Why did the chicken cross the road?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

• for an insurance scam
• Caged animals have no freedom in 'murica.
• Her mission is classified.
• Why not?
• Because it's entitled to do so.
• To sing Adele's "Hello (from the other side)"
• the other chicken
• to find his home

It's clear that students have food-as-motivation on their minds. It was a popular theme:

• probably food
• b/c there was food?
• to get Chinese food

If not food, then they have deeper existential questions:

• intention
• What is a bird?
• to find purpose in its life
• to run away from its problems
• The road is a metaphor. The chicken is not.
• Why not?
• Why didn't the chicken cross the road?
• Death is an illusion.

And also darker and more pessimistic interpretations:

• To die by its own choice.
• It was an exorcism.
• "NOTHING IS WRITTEN!!" (<-- future="" lawyer="" li="" possible="">
• or else I would've killed it.
• It has accepted its mortality.

And today's honorary brownnoser award goes to, "because it wanted to go to algorithms class."


This post's theme word is malinger, "to feign illness in order to avoid work." That malingering chicken, always visiting the across-the-road doctor and never clocking in to the same-side-of-the-road henhouse!

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

• Standing right behind you.
• not here
• I just saw her the other day
• PASTA BAR
• California
• up and to the left
• I'll never know
• Mars
• Australia / down under
• MATRIX :(
• Where in time is Carmen Sandiego?
• with Waldo
• San Diego
• Antarctica
• really far away

Australia and California had more than one vote each.

Swarthmore-specific references:

• McCabe
• According to cygnet, Willets.
• Econ 01 (she got lotteried out of Algorithms)

"I don't know" and "idk" and "??" were popular answers; maybe the cultural reference is not universal. Similarly, "Who's Carmen Sandiego?" Alsa, hilariously, "Literally (not figuratively) no idea."

My CS-professor heart was won by the student who answered, "in the heap."


This post's theme word is gleichschaltung (n), "the forced standardization of political, economic, and cultural institutions, as in an authoritarian state." The non-ubiquity of Carmen Sandiego, despite her extensive travels, indicates an absence of gleichschaltung in the student body.