Did We Do Anything In Your Class Today?
Mamacita says: Students, WHATEVER ELSE you may say or do after you’ve been absent, don’t EVER waltz into a class the next session and say, “Did we do anything while I was absent?”
Or, “Did I miss anything?”
Or, “Do I have any make-up work?”
Because, you see, those first two questions are tactless, tasteless, rude, boorish, insipid, and proof positive that the speaker is completely lacking in both common sense and intelligence.
That last question is unnecessary, because it says right there on the syllabus, plain as day, and, in fact, both highlighted and emboldened: There is no make-up work at the college level. If you miss class, you miss whatever was done that day. Period.
I hope Cancun was worth another semester in the same class.
The following has appeared on teacher blogs all over the internet, but it’s still hilarious and oh, so apt. I suppose, if you’re a slacker and a party animal and a person who goes to Cancun in the middle of the semester, it might not be quite so funny, but then, if you fit that description, who cares what you think anyhow?
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“Did I Miss Anything?”
(Question frequently asked by students after missing a class)
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here, we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full three hours.
Everything. I gave an exam worth 40 per cent of the grade for this term and assigned some reading due today on which I’m about to hand out a quiz worth 50 per cent.
Nothing. None of the content of this course has value or meaning. Take as many days off as you like: any activities we undertake as a class I assure you will not matter either to you or me and are without purpose.
Everything. A few minutes after we began last time a shaft of light descended and an angel or other heavenly being appeared and revealed to us what each woman or man must do to attain divine wisdom in this life and the hereafter. This is the last time the class will meet before we disperse to bring this good news to all people on earth.
Not much. The students who passed the quiz in class yesterday are exempted from the Final Exam.
A lot. The bursar came by and held a lottery, and the winners have had their student loans forgiven. You and three others are the only ones who now have to pay it all back.
Nothing to speak of. Your parents came by to take you out to lunch after class, but when they saw that you weren’t there, they took the professor out instead.
Not a thing. When we realized you weren’t there, we were too worried to do any work, so we all got in our cars and drove to your house to make sure you were all right. You must have been in the emergency room still.
Nothing. When you are not present, how could something significant occur?
Nothing much. Ed McMahon came by with a big check, but he left after twenty minutes and took it back with him.
A lot. The professor was sick, so Adam Sandler and Ellen DeGeneres did stand-up for three hours, and everybody left with a new car and a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax.
Everything. Contained in this classroom is a microcosm of human existence assembled for you to query and examine and ponder. This is not the only place such an opportunity has been gathered, but it was one place, and you weren’t here.
Things I Haven't Done Yet
Mamacita says: It’s time for another round of Things I Haven’t Done Yet.
1. Spring FORWARD; fall BACK. I’ve changed a few clocks that I look at regularly, but elsewhere in the house? Not yet. Also, I’m too lazy I’m too short to reach most of the wall clocks, so they don’t need to be sprung forward at all because they never fell back last autumn. Except, of course, for the clocks I couldn’t reach LAST year to change, which means those clocks were correct until now, but will be wrong until next “time.” How many clocks are in this house? Search me. Once I have to remove my shoes to count anything, I lose interest, and my kids were involved in so many activities when they were in school, I was genuinely paranoid about the time. My children are grown up now, but the clocks and the obsession about time remain. It might be a lot worse, you know. At least I’m not a drunk or a kleptomaniac; I just HAVE TO KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS, and every wall in my house has learned to cater to that.
2. Oh Hoss, my dear, darling Hoss. Gene Maudlin died yesterday, and I haven’t quite really realized it yet. I never will. The Blogosphere will never be the same. You’ll be greatly missed, Hoss. Your pithy posts and comments made me happy, and your emails always made me feel important, and well, like SOMEBODY. You were one who made a big, big difference. Readers, Please go and read my dear friend Vicki’s beautiful tribute to this lovely, lovely man.
3. I’ve been Freecycling “stuff” like mad, but I’m not finished yet. I’ve cleaned out three houses after a death now, and I will NOT put my kids through this kind of a mess when I go. The Christmas “stuff” alone will be excavation enough; the rest of house is going to be EASY!!!! Well, easiER, anyway.
4. I haven’t graded a single essay this weekend, and I don’t even care. Nyahh. I’ll get them done during the students’ midterm exams this week. I know they’re greatly looking forward to them. I mean, who wouldn’t be?
5. I still have my entire wedding set of dinnerware: Woolworth’s best! Not a piece is broken. I will keep it forever. However, I also have about eight other complete unbroken sets of dinnerware. Most of it has to go. I haven’t figured out which to give away and which to keep yet, though. It’s all sentimental in some way. That’s my biggest housekeeping problem; everything reminds me of someone precious. There’s not a tasteful, Good Housekeeping thing in my entire home, but everything in it is connected to something or someone else. That’s how I like to live, my dears. However, one must be a LITTLE bit practical, and almost everything a few things simply must go. Come on over. Bring boxes. I suppose that if we were a notoriously “breaky” family, I wouldn’t still have all this “stuff,” but the fact is, even when the children were small, we were all careful people and seldom broke any dishes. Ever.
