If you were a superhero, what power would you have?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question.

If you were a superhero, what power would you have?

Listed from usual to much less usual, students replied:

• invisibility
• flying
• run fast / super speed
• teleportation / being in multiple places at once
• shapeshifting
• time travel / ability to stop time / napping, but while I nap, time stops
• slowing time
• existing forever / immortality
• I would just be Aquaman
• superior intellect
• honestly this might be awful but reading minds
• rearrange atoms - make whatever I want
• greening the world
• produce infinite pasta

I appreciated the computer science-themed answers, too:

• brute-force algorithms in constant time
• moving nondeterministically
• solving P vs. NP

The "Wait, does that mean... ?" prize for most thought-invoking superpower goes to "breaking the fourth wall". A Most Meta Medal goes to the superpower, "make one more person a superhero."

But my favorite was the keep-your-dreams-manageable student whose superpower would simply be "to not be lactose intolerant."


This post's theme word is acnestis, "the part of the body where one cannot reach to scratch." (Etymology: from From Greek aknestis (spine), from Ancient Greek knestis (spine, cheese-grater).) My superpower would be the ability to eliminate my acnestis and satisfy an itch by scratching anywhere!

What does the fox say?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question. Today's timeless question was:

What does the fox say?

I ask because I actually do not know the answer --- are foxes one of those animals that emits a human-like scream? I have a vague memory of learning something like this. One student confirmed: "It sounds like children crying and is super creepy."

Many people answered with onomatopoeia or other sounds:

• ahhhhhhhh!
• moo
• ughh
• screaming in the Crum
• WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA WA
• meow
• ring ding ding ding ding ga ding
• "..."
• qwak
• bleh
• oo
• wah
• nati nati nati noo
• QUACK!

... of which my clear favorite is the callback reference that foxes make "Bluth family chicken noises" (reference).

Then there were the replies that suggest the fox can speak (sometimes at length):

• noooooooooooooo
• I'm sleepy
• suhhh, dude
• bird
• Hello I am a fox
• stop talking about me

Then there were the editorial answers, describing what the fox says rather than rendering what the fox says:

• nothing
• It's Monday, the fox is still sleeping
• Too much annoying stuff
• Isn't there a song about this?
• This song was way too popular
• I disagree. This song was not popular enough and we should bring it back.

This post's theme word is bombilate, "to make a humming or buzzing noise." The fox snuck up on me without bombilating! -- how is that even possible?