What is your personal motto?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What is your personal motto?

The earnest take several forms, the positive charge:

• always be the best version of yourself 
• channel negative emotions into something productive
• live happily
• live slow
• enjoy
• work smarter, not harder

... the negative (admonitions):

• don't be afraid of anything
• don't worry about things that don't matter
• don't leave yourself with any regret.
• don't disguise your fear as impracticality

... and the neutral mottos which are not commands:

• all life/sentience is sacred
• resilience
• truthfulness forbearance compassion
• time wasted doing something you enjoy isn't wasted
• non nobis domine

Then there are the cultural references:

• just keep swimming (<-- li="" popular="" response="" this="" was="">
• get schwifty

Then there were the stalwart replies, dependably occurring for every question. No matter what question I ask, someone answers with "sleep" (in this case, the motto "sleep is important".) Someone else always writes answers that center on the class (motto: "do algorithms"). At least one person goes for maximum psychological darkness (motto: "society sucks and everyone dies"). There's always at least one person who goes full-throttle academic (motto: "intuitions without concepts are blind"), who is counterbalanced by the jokers ("what's a motto with you?" and "Born too late to explore the seas, born too early to explore the stars, born right in time to browse DANK MEMES.")

I was amused to see both "moderation is boring" and "everything is good in moderation." This duo of answers wins the synergy award.

This post's theme word is triffid, "an out-of-control plant that overruns everything around it (also, anything that behaves in this manner)." The triffids' motto is, "go, go, go!"

What is your greatest victory in life (so far)?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

What is your greatest victory in life (so far)?

The physical accomplishments:

• made into a cup one time for pong but no one was watching
• learning to touch my nose with my tongue
• eating a large pizza by myself
• complimented by my high school rugby coach

The recurring theme of sleep marked many of these students' greatest victories in life (!):

• getting out of bed every morning
• waking up early
• I slept 18 hours once

Accomplishments that could be a line on a CV:

• finishing military service (<-- li="" wow="">
• published a first-author paper (<-- li="" wow="">
• got an hourly wage of $100 (<-- li="" nice="">

And then there are the others. Some people noted an interesting event that they really had no choice in ("being born" or "I won $50 in a scratch-off lottery"). Also, I find it very culturally revealing that many of these smart, academically-accomplished adults mark their greatest achievement as "maintaining a committed X-year relationship".

The dependable brown-nosing answer this time was "not getting lotteried out of [this class]".

The absolutely, utterly nerdiest award goes to the student whose greatest victory in life so far is "apperceptive unity."

This post's theme word is hayseed, "an unsophisticated person who comes from a rural area." The hayseed's victory over the urban gentleman was an utterly magnificent sight to behold --- you really should join debate team next year!