English teacher explains his top-10 reasons he quit after 33-years on the job.

The number one reason?

"1. I have attended almost 400 faculty meetings during my career. Not one has ever improved my teaching." 

Stop cutting cake in wedges and start cutting it length-wise, says British author.

Author Alex Bellos, who writes a math blog for The Guardian, claims that our habit for cutting cake in wedges is scientifically detrimental to the quality of that very cake we eat.

As Bellos explains, he discovered a 1906 letter from British eugenics promoter, Francis Galton, who fancied a new way (albeit from 1906) of cutting cakes to minimize dryness. (Unrelated fun fact: Galton created the term eugenics, as well as the phrase 'nature versus nurture.')

Galton's 108-year old method for preserving moist cake deliciousness? Cut the dessert length-wise down the diameter and push the remaining cake together, sealing it together, thus creating a fairly moderate defense against air attacking exposed sides. After all, wedge slices disallow any chance of shielding the exposed sides from air's destructive force.

Yes, in essence we're talking about cake eugenics.





photo: Su Good Sweets

Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#9: Special TA Edition!

Sometimes teaching assistants at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"I think one of my most frightening BC moments was the end of last semester when I went back to get something out of my office and ALL THE LIGHTS WERE OFF. And it was nighttime. I thought I was going to be murdered."


BAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh, Jesus--no, they were serious. What would you be murdered with? A French baguette? Sarcasm?

Dark rooms > Jack the Ripper.





*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#8

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"I and my TAs are having a fine semester for entitled, importunate students. Get hooked up with the latest academic term of art: "ELF." Entitled little...well, you get the idea."


It's cute when a grad professor says someone is an ELF because of the irony of it all.






*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#7: Special TA Edition!

Sometimes teaching assistants at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!



Me:  So are you going to miss any of your undergrads from this semester?

Teaching Assistant #1:  No.

Teaching Assistant #2:  God, no.

Teaching Assistant #3:  No-no. I'm ready to see them leave me.

Me:  Really? Not even just a couple of students?

TA #2:  Yeah, I don't like a single student in my class this semester. They're just...I can't stand a single one.

TA #1:  Mmm, really, I know.

TA #2:  Always after me with emails. Always asking about assignments. But none of them are bright. No one is really that smart. No one talks much in class.

TA #3:  Oh, I know, I know. No one talks in my class either.

TA #1:  No one talks in my class either!

TA #2:  Yeah, they sit there stone silent, as if I'm supposed to give them the answer. They're just a bunch of--well, I shouldn't say it--guess I should say it nicely somehow--just that my undergrads are all a bunch of brats. I'll be happy to get rid of them. All of them.

TA #1:  Yeah, me too. I can't wait to see them out the door.

TA #3:  Mmmm, me too. I didn't like any of my students either.

Me:  [hesitating]  Huh. That's odd. Maybe it's weird of me to say, but I think I'm going to miss nearly all of my own students. They've been a good bunch.

TA #2:  You probably lucked out, because I don't think any grad student likes the undergrads they have.

Me:  Everyone says that, that I lucked out. But I've always liked my classes every time I teach. They all tried in my class. Most worked hard, even if it didn't pan out in a grade they wanted. I never had any issue getting anyone to talk. I always have a lively bunch of chatty students.

TA #2:  Nah. I hope I never see a single one of my students again. I want them to ignore me if they ever pass me in public. Just walk on by. Don't even look at me. Go away.

TA #1:  Oh, I know! Me, too!

TA #3:  Mmm, indeed.

TA #2:  Like, really, I never want to think of them again.

Me:  Because they felt uncomfortable talking in your class?

TA #2:  YES!



*Not really delightful.

Website tracks rate of swearing on Twitter.

There are two types of language in the world. Swearing and unimportant stuff.

WTFLevel.com is a website that monitors the good stuff, like the amount of creative linguistics occurring on Twitter. If you feel like your friends are particularly punchy with their Tweets on a given evening, odds are WTFLevel has registered their sass.

There are Homeland Security Warning-like threat levels, ranging from Mostly Polite to Oh &@#?@&!.

According to the data, we're a largely friendly people first thing in the morning. Give us a cuppa joe and a shower and we're like a Touched by an Angel episode. But by the evening we've quickly turned into a Quentin Tarantino script.

And in statistics that'll surprise no one with a sense of reality, WTFLevel says Twitter was the chirpiest ever on November 6, 2012, when three of the four most swearingest individual hours--and four of the four swearingest 6hr windows--all occurred the same day in the history of their monitoring.

That'd be election day.




photo: DesignTaxi

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#6

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"Why do you think it's okay to take a contrarian position and disagree? Why not just agree with me and your classmates?"


Uhh...because I didn't think I lived in North Korea?





*Not really delightful

photo: Boston.com

Top 20 Most CAPS LOCKED Tweeted Words and Phrases

YOU GUYSsSS, you just NEED to see what people are Tweeting with CAPS LOCKED. Like FOR REALZZZ! LOL! You CAN'T BELIEVE what people will tweet in all caps. You'll LOVE IT. OMG!!!

Infographic: Knock Twice, via Design Taxi.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#5

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"Faculty at state colleges and universities let their students down and fail their educations because they have a higher workload, so they can't read up on the latest research."


Or, put another way: private college and university professors don't work as hard.



*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#4

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"You guys don't understand how the real world works like I do."


 ...said a professor who, according to them, has only held one job their entire life--their current job as professor. Nothing but a college student and grad student at Ivy League institutions, with "care packages" in the form of money from their parents, then got a job at a university with half the required workload of most other colleges and universities.

Man, I wish I lived in a real world like they did. I like the idea of never having to work much. Sounds pretty sweet.



*Not really delightful.

Deaf preschooler asked to change his sign language name because it looks like a dangerous weapon.

Hunter Spanjer is a deaf three-year old attending preschool in the Grand Island (Nebraska) public school system. He signs his name using the Signing Exact English sign language method, which involves crossing his fingers as if he's wishing for luck, and waving his hand.

According to Grand Island school officials, this breaks a school bylaw that forbids any instrument that looks like a weapon, including hand gestures--so they asked Hunter to change his name. Because, you know, three year old deaf kids are gangsta, yo.

A brouhaha erupted as everyone in society--literally, every single human being on the planet with a functioning brain stem outside the Grand Island public school system--said deaf three year olds aren't trying to join the Blood or Crips. Under pressure, school officials backed down. Hunter can keep his name.

Someday when Hunter becomes a rebellious teenager, Grand Island officials are going to get a different hand gesture involving only one finger. Grand Island is #1!!

Video from Nebraska's 1011 News.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#3

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"The humanities will be saved by private universities. Public universities have no use for anything outside maths and sciences, or gimmick classes to sell in advertising because they need bodies in the classroom."


Yeah, how silly of those public universities with all their maths and sciences. What's anyone going to do with that in the 21st century? Dweebs!


*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#2

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"Public colleges and universities create workers, not thinkers."

Cue the Occupy Grad School movement in 3...2...

As someone who came from a public school for my undergraduate degree, I don't even know what to think about that statement.



*Not really delightful.

Really Delightful Things My Grad Professors Say...#1

Sometimes professors at brand name private universities can be fairly disconnected, insulated, or arrogant--and this living in a bubble leads to delightful* comments, like this one!


"You know, when we look over applications to the grad department, we picture what a student might look like. And you...don't...look like what we imagined."

In case you're wondering, I'm 6ft, height/weight proportionate, blondish hair, blue eyes, normal appearance. Maybe they imagined I'd look like Tattoo from Fantasy Island. Common mistake.



*Not really delightful.