6. I haven’t taken the cats to the vet for their spring tonics and flea drops yet. We’re still paying for my husband’s bypass of last fall, and now we have to somehow pay for a funeral. Life can really suckerpunch a fella, huh. Sorry, kitties, tell the fleas to stand by.
7. Please don’t suggest that we sell all of this “stuff” instead of giving it away. I know we could, but I also remember how it was to need some of these things and not be able to buy them. I would much rather see them go to nice people who need them and who will USE them for their families, than to supply some dealer with stuff for a store shelf, so he/she can make a buck. I’m also seeing some genuine gratitude over it, not that I need to SEE that, but it makes me feel even more sure that I’m doing it right. I haven’t regretted this yet.
8. I haven’t made a will yet, or checked on my life insurance lately, but I intend to, and soon. PLEASE don’t any of you die without life insurance!
9. Heavy windstorm warnings. Severe thunderstorm warnings. Temperature in the seventies. Crocuses blooming. Trees budding. This time last week, the temp was in the single digits. Next week: rumors of snow. Welcome to southern Indiana. I haven’t put away the heavy coats yet, nor have I gotten out any summer clothing, even though most of the people we saw in town today looked as if they were heading to the beach. Gun-jumpers, that’s what I say.
10. I intended to make corn bread to go with the black bean soup tonight, but I forgot. I’ll have some for tomorrow’s leftovers, though. Item: the black bean soup is for my husband; I wouldn’t touch that smelly stuff with a ten-foot-pole. He, on the other hand, loves it. Well, he can have it. All of it! 🙂 I’d tell you what it reminds me of, but my mother raised me with better manners than that. Well, she tried her best, anyhow.
Quotation Saturday: Grief and its Aftermath
Mamacita says:
1. It’s so curious: one can resist tears and “behave” very well in the hardest hours of grief. but then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips form a drawer. . . and everything collapses. –Collette
2. Sorrow you can hold, however desolating, if nobody speaks to you. If they speak, you break down. –Bede Jarrett
3. While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. –Samuel Johnson
4. Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break. –Shakespeare
5. Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists. –Antonia Porchia
6. Even hundredfold grief is divisible by love. –Jareb Teague
7. Sorrow makes us all children again – destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
8. No one can keep his griefs in their prime; they use themselves up. –E.M. Cioran
9. We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. –Kenji Miyazawa
10. Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. –from The Wonder Years
11. If you’re going through hell, keep going. –Winston Churchill (This is one of my favorite quotes!)
12. The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. –Arthur Schopenhauer
13. There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out. –Lou Reed
14. Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow. –Dan Rather
15. You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. –Jan Glidewell
16. There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go. –Unknown
17. Loss is nothing but change, and change is Nature’s delight. –Marcus Aurelius
18. In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. –Robert Ingersoll
19. Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. –Jacques Prevert
20. The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep. –Henry Maudsley
21. There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief. –Aeschylus
22. We have to believe that even the briefest of human connections can heal. Otherwise, life is unbearable. –Agate Nesaule
23. Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die. — Amelia Burr
24. If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. –Anne Bradstreet
25. There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word “happy” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. –Carl Jung
26. As only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night. –Dorothy Parker
27. There’s no such thing as old age; there is only sorrow. –Edith Wharton
28. When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. –Henri Nouwen
29. The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? –Kahlil Gibran
30. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. –Maya Angelou
31. The pain passes, but the beauty remains. –Pierre Auguste Renoir
32. In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. –Robert Frost
33. . . . joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you. . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. –Kahlil Gibran
34. Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it. –Talmud
35. Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance. –Robert Frost
36. Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. –Blaise Pascal
37. Given a choice between grief and nothing, I’d choose grief. –William Faulkner
38. Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved. –Unknown
39. There are places in the heart that do not yet exist; suffering has to enter in for them to come to be. –Leon Blov
40. Memory is a man’s real possession. In nothing else is he rich; in nothing else is he poor. –Alexander Smith
41. Memories can be sad, but sometimes they can also save you. –Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka, and Toshihiro Kawabata
42. The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. –Mark Twain
43. People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad. –Marcel Proust
44. No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow. –Euripides
45. I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived. –Willa Cather
46. Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. –Albert Einstein
47. Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death. –Erik H. Erikson
48. We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance. –Marcel Proust
49. We understand Death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one we love. –Madame de Staal
50. The death of someone we know always reminds us that we are still alive – perhaps for some purpose which we ought to re-examine. –Mignon McLaughlin
