PROFESSORS I HAVE KNOWN ----------------------- (You know who you are.) 1. The Heisenberg Has four offices. If you try to find her in any one office, she will be in a different one (p=1). 2. The Vampire Guaranteed to be in the office between 1 am and 4am. 3. The Schizo Visit this one in the morning and it's sweetness and light. Visit in the afternoon and you'd better wear leather britches. 4. The Pack Rat Has documents left over from the previous tenant. The professor may or may not be in--look under the piles of unread journals and theses. 5. The Consultant Consults for IBM, drives a gold 600SEL Mercedes, and sometimes stops by to teach a class. 6. The Delegator Has a super-efficient secretary who prepares the class notes, authors publications, finds funding, and knows more about quantum physics than the professor. 7. The Relic Looks like a walking corpse. While lecturing, experiences 30 second pauses caused by the occasional microstroke. 8. The Robot Reads the lecture from a stack of yellowed ancient transparencies. Don't ask this one a question--any diversion from the norm causes utter confusion and mayhem. 9. The Foreigner This is a Chinese grad student who has total mastery of thermodynamics--in Chinese. 10. The Comedian This one is utterly hilarious and keeps the class in stitches--loads of fun, but you tend to forget what subject is being taught--until the 8-page, comprehensive final exam. 11. The Prima Donna Is the only person in the world who understands toenail bacterial growth in the lemur of Madagascar (and the only person who wants to). Enjoys humiliating the occasional student dumb enough to ask a question. 12. The Atavist Never left the sixties. Tends to dress in tie-dyed shirts, dirty jeans, and sandals (even in winter). Usually teaches sociology and talks like there are a few synapses misfiring. 13. The Casanova A male professor who considers the classroom to be a personal harem. Tends to look like a greasy lounge lizard and gives new meaning to "grading on curves". 14. The Delilah Female counterpart to the "Casanova." Delights in wearing seductive clothing and Eau-de-Bordello perfume to drive the freshmen boys out of their minds. Pretends to be unattached, but has a boyfriend who looks like Arnold Schwartzenegger. 15. The Jerry Lewis Reminds you of the "Nutty Professor". When he remembers where and when his class is taught, he arrives in a smudged and smoking lab coat and smelling of sulfur. Believes in experimenting but not in the scientific method. 16. The Kook Is researching the effect of brainwaves on the motion of electrons. Has heard every possible objection from saner colleagues and so has an answer for everything. Sounds every bit as plausible as the guy who thinks he's Napoleon. 17. The Vacuum Tube Has a pet theory that depends on circa 1940 technology. Tries to cloak the theory in modern terms so there's some possibility you'll buy it. 18. (Your additions here!) How to identify professors: Chem Prof: Wears a white lab coat. This may actually be clean but does not have to be. P-chem profs have a brand new coat that has never been in the lab; polymer chem profs have strange glop on their coat, and intro chem profs have acid holes. Physics Prof: Wears blue jeans and a flannel shirt. May sometimes forget to wear shirt altogether. If a professor is wearing blue jeans and suspenders, ten to one he is a physicist. Physics profs often have German accents, but this is not a distingushing characteristic. Be wary of psychologists with fake Viennese accents which can sound similar to the unwary. Bio Prof: Sometimes wears a lab coat, though usually this is the sign of a biochemist. Marine biologists walk around in hip boots for no explainable reason, even in the middle of winter. They are apt to wear grey slacks and smell like fish, as opposed to most biologists, who smell strongly of formalin. Microbiology instructors go around in spotless white coats, refuse to drink beer on tap, and wipe all their silverware before using it. Never loan money to a bio prof, no matter how much he asks. Psych Prof: Psychologists are not real scientists, and can be easily identified by their screams of protest whenever anyone questions whether psychology is a science. Psych people have beady little eyes and don't laugh at jokes about psychology. If you are not sure whether a person is a scientist or a comparative religion instructor, he is probably a psychologist. CS Prof: Most CS profs are from India or Pakistan. You can tell by the gestures and accents. This is not a bad thing, though many of the American CS professors tend to pick up Indian accents which confounds more specific identification. Like mushrooms, CS students only come out at night, and, if not Indian, tend to take on a pasty appearance. CS professors do not use computers and therefore can be easily identified by their comparative good health with respect to their students. Many CS professors do not even know how to use computers, and are actually mathematicians or psychologists in disguise. Avoid these people. Math Prof: Math profs are like physics professors except without any practical bent. A math professor will have only books and pencils in his office, as opposed to the piles of broken equipment that physicists keep. Mathematicians scorn the use of computers and calculators and often have difficulty splitting bills in restaurants. The easy way to identify a mathematician is by the common use of the phrases "It can be shown that..." and "Is left as an exercise to the student..." THESE ARE ACTUAL EXCERPTS FROM STUDENT SCIENCE EXAM PAPERS: Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the organ of the species. Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats backwards. The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made man think. Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillers. The dodo is a bird that is almost decent by now. To remove air from a flask, fill it with water, tip the water out, and put the cork in quick before the air can get back in. The process of turning steam back into water again is called conversation. A magnet is something you find crawling all over a dead cat. The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours. The cuckoo bird does not lay his own eggs. To prevent conception when having intercourse, the male wears a condominium. To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube. Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them. Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. Geometry teaches us to bisex angles. A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending. The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects. The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader. Artificial insemination is when the farmer does it to the cow instead of the bull. An example of animal breeding is the farmer who mated a bull that gave a great deal of milk with a bull with good meat. We believe that the reptiles came from the amphibians by spontaneous generation and study of rocks. English sparrows and starlings eat the farmers grain and soil his corpse. By self-pollination, the farmer may get a flock of long-haired sheep. If conditions are not favorable, bacteria go into a period of adolescence. Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire. Vegetative propagation is the process by which one individual manufactures another individual by accident. A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold. A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle. Blood flows down one leg and up the other. A person should take a bath once in the summer, and not quite so often in the winter. The hookworm larvae enters the human body through the soul. When you haven't got enough iodine in your blood you get a glacier. It is a well-known fact that a deceased body harms the mind. Humans are more intelligent than beasts because the human branes have more convulsions. For fainting: rub the person's chest, or if a lady, rub her arm above the hand instead. For fractures: to see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently back and forth. For dog bite: put the dog away for several days. If he has not recovered, then kill it. For nosebleed: put the nose much lower than the body. For drowning: climb on top of the person and move up and down to make artificial perspiration. To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose. For head colds: use an agonizer to spray the nose until it drops in your throat My mother sent this form letter to me when I was having a really bad time with my thesis. I don't know where it came from, she says it was already ancient when SHE went to school... Dear Mother and Dad: It has now been three months since I left for college. I have been remiss in writing and am very sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down... Okay??? Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out of the window of my dormitory when it caught fire shortly after my arrival, are pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get three headaches a day. Fortunately the fire in the dormitory and my jump were witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me at the hospital, and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt-out dorm, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It's really a basement room, but it is kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven't set the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show. Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has some minor infection which prevents us from passing our premarital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him. This will soon clear up with the penicillin injections I am now taking daily. I know you will welcome him into our family with open arms. He is kind and although not well educated, he is ambtious. Although he is of a different race and religion than ours, I know you expressed tolerence will not permit you to be bothered by the fact that his skin color is somewhat darker than ours. I am sure you will love him as I do. His family background is good, too for I am told that his father is an important gunbearer in the village in Africa from which he comes. Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I do not have syphillis and there is no schwartze in my life..... However, I am getting a "D" in History and an "F" in Science.... and I wanted you to see these marks in the proper perspective Your loving daughter, THE NERD TEST Score one point for each YES. The score is % nerdity. 1) Have you ever used a computer? If the answer is no, try taking the Baker House Purity Test. 2) Have you ever programmed a computer? 3) Have you ever built a computer? 4) Done #2 continuously for more than four hours? 5) Done #2 continuously for more than eight hours? 6) ? (For those non-MIT students out there, this translates as, "Do/did you major in electrical engineering or computer science?) 7) Do you wear glasses? 8) Are your glasses broken (e.g. taped)? 9) Is your vision worse than 20/40? 10) Worse than 20/80? 11) Are you legally blind? 12) Have you ever asked a question in lecture? 13) Have you ever answered a question in lecture? 14) Have you ever corrected a professor? 15) Have you ever answered a rhetorical question? 16) Do you sit in the front row? 17) Do you take notes in more than one color? 18) Have you ever worn a calculator? 19) Do you read science fiction? 20) Have you ever used a microscope? 21) Have you ever used a telescope? 22) Have you ever used an oscilloscope? 23) Is your weight less than your IQ? 24) Have you ever done #2 on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the same weekend? 25) Have you ever done #2 past 4 am? 26) Have you ever done #2 with someone of the appropriate (either or both, your choice) sex (besides your consultant)? 27) Have you ever done #2 for money? 28) Do you have a Rubik's Cube? 29) Can you solve it? 30) Without the book? 31) Without looking? 32) Do you have acne? 33) Do you have greasy hair? 34) Are you unaware of it? 35) Have you ever bought anything from Radio Shack? 36) From Heathkit? 37) Do you know trigonometry? 38) Do you know calculus? 39) Do you know Maxwell's Equations? 40) Do you have them on a t-shirt? 41) Have you ever dissected anything? 42) Do you know pi past five decimal places? 43) Do you know e past five decimal places? 44) Do you own more than $500 in electronics (excluding stereo)? 45) More than $1000? 46) More than $2500? 47) Have you ever built more than $2500 worth of electronics? 48) Have you ever watched Dr. Who? 49) More than three times in the same night? 50) Have you ever read _The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_? 51) Was your SAT math score more than 300 points higher than your verbal? 52) Have you ever done homework on a Friday night? 53) Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? 54) Have you ever redesigned a major household appliance? 55) Have you ever played a computer game? 56) Done #55 in the last three months? 57) Done #55 in the last three weeks? 58) Have you ever written a computer game? 59) Are your pants too short? 60) Do your socks mismatch? 61) Have you used a chemistry set? 62) After the age of 13? 63) Have you ever played D&D (or any other role-playing game)? 64) Since