Happy birthday, Jilli! So glad you're home and doing well!

Ahh...teaching. Having just gotten home from spending all day doing observations as a high school, teaching 10th grade American Lit, and then spending 3 hours at the library working on a unit plan and another hour looking for books to use in a lesson on Tuesday? It's a lot of hard work. And, I'm a part-time student, not yet a a teacher. AND, I used a vacation day from my full-time job to do it.

I wonder. For a long time weren't now-super-compeditive colleges mostly populated by who you were and not what you'd done?

Um. And what I meant to say about this was, yes. That was my point -- that pulling strings (and being somebody's kid) was a big part of what college you went to in years past.

Oh, I think I walked past a class about to go in for a test on maternal nursing. The teacher was talking about finding a place for people to put their bags and things. I chuckled.

Hey, question that's been bugging me since the Real Genius discussion: Can you skate on dry ice? Reason I ask, as I understand it, when ice skating you're sliding on a film of melted ice created by the pressure of the skates. If there's no liquid state, can you stil skate on it?

I would guess definitely not. It's not slippery at all. More likely your skates would stick to it.

Being sick is horrible, but you don't bite the hand that cares for you, you know?

Well, I think the vast majority of people who aren't polite are just sick and scared; it's hard to take it personally when you know it couldn't possibly be less about you.

But, of course, there are some people who are just asshats no matter how good you're being to them.

I don't think so, billytea. But then I can't think much at all right now. Snot monster got an invite from either allergies or a cold and it's dulled my brain and convinced it that a sinus headache would be nifty. So I could be wrong.

I want to make people feel better when they feel crappy.

Huh. The cheating discussion is interesting. On the one hand, hate to ruin someone's day for copying something stupid. On the other hand, if I studied hard, and they're cheating on the exam and fucking the curve...well, that would piss me off. On the other hand, I also tended ot get annoyed at my one roommate who was always getting extensions because she told her profs she was sick. Which...sorta. More like "I'm tired because I was up all night working at the theater". And on the other other hand, it's not like I haven't stolen cable in my time.

The core curriculum - 5 terms math, 5 terms phys, 2 terms chem, 1 term chem lab, 1 term bio, plus 12 terms humanities/social science, for everybody.

You had to take FIVE semesters of physics, and only TWO chem? I'm offended, on behalf of my chem major. Even if I did hate it.

I know UVA makes a Very Big (and Pooh-Cased) Deal out of theirs in the same way a lot of smaller schools do -- part of the school's identity and tradition and the Jefferson thing yadda yadda -- but not having gone there, I can't say much about how it actually plays.

Well, they had a big cheating scandal a couple years ago and some people got their degrees revoked.

In California they can pull you over for being beltless.

In my plan, we are BELTLESS!

However, closed-book take-home test? What the hell?

I've had those. It's a little odd, but usually it's in stuff that even if you DID open the book, it wouldn't necessarily help much, it's all about understanding it already.

I admit in high school, we frequently, ahem, "collaborated", on homework assignments. But it was more busywork. In college, NSM (though more actual collaboration was encouraged, there).

If, in your mind, you're seeing privilege and entitlement behind the cheating then it looks shitty. The frat boys at my college with their big files of term papers, for instance.

Yeah, that kind of thing annoyed me a lot in college. I felt it was an unfair advantage. (Though I some profs that gave out their old tests...but not the old answers!).

your PE classes had tests??

Hey, that was the only way I managed to not flunk PE! We had to take tests on like, the rules of the games we learned (basketball, soccer, tennis, etc)

I like the dress Aimee linked to, but it would look dreadful on me. Bias-cut always clings to me in terribly unflattering ways, it seems. Also, watching P&P made me want to be lithe, and look pretty in empire-waist dresses, but...small bosom and big hips do not make that likely. Ever.

I have this weird vertigo every time I think back to how BIG my mother seemed and then realize that I'm about the same size that she used to be.

Heh. I always thought "someday, when I grow up, I'll be as big as Mom and Dad!". Unfortunately, I got the short genes, so my mom is still 5'9, and my dad 6', and I'm still five inches shorter than her, and 100 pounds lighter than him... (well, glad of that last one)

I'm sick of having to talk freshmen off cliffs because their parents are going to "kill them" because of their B+

Y'know, I was one of those kids--freshman year first semester I got a 3.5 and my parents told me it wasn't good enough and I'd never go to college. I was depressed, and I seriously thought my life was over and I should just end it all. Luckily, I got over that...and ended up with like, a 3.86 in high school. Life obviously not horrible and awful...nor would it have been even if I kept the 3.5...

Being sick is horrible, but you don't bite the hand that cares for you, you know?

Well, I think the vast majority of people who aren't polite are just sick and scared; it's hard to take it personally when you know it couldn't possibly be less about you.

But, of course, there are some people who are just asshats no matter how good you're being to them.

When I had my surgery, they gave me a gown that only had one tie in the back. I mean -- only one side had a tie, so it was useless and un-tie-able, and my ass hung out.

When the nurses helped me in or out of bed, or helped me to the bathroom, etc., every single time I automatically said "Sorry you have to see my butt."

After about the 20th time, the nurse said "Oh, honey. Don't apologize. We see butt all day long."

Snot monster got an invite from either allergies or a cold and it's dulled my brain and convinced it that a sinus headache would be nifty. So I could be wrong

any chance its all snot now? and no more bwain?

You had to take FIVE semesters of physics, and only TWO chem? I'm offended, on behalf of my chem major. Even if I did hate it.

Three if you count the lab. But, basically, yeah. Mostly because they want to get everybody into quantum. Also, the next step after our core chem curriculum is the full-year organic class, which would be evil to require of all of us (the review of it we get in core was more than enough to make me never want to see a carbon again).

Bio is even more shafted, and that's with our President being a Nobel prize-winning biologist. So don't feel too offended.