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feeling: good
listening to: Billy Joel - Still Rock & Roll to Me
Good lord, English class was so FUN today. I know, that totally contradicts every belief I've ever had about English classes. :P Really, it's the work I can't stand. Class meetings themselves I don't mind much, except that they're so cruelly long - an hour and 48 minutes, generally. And unlike the 2 English classes I've had before, this one actually has interesting subject matter, for the most part, and a very cool teacher. She actually encourages students and gives frequent compliments and stuff, and makes the class not-so-sleep-inducing. Usually by putting us in peer groups for discussions and stuff. And my assigned peer group is great, particularly this dude in it named Corey, who is absolutely hilarious. Like, back in one of our first class meetings when we were put into our peer groups, each group was assigned a different aspect of the grammar reading thingy we'd been asssigned for that day (no, the class isn't ALL about grammar, thank God... but this part of this meeting was)... we were assigned to talk about comma splices and independent clauses. Anyway, we were to define our assigned terms, give examples of them, explain how to correct them, and do a mini-presentation in front of the class on this. So, we were talking about comma splices and trying to come up with examples, and we were laughing so much at the corny examples we were throwing out that the teacher came over to see if we were actually getting any work done. And Corey, the genius that he is, replied that we were in fact working - we were just "splicin' it up". Get it? XD God, I about died. And the teacher was rolling.
Anywho, in today's class, we were put into our peer groups again for the whole meeting, which I liked. That means we're less likely to be individually called on to start a discussion. :P And she told us that she wasn't going to give us our typical daily quiz (yes, daily... but they're no big deal... just to make sure we read the stuff, only 10 points each, and several bonus questions on each ^^) since we'd had so much reading to do for today... so instead, in our groups, we were to come up with 3 quiz questions from one of the texts we'd read. They would be passed to the next group, who would read them aloud and give their answers, thus providing lots of discussion fodder. And after giving their questions and answers, the group in the current spotlight was to tack on a bonus question, something quick and easy and not necessarily related to the readings. One group's bonus was which teams are going to the Superbowl and where is it, another was guess Chad's shoe size (twas 15 - he's a big dude)... etc. Well, Corey came up with our bonus question: When you look at the floor of this classroom, what do you see? (cause the floor is a black-and-white checkered tile pattern, and the desks are set up around the outer edge of the room, to facilitate discussion... the middle's a big empty space) And he said he saw the black tiles forming the shape of a diamond in front of him. This got a few laughs. But that's not the end. Later, back in peer group discussion, the group next to us was so busy trying to pick out Corey's floor-diamond that they weren't able to work. So Corey got up and did a little game of hopscotch, his feet landing on the black tiles that indicated the diamond's outline. Well, almost - the 2 furthest-out corner diamonds would've required him to do the splits. ~_^ Anywho, everyone's watching him and cracking up, and in his little hopscotch game he nearly jumps right onto the teacher, who wasn't watching (she was talking with another group about their assigned text thingy). So then she's dying laughing along with everyone else, but she says time to work and Corey sits down. But then, some girl from another group, way across the room, still doesn't quite see the diamond, so she gets up and does the hopscotch thing too! Holy crap, it was funny. There was some other hilarious stuff that popped up in our discussions about the texts, but... I won't mention them here. They're R-rated at best, I'll put it that way. X3
So... yeah. I hate English classes in general, but only because of the out-of-class work and the long class meetings. But days like today make it almost worthwhile.
Oh, and something occurred to me this morning, for the first time, oddly. About high school. When I was a senior, my math teacher was a young jock guy who obviously would've much rather been playing basketball than teaching a class. When he wasn't lecturing, which was rare enough, he was over having sports "discussions" with the jocks in my class, yukking it up, hitting on the most attractive and ditziest girl(s) in the class, etc. When he gave tests and stuff, there were always bonus questions, but they were all sports-related. Who won last night, who's going to the Such-and-Such Bowl, who holds this or that record. Oh, and occasion he'd give everyone a chance at extra credit by teaming us up and playing trash can basketball - the further from the can you shot from, the more points you got. Guess who ended up winning those games? And it just occurred to me this morning that the people who got the best grades in that class were the ones who knew those bonus questions, took part in his sports chats during class, and could throw a Nerf ball into a trash can from 25+ feet away. Whether they took notes and did the homework or not. Why did that just now occur to me, 2 years later? What a jerk. -_-
Something else just occurred to me. :P Yesterday, walking to class, I got to see a squirrel fighting in a tree with 2 other squirrels, getting knocked off the branch, landing on the hood of a car 15-odd feet below (the thud was heard from great distances around... OUCH), rolling to the ground, and climbing back up the tree for more. That is one tough rodent.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 1/30/2002 02:56:00 PM
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