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?

Some people referenced the luckiest thing that ever happened or other earlier attendance questions:

• bird
• also existing
• not existing?
• I live next to [student X] -- student Y
• I live next to [student Y] -- student X
• bird?

Should I be worried about the recurring "bird"s?

Others had medical mishaps:

• chipped my front teeth when i fell down laughing 
• a week after getting surgery in preeschool, a kid kicked me in the stomach & I had to have the same surgery again
• deviated septum during a soccer game
• appendicitis is the only time my parents ever visited campus

Some cited student-specific concerns:

• fire alarm night before test
• having all midterms on same day
• exponential runtime
• snapped my oneCard 2 times in 2 days

And then a smorgasbord of miscellaneous bad luck?

• missed 2 straight connecting  flights
• :)
• I got left by my parents in Paris in a train station
• dropping my laptop
• dropping my laptop 3 times
• Hurricane Harvey hit my city on my birthday :(
• I fell over 5 times in 30 minutes wearing the best boots I've ever worn
• i once had to wait at a red light

The award for "Sounds Most Like a Cautionary Tale" goes to "brother pushed me in a well".  The "Technically Unlikely but maybe not UnLUCKy" prize goes to "lost twenty coinflips in a row." The tip-of-the-hat for luck-n-privilege awareness goes to "i once had to wait at a red light."

This post is dedicated to students who are perusing the archive in search of something to brighten a day that feels unlucky.

This post's theme word is contretemps (n), "an unforseen and unfortunate occurrence; a disagreement or dispute." Wednesday's child is full of woe; Grumbleday's child is caught in contretemps.

What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?

I take attendance by having students answer a question.

What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?

A lot of people are grateful:

• every day I get to wake up and live a pretty sweet life
• being here
• existing
• ^ that
• Already written, but existing
• unoriginal, but existing
• getting to be here today
• being born into my circumstances
• go to Swat
• My Mom
• Swat
• getting lotteried out of ML to take Algo.

Many people briefly summarized what must be a much longer story:

• meeting the same Spanish traveler twice in one city and finding out he prepared my medicinal bath from the day before.
• meeting my significant other
• One time I got a concussion and they thought I had broken my neck and was gonna die but I didn't.
• Finding a lost friend in Barcelona
• living with [two other students in the class]
• Last week I was stranded in Philly and ran into a friend.
• a star fell on me

Some people kept it brief:

• e72 pset got cancelled
• fall break
• sleep
• dogs
• Hi blog!

... yes, that last one is a real thing that an actual student wrote to mark their attendance today. They get the "You Almost Asked for This" Prize.

This post is dedicated to everyone reading it: you exist! Huzzah!

This post's theme word is uberty (n), "abundance; fruitfulness". I went through an uberty of thankfulness while contemplating the tenuous and unlikely events leading to my own existence.