CTECs (course and teacher evaluation council)

The teacher evaluation open comment section is a wonderful place for students to give feedback to the instructor as well as share with future students advice about the course.
It can also be an inspirational opportunity for say, love poetry about say, teaching methods and modern social theories, or even a particular psychology professor.

Upper levels of education: years of higher intellects and lower standards.

Being surrounded by talent and greatness is a wonderful opportunity but also can be quite intimidating.
For example, yesterday I saw a guy flossing and crossing the street at the same time. And people say walking and chewing gum is hard. He even looked both ways while he flossed and crossed.
How did I get in here?

I just like to see things in print.
Ooh, look at it!

There was a time that I wished for world peace, but I've lowered my goals and am now quite content with just pie.

Discussion Section Episodes

My discussion section for Russian Lit is filled with ridiculous characters which, depending on the day, always consist of at least one person who takes any comment from the TA as a direct conversations and continues to talk while the rest of the class sits in silence and I laugh.

One of these characters has no name to me, so we shall call him Boy 1. He is relatively good looking, kind of a quiet kid, but when he talks he sounds like a combination of Dr. Evil and Comic Book Guy from Simpsons.

Then there is Mr. Euro, the typical smart attractive guy who just happens to dress very well and speak eloquently. He always comes in wearing fancy sunglasses, whips them off just before he sits down, and then looks intently into the distance of the blackboard.

There is Obviously English Major Girl, who speaks often and endlessly and with a performance of great moving emotion even if there is no reason.

My personal favorite is Billy. I didn't even know he was in our class until the other day. He is a well built nice looking guy who came in late one class, just after the TA started asking the class a question. As soon as she finishes we all sit in silence. Then this kid who just came answers her in a seventeen page essay. When he finishes, the TA is just staring at him. He whips off his sweatshirt in one swift motion made with only one hand. She continues to stare at him. She asks "What's your name?" "Billy." She continues staring at him, "Yes. Billy." She finally blinks and continues class.

Okay so maybe these stories aren't amusing to you, but they are amusing to me and every class I come out going 'who ARE these people?' and every class I try to hold in my laughter. Discussion sections are obviously very productive for me.

So much joy I get from seeing those three magic words:
"tumble dry low"

World History

From "How Chiefs Come to Power" (not to be confused with "How Chefs Come to Power"), about political economy and prehistory by Timothy Earle, on Captain James Cook's landing on the Hawai'i islands:
"The Hawaiians eagerly traded food, feathers, and sexual service for novel European goods, especially iron."
I like how feathers fall in the top three things the average islander values, and also how it is before sexual service.
I would personally do anything for European goods such as iron, but I would be very cautious when negotiating away my feathers.

Hey, just because you walk with headphones on listening to music and dancing and you can't see anyone around does not necessarily mean that there are not people BEHIND you.
Not that I know from experience, just fyi, in case the situation should arise, I thought you should be prepared.

I hate when people say things like "you make a better door than window", meaning that they can't see through you, because I have tried it, and I'm much better as a window.
I just can't stand all the slamming.
And you wouldn't imagine the amount of people who try to touch your knocker.

What is the reason for my great dislike and disgust of cartoons and puppets doing corrupt and offensive things?
Maybe it is me refusing to let go of my childhood innocence.
Or maybe it was the time I walked in on my Barbie and Kermit.
We'll never know.

Remember the time when everything was simple and we walked on air and we never worried about what life would bring and it was enough just to be with each other and we believed that nothing could destroy it?
Yea, me neither.

"So," he said, mid-kiss, "what are your plans for the rest of the night?"
"Pretty much this," she replied, kissing him.
His plan was foiled again.
Why did girls never want to end the night with a trip back to his room to play a game of Chutes and Ladders?

If you can see it, then you can be it.
If it rhymes it must be true.
Like: those who bray together, stay together.
Oh, donkey love.

"I appreciate your criticism," she said,
"and by appreciate, I mean shut up."

Sometimes you just have to go out into the world and say, give me what you got!
But be sure to look both ways first, because those cars do NOT slow down.

There's this pin that came out for the elections that says "The only Bush I trust is my own".
The thing about that is, a vote for genitals is pretty much a vote for Nader.
And a vote for Nader is a vote for Nader.
I'm a political philosopher, what can I say.

He was beginning to think she was one of those people who liked pain with her pleasure. It was just a thought that had occured to him, because he knew he was really good at reading people's subtle hints.
It was right after her serenade to him, "I don't want anybody else, when I think about you I punch myself..."
He was like a detective with this things.

People have no perspective on the big picture.
Okay, so maybe not everyone got the president they voted for, but just consider the rest of your life: you have shoe laces right? you made yourself sick on candy on Halloween? you have the right to choose Sprite? your cell phone ring can be the hokey pokey?
Life is good.

People say that brevity is the soul of wit, but I don't really think that's true because this one time something happened and I don't particularly remember the details, but let me tell you, it was hysterical. You should have been there. You had to be there I guess, but you weren't, but if you had been, then you would completely understand what I'm talking about. Ah, it was so funny.
Now that is what I call wit.

Oh, to be young and in the money.

The problem with democracy is that everyone is allowed to vote, even dumb people and people that I personally have not deemed worthy.
What is the world coming to?

"Well," he said, surveying the damage the earthquake had done, "next time let's find a foundation a little bit more stable."
"But, sir," said the mayor, "we built this city on rock and roll."

Psychology is full of humor

In psych today we studied the effects of deindividuation, or how people act when they are not held accountable for their individual actions. One of the studies about this was called the "hour in the dark" study.
In this study, they put eight people in a room together and left them there for no more than an hour, without any rules as to what to do together. After the hour, each person left the room alone and never met any of the other participants.
They were either put in a pitch black room or in a bright room. The results were this:
-90% in the dark study at opposed to 0% in the bright study intentionally punched someone else
-50% vs. 0% hugged somebody
-80% vs. 30% felt sexually aroused
-everyone liked the study and agreed to return without pay.
This means two things to me: one, the dark does strange things to people, and two, 30% of people are just sexually aroused by being in a bright room with other people for no reason.
Ah science, so useful.

A Necessary Halloween Joke

Why couldn't the witch have babies?

Because her husband had a hollow weenie.

I used to believe that honesty was the best policy. A lot of people don't appreciate honesty apparently. Also, I prefer the return policy.

Halloween is one of the few holidays that makes eating candy instead of a real meal feel like festivity and childhood nostalgia. Apparently festivity and childhood also make me feel a little bit ill.