What is the most fun thing you did during fall break?

I take attendance by having students answer a question. Sometimes I try to get to know them a bit better, so that I can distinguish them from the swarm.

What is the most fun thing you did during fall break?

The typical Swarthmore student:

• algorithms
• slept in
• sleeeeeeep zzzzzzz
• sleep
• sleep + sleep + sleep
• sleep!
• read Kleinberg + Tardos (our textbook)
• getting away from here
• sleep
• slep [stet]
• grad apps & Overwatch 💙
• divide & conquer

Something that sounds more "mainstream" fun:

• went to 
• NYC!
• Chicago
• visit friends
• Maid of the Mist @ Niagara Falls
• gardening
• climb a fortress
• disc golf
• collaged
• watched
• the trailer for PLANET EARTH II!!!!!!!
• Silicon Valley
• Evil Dead
• a movie
• played guitar
• visited my girlfriend's family
• tiddlywinks
• swam in a glacial lake
• ate good food
• hung with friends
• soccer game

"The most fun thing"? There were some... fun outliers:

• my car was surrounded by hundreds of sheep
• woken up by Armenian brute
• removed 4 teeth
• watched a kidney removal surgery
• bees?
• uncontrollable near explosive diarrhea

I have to ask --- "removed 4 teeth" makes it sound like you removed them from yourself, by yourself. That seems worrisome.

This post's theme word is 

Ithaca is gorgeous

By well-known folk wisdom, the gorges are gorgeous:

Seriously scenic hiking.

 We came in search of a geocache, which we needed rock-climbing rope and headlamps to find. Advanced level only.

View across and down the gorge towards the lake.

 We did actually end up climbing down/across/into a gorge and walking along the bottom for a little bit.

The view upstream, bridge in sight.

Gorges aside, Ithaca is full of lovely sights.

Nice fluffy trees and brightly-painted angular metal sculptures.

Sweeping expanses of greenery sloping down towards the lake.

Lots and lots of trees precariously growing on ledges.

I enjoy the special features of Ithaca; things I've only noticed now that I have experienced their absence in the rest of the world. For example, this sign:

"No skiing, sledding, or sliding"

The variegated trees lining the highways as I drove were also very nice.

This post's theme word is campanile (n), "a bell tower, especially one detached from a main building such as a church." Sledding is expressly forbidden on the slopes below the campanile, but students frequently use food trays to careen down the snowy expanse anyway.