How to Make Life More Interesting 102

Well, there are many ways to spice up your life, but here are three things that I personally do to seriously jazz it up:

1. Leave hollow clementines lying around the room. I left one perched on the arm of the couch today. It's really tricky, because every time you see it, you think it's real- and it is!...but there's something false about it, you know? And then you remember that there's nothing inside. It's like looking at a really realistic-looking still life painting of fruit.

2. Eat everything with Rooster sauce. Like, everything. Pizza, pasta, hotdogs, rice, subway sandwiches, chicken caesar salads, soup, eggs, chips, crackers, spinach, baklava, and on and on.

3. Read aloud in a Scottish accent anything from Lord of the Rings to a math textbook. Do this, and I guarantee, yawning and drooping eyelids will be a thing of the past. One problem that might occur, though, is your Scottish accent might come out sounding Indian, which...yeah, they're actually pretty similar-sounding.

Aesthetics

I can't believe I've never been to a Mask 'n' Wig show until yesterday! Afterward, I couldn't help thinking how different my four years at Penn would have been if I had been a part of some performing arts group. I miss being on stage, even if it was just for some amateurish kiddie recital.

"What is the most beautiful thing you've ever witnessed in your entire life?"

Before Thursday, I would have a hard time coming up with an answer to this question, but now I know what my response would be.

I would tell them about Sasha Cohen's free skate program for the Torino Olympics- the most enchanting performance on ice I have ever seen. She looked like a real-life fairy, I'd tell them, clad in wine-red velvet, and when she did her spins, she looked exactly like those figurines that twirl around in the centers of musical boxes when you open them. I would tell them about the music that she skated to: Nino Rota's amazing score from the old Romeo and Juliet movie starring Olivia Hussey. Then, I would go on a tangent and tell them about the first time I watched this movie, how my oh-so-humorous, slightly-perverted ninth grade English teacher would pause every time 13-year-old Olivia Hussey's gargantuan boobs graced the screen, and have a rather unseemly giggle over it (or "them", I guess) before moving on. Then, I don't know where I would go from there. I'd probably tell them about how annoyed I was by Romeo's incessant whining and fake-crying throughout the whole friggin' movie. It got so bad at one point that even Apothecaryman was all, "Boy, you best get your panty-hosed ass outta that corner and grow some balls before I sic you with one of my poisonous herbs." Sigh. Boy was doomed from the start.

On top of our radiator sits a small bunch of flowers in an attractive Poland Spring water bottle, their petals- half pink and half a pale, lilac shade- reflected in the suicide-proof highrise window. It's nighttime now, but during the day, when the sunlight spills through the window, it looks like Mary Sunshine paid a visit and left a trail of cheeriness behind. Anyhoo, ever since, I've developed a keen interest in flowers of all kinds. In case anyone cares, Frogro doesn't have the greatest selection of flowers. Yes, indeed, I was checking out flowers at our local grocery store.

Special K

"Remind students that confidence is spelled with a K."

Oh man, this just keeps on getting better and better. Kaplan the Komedian.

Speaking of funny, this essay (if you can call it that), which, not surprisingly, received a score of 1 out of 6, totally cracked me up:

I think it is wrong to only think about productivity when you judge. It really unfair and bad, There are lots of ways that a person can give to community even if they are not producing much and I think it is unfair to do that. Its like the monkeys that send the old monkeys out of the pack when they get too old to help get the food. That is totally wrong and mean and we don’t want to be that way. It would be better to be like elephants who take care of the old elephants until they die and then the elephants bury the ones that died.

In conclusion, productivity is no all there is.

"Monkeys are meanie-mos, elephants Kare." Oh god, I can hardly breathe! Whew...wheeeew... I hope to god that none of my students ever write something as bad as this, because I might just laugh in their faces. But then, I'd have to tell them not to worry because confidence is spelled with a K, and I seriously don't know if I'd be able to do that with a straight face.

Here's a good one:

"It is ludacris for one to believe that education is merely the study of names, dates, and other facts."

Simply ludacris. Totally pimpin' all over the world.

Snow Day!!!

A foot of snow, big bowl of pho, snowball fight on the way back, leisurely studying, pair-skating (bea-u-tee-ful!),....what an amazing day. It's like a strip out of Calvin 'n' Hobbes.

We shoulda slashed the snowplow tires.