Or You Could Just Keep Pressing F5 – part sixteen

It has been almost exactly a year since I’ve done one of these posts — listing some of the quotes that appear up there in the header. I do not lack ideas for posts lately, just the energy to follow through and complete them.

Anyway, here is the next group of quotes:

More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice. ~ Robert Smith Surtees

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth–more than ruin–more even than death. ~ Bertrand Russell

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ~ John Stuart Mill

Achievements, seldom credited to their source, are the result of unspeakable drudgery and worries. ~ Richard Wagner

I think of myself more as a song-and-dance man. ~ Bob Dylan, when asked if he thought of himself more as a singer or a poet

Literature, like magic, has always been about the handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction and the marvelous liberation that can result when they are revealed. ~ Michael Chabon

If anyone asks why I write gloomy novels, they need only know that my father came from the South and my mother from the North. ~ William Trevor

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It’s what everything else isn’t. ~ Theodore Roethke

We love those who know the worst of us and don’t turn their faces away. ~ Walker Percy

I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful. ~ Marilyn Monroe

Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball. ~ Deborah Tannen

I have had just about all I can take of myself. ~ S.N. Behrman

That’s how politics works. The best liar wins. As long as our choices are limited to liars, we’ll keep electing them and wondering what went wrong. ~ Scott Adams

The life of the creative man is led, directed, and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes. ~ Saul Steinberg

We [humans] are the species that clamors to be lied to. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. ~ Blaise Pascal

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. ~ Helen Keller

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do. ~ Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes”

Youth is given; age is achieved. ~ May Swenson

There’s no such thing as a born writer. It’s a skill you’ve got to learn, just like learning how to be a bricklayer or a carpenter. ~ Larry Brown

Usually I link to all the old posts. But, you know what? There’s a search box up there and it works. If you want to see the earlier installments you can look them up. [Just using "f5" as the search term should bring up all of them and at least one photo post. You're welcome.]