Cryptid Club

Cryptid Club is a book collection of Sarah Andersen's series of comics about fictional/mythical creatures. The art style is cute but with a sarcastic twinge, and the humor leaves a lot of space for beats and reading between the lines (and glances) on the page. Overall this was a delight and a quick read, since it's a short comic series, and I loved it. Recommended.

Plus, the cover glows in the dark!

This post's theme word is peritext (n), "the material surrounding the main text of the book, such as covers, preface, bibliography, colophon, etc." The Cryptic Club peritext is delightful and includes an author-bio-style glossary in the back with pictures and descriptions of all starring cryptids.

What are you thankful for?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What are you thankful for?

Many common thanks went out to:

• friends
• family
• individual specific siblings

And more general thanks for:

• visual studio code
• being alive
• forgiveness
• the indomitable human spirit
• everyone that ever offers me help
• pass/fail

Overall it was a very positive group, everyone found something very nice to be thankful for!

This post's theme word is grumbletonian (n), "a habitual complainer." The grumbletonian antagonist season is upon us!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

 I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Chicken-based answers:

• to talk to the hen
• trynna find somewhere to lay the egg
• on its way to KFC
• to run away from the slaughter house and pursue its dreams
• the road was built over its habitat

Other answers:

• good exercise! / #cardio
• to meet his friend
• to learn C++
• because roads exist
• they were based
• because it was there
• to get to the McDonald's on the other side
• for fun
• to obtain a sense of morality
• I don't know

And of course there were 10 responses "to get to the other side."

This post's theme word is chevachee (n), "an expedition, raid, or campaign." The chicken chevashee descended in a flurry of feathers and surprise.

What is your quest?

New semester, new students. In response to the prompt "What is your quest?" they said

• to seek the Holy Grail (most popular response, 5)
• pass this class / to complete all my assignments / master C++ / achieve all the knowledge
• find riches / find El Dorado
• vengeance
• sleep (x3)
• to have a good day / be happy / live my best life
• Je veux apprendre le français.
• to follow that star
• survive
• self-actualization

This is a good variety of goals and I'm glad the students are thinking at such a wide range of timescales and achievement levels. Hopefully everyone got good sleep over the weekend and is ready to jump into some math tomorrow.

This post's theme word is obtrude (v), "to impose one's ideas/opinions", or "to thrust forward or intrude." The process of teaching is one of a series of obtruding lectures and enticing examples.

Wolfwalkers

 Wolfwalkers is an animated film from the same director as The Secret of Kells. It has a similar sort of art and line style, with movements easily flowing across the screen in a way I found very aesthetically pleasing. You can read the plot summary on Wikipedia, so I'll just give some viewing notes:

If possible, you should view this on a bedsheet in a neighbor's backyard.

Cover your delicious blood with skin, and cover that with clothing, then bugspray. (You will still be bitten on the face, and hands, and through your socks. This is the destiny of the delicious. Your itchy discomfort will be offset by the bug-free experience of neighbor kids.)

At the appropriate time --- and trust me, you will know the appropriate time --- you should absolutely howl along with the onscreen wolves. Everyone else, on their lawn chairs and picnic blankets, will absolutely do this, especially if < 7 years old.

Five stars, highly recommended. Not entirely historically-accurate.

This post's theme word is eidolon (n), "an idealized form" or "a phantom". The animation smoothly showed transition between physical humans, eidolon scents and spirits, and wolves.

2021 quotes

 I: "Every online lecture is like a seance: Steve, can you hear me? --- give me a sign!"

Z: "This two-minute hazard distraction video is sponsored by Michael Bay."

re: students: "Let's not traumatize them more than is necessary... it's important to keep our goals realistic."

L: "I sent you the recipe for this sweater."

D: "You're usually an Eagles fan, right?"
M: "I'm an easy and willing turncoat."

F: "What happened? Did you take a pill of youth? You look amazing! Did you shave your beard?"
E: "Four years ago."

L: "I was so tired when I was done that I had to take a nap for two days."

H (regarding his rash): "Did I tell you, they took an autopsy?"

G (petting Ika): "Even [Z] doesn't look at me this deeply."

L (on omicron): "This is great. This is, like, nostalgia for the first part of the pandemic when I ordered groceries all the time."

C (Saturday, 3pm): "I think I can do this whole thing without a trip to Home Depot or Lowe's!" [and actually that came true!]

K: "I mean, who can say which direction the Earth spins in?"
D: "North-to-south. Prove me wrong."

A: "We can't follow every path, because in any kind of interesting code, there are infinitely many paths."

This post's theme word is revet (v), "to recheck or reexamine." Revetting my quote board and I do not remember the context of some of these.