What is the best time of day for studying?

I take attendance by asking a question.

What is the best time of day for studying?

(I've asked this previously but apparently not posted about it.)

Sorted by time, we can almost patch together a round-the-clock vigil for the class:

• definitely not afternoon
• 12:00am
• past midnight
• 3:45am
• night (4am)
• early morning (7am)
• 7:30am
• 8am
• morning
• 10am
• between lunch and dinner
• sun time
• 1pm
• afternoon
• 2
• after dinner
• evening
• 8pm
• honestly, 8pm-10pm
• 10:00pm - 10:05pm
• night
• late night

The big gaps in our coverage are the midafternoon --- apparently everyone's busy then and no one's studying, even though that's when all the office hours are? --- and midmorning, which makes sense, because that's during our lecture. The studying is compulsory then, but it's more learning and less revising.

Additional nods of the head go to "3:00pm, Monday" (the exact time I asked the question) and "carrot" (absurdism always welcome). Slanted eyes of judgement to "never lol".

This post's theme word is orexigenic (adj), "stimulating the appetite." Late night studying can be orexigenic, resulting in lots of snacking.

What song was most recently stuck in your head?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

What song was most recently stuck in your head? (previously 2017)

Most of these were new to me. I'm not in touch with the music scene. Some of them might as well be purely invented by smooshing words together. My apologies for misspellings, I have tried to interpolate letters of the Roman alphabet from handwriting scratches.

• Going Bad
• False Confidence
• Rome
• Truth Hurts
• Your Man - Josh Turner
• Autumn Breeze - Jida
• lose my mind
• Singh is King
• Feel Special - TWICE
• Sight and Shadow (Hiroyuki Sarrano + Gemie)
• Listen
• Just like you
• I Will
• All My Exes Live in Texas
• Good as Hell
• Plastic Love
• Beam - 88 rising
• Run Away - Ben Platt
• Listen.
• Surf
• Born in the USA
• Z3
• hotline bling
• staying alive
• crazy
• love my way

Then there were some opt-outs:

• *silence*
• The 7th mode of the melodic minor scale
• what does the fox say (re last lab)

This post's theme word is demit, "to give up an office or position; to dismiss; to resign." After several consecutive days of fox screeching, we demitted from the campsite and vowed never to return.

What is the unluckiest thing that ever happened to you?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What is the unluckiest thing that ever happened to you? (previously 2017)

Actual luck:

• winning 1 cent
• fantasy football
• an acorn fell on my head
• I think I'm kinda allergic to popsicle sticks :(
• west nile fever
• stub my toe
• losing stuff

Referencing or at least very close to referencing their luckiest things from earlier in the week:

• taking algo :( jk
• going here
• getting sick from Sharples dinner 5x now this semester
• chicken nuggets deemed unhealthy

Some were just extremely unfortunate or saddening.

• near brush with death
• *sighs*
• 6 month long concussion
• *breaks into tears*
• being
• I don't want to think about it.
• getting my heart broken
• my hamster ran away when I was little

Kudos to "sleeping in on the day of my good life choices" --- very confusing. Does this mean that sleeping in was a good choice, or that sleeping in caused you to miss the opportunity to make good choices?

This post's theme word is blate (v intr), "to babble or cry" or (adj), "timid." The succession of so many unlucky events spurred an outburst of blating across campus.

What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you? (previously 2017)

Traditional:

• got into Swat
• life!
• opportunity to go to college
• born in a first world country
• winning Harry Potter Broadway tickets
• I once found two packs of gummi worms in a vending machine
• that I was born at all (the odds were against me)
• my cat wandered onto our porch
• won a raffle

Some people wanted to defer the question:

• hasn't happened yet
• opportunity met preparation
• idk I'm grateful for most things that have happened to me
• lots of things
• don't believe in luck
• TBD
• can't think of just one
• not sure
• yes
• not lucky

Begrudgingly I acknowledge that yet again someone claimed that taking this class was their luckiest life event. I can't be bribed! ... at least not so openly.

My favorite was definitely "Fell backwards off Willets bannister, landed on feet" --- whoo, what luck!

This post's theme word is hotsy-totsy (adj), "just right; perfect" or "haughty; pretentious." That is my preferred hotsy-totsy way of descending staircases.

What does the fox say?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What does the fox say? (previously: 2017, wikipedia)

Not very many onomatopoeias this time:

• woof!
• meow
• ka ki ka ki (x3)
• nya, ring ding
• yip
• Meow Meow Meow

Many people who gave the fox the ability to speak full sentences:

• How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?
• Elvis is alive in Chicago
• Cancel Futurama Again
• "I don't like Chrome"
• here we go again...
• "I am a fox."
• "I wish I wasn't a fox :("

And ... a third category of "other ones":

• run it through valgrind
• whatever sound fox make
• nothing
• noises

I appreciate the student who just wrote a long squiggle. Is it a noise? Is it an approximate signature? Is it just a symbol to register "I was here"?

This post's theme word is whigmaleerie / whigmaleery (n), "a whim" or "a fanciful contrivance." Foxes speaking? What whigmaleerie!

What is one of your hidden talents?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

What is one of your hidden talents? (previously: 2017 2016)

A surprising number listed sleep-related talents. We are mid-semester, so perhaps students' minds are a bit focused on this now.

• sleeping through anything
• I can sleep
• I am good at stealing mattresses
• I nap very well
• I can sleep through 5 alarms
• Not sure if it's hidden but I can sleep all day long.

Others had performance skills:

• I am a great singer in the shower
• juggling
• I can sing??
• I can spin a book.
• oboe
• I play a mean kazoo
• I can climb trees real good
• playing guitar behind the back
• marching
• I can do a split
• bending my thumb backwards
• I am quite flexible
• I can write with both my hands
• I'm somewhat ambidexterous
• I can't get dizzy
• getting injured
• burping on command
• eating a lot
• drinking copious amounts of coffee
• procrastination
• 
  

Some were unusual:

• smelling fire
• hair!
• naming English monarchs
• crying silently

And others took the "hidden" quite strongly:

• wouldn't be hidden if I told
• N/A
• couldn't tell you

The phrase "a mean kazoo" will stick with me.

This post's theme word is trombenik / trombenick (n), "a lazy or boastful person." The trombenick never practiced trombone, but claimed to be a virtuoso.

If you had to organize a parade, the theme would be

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

If you had to organize a parade, the theme would be: ________. (previously)

Some sort of traditional or otherwise straightforward suggestions:

• floats
• pirates
• latinidad --- with lots of latinx artists
• sharks
• fantasy
• clouds
• candy
• happy
• guava
• turkey
• seasonal I guess?
• puppets
• [assorted suggestions of trademarked characters, by name]

Suggestions became increasingly wacky:

• astronaut penguins
• baby shark
• cheddar popcorn
• running (so it'd be a marathon)
• guava
• ME.
• apocalypse
• parade-themed parade
• weather
• awkwardness
• Turing Machine

Frankly these parades seem aggressively impossible:

• food allergies
• algorithms
• topological sort
• Agoraphobia Awareness

That last one... wow. I guess we might be able to schedule a parade indoors, like in an enclosed mall space? Agoraphobia does seem to be inherently at odds with parades, which take up a lot of space and are usually held outdoors.

The "most reasonable impromptu declared parade" award goes to the "People who are reasonably competent at walking" Parade, which ... could be happening right now! It's low-key, so you'd never know.


This post's theme word is bathophobia (n), "a fear of depths or falling from a great height." We should not have hired the bathophobia support group to steer the parade floats from the in-cockpit controls...

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck? (previously 2017 2016)

Many people picked just a number. No units, or at least no helpful units.

• 3
• 5000
• 2
• 5
• 0
• 4 wood
• 7
• like 8 woods

One person said "1 lbs", which wins them the Accurate and Valid Answer Award.

Other people went with heuristic amounts:

• how many it wants
• many
• enough for the winter
• enough lol
• not enough to feed its family
• as much as it could throw
• go ask the woodchuck (on Google)

The Tautological Award for Those Awarded for Their Tautologies goes to:

• a wood chuck would chuck as much wood as a wood chuck could chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood

And the creativity awards go to this collection of replies:

• A woodchuck doesn't have time for your silly games
• Probably a couple trees but don't hold me to this
• segfault
• As much as Chuck Norris wants
• It wouldn't
• Honestly chuck should cut back...

This post's theme words are asyndeton (deliberately chopping out the conjunctions between successive clauses) and polysyndeton (adding more than necessary). The woodchuck's poetry featured many asyndetons, placing it opposite the purple Lovecraftian polysyndetons at the poetry symposium dinner.

What is your favorite kitchen implement?

I take attendance by having students answer a question.

What is your favorite kitchen implement? (previously)

Small implements: fork, whisk, spatula. Also some people listed food (?) as an implement: cucumber, carrot, rice.

Medium-sized implements: oven, kitchen stand, stove, stir fry pan, blender, rice cooker, microwave, dishwasher, lemon juicer.

Unreasonably large to call it an "implement": countertop.


This post's theme word is binnacle (n), "a container for housing instruments on a ship's deck, in a car dashboard, etc." My stand mixer deserves its own binnacle!

What plague do you wish on your enemies?

I take attendance by asking students a question.

What plague do you wish on your enemies? (previously 2016 2017)

Many people wished "kindness" or "none" or "peace" or "probably nothing, that's too mean for me :)". They were very nice with a potentially mean question. Kudos to them!

Some were traditional: "locusts", "the bubonic kind", "small plague", "big plague", "black plague", "Swat plague", "the worst kind".

Other people went more devious and unusual: "almost going to sneeze feeling", "inability to not forgive", "inability to be punctual", "balding", "chronic toe-stubbing", "no more printer ink", "constantly stepping on Legos", "saying everything they're thinking". The Most Sinister Award goes to "loss of hope :)". Yikes.


This post's theme word is eucrasia (n), "a normal state of health; physical well-being." Contrast eucrasia with dyscrasia to figure out if you've been cursed with a plague!