Water Slide

To celebrate the end of my GT teaching career, I devoted part of my afternoon to the Athletic Center's water slide.  Not surprisingly, it has a clever design, spinning the slider in a clockwise direction most of the way down, but then surprising you with a hairpin turn, making you feel like you're going to fly over the edge before spitting you into the pool.  Many endorphins were released.  I noticed that there was a lifeguard at the top of the slide, possibly to curtail horseplay.  Therefore, I had to behave myself.

Gone With the Wind

In honour of the 70th Anniversary of Gone With the Wind, there was a screening last night at Atlanta's FOX Theatre - a movie palace whose aesthetic is part Arabian Nights, part Egyptomania, and all fabulous. Movies at the Fox are introduced with a performance on the cinema organ, "The Mighty Mo", played by a man wearing an entirely white suit, and accompanied by a player piano that rose out of the orchestra pit on an elevator. I liked the fact that the player piano was equipped with a chandelier, even though nobody is actually playing it, and therefore there is no need for a light source. Show biz!

The theatre was packed, and I was treated to the odd and somewhat awkward experience of watching what is an extremely dark and troubling Ur-text of the American South with an audience of Georgians. For example, Mammy got lots of laughs - and I mean, a lot of laughs. This made me uncomfortable, as it was hard to tell if the audience reaction was saying "Wow, check out Hattie McDaniel's nuanced performance" or "Ahhh, the good old days".

Another puzzling phenomenon was the large number of audience members taking flash photographs of the screen during the movie. They weren't photographing one another, but rather, they were trying to get a shot of their favourite shots in the movie. This is weird, no? I felt like shouting "It's called a DVD! Look into it!" Of course, it added a certain drama to the screening, as "I'll never be hungry again" and "...I don't give a damn" were punctuated by a veritable lightning storm of flashes.

Look the Part

My students started presenting their final projects today.  One student, who normally attends my 12pm class, appeared just before my 9am class to ask if he was going to be asked to present that day.  I said maybe - I was going to pull names out of a hat to see who would go first, so he should come prepared.  He replied "Ok, then, if there's a chance I'm going to go, then I'll go shave."  I said, "Uh...OK... That's not really necessary, but if you think it will give you an edge..."  

He has been cultivating a fairly substantial college-student beard, but, I thought to myself, maybe he thinks it's holding him back.

When I arrived at the classroom for the 12pm class, he was all set to go.  He had shaved his head. 

Fortunately, it's a good look for him.

Counting the minutes...

For the most part, I *heart* my students.

But, sometimes they start papers with sentences like this:

"In general, I harbor a disdain for painted artwork as I find it either to be too abstract, too simplistic, or too devoid of meaning."

Sentences such as these cause me to struggle to restrain myself from the swift and repeated application of my forehead to my desk.

Eldorado

This car is for sale in Lubbock.  

It's totally impractical.

I love it.

Only 22,229 miles, and a steal at $9000. 

C'mon, how can I resist an Eldorado that is actually gold?

More Where That Came From...

More gems from student papers - these in response to prompts about gender politics:

Women cannot fully satisfy the population's desires.

There is still a double standard between the sexist.

There [h]as to be a double standard because women are a lot more f*cking sencesative than men are in general.  (Note that the original did not include a "*".) 

Most fathers expect their male children to watch porn and go have sex when they start high school.

"Pregnancy" is the word that is being highly advertised all across America.

Birth control is a heavy word to absorb with your ears.

Gettin' Paid

It's that time of year again, and I'm grading standardized test essays in order to eke out a living. Some brilliant insights from Georgia youth:

A rather infamous leader is Hitler.

Doing personal research I have found out that alcohol is not good for the brain or the body.

Turning sixteen means only one thing: it’s time to get the famous drivers lissense.

Most rap videos are filmed in jail, so they send the signal that it’s okay to go to jail.

Schools today are putting more emphasis on education more than ever.

The candidate was mere votes away from the presidency.

Women are monarchs in the great thing we call society.

From an essay on children's beauty pageants: In their youth they had vain dreams of becoming sophisticated clowns.

Lung cancer is the most popular with people who smoke.

As an American I never have time to sit down and eat.

I love spelling errors, particularly involving homonyms:

In a world full of genocide and gorilla warfare many horrible casualties occur regularly.

When starting to date someone new, it would be smart to make mental notes of the habitats that person has that could bother you in the future.

People having fun at the weeding ceremony did not limit their alcohol conception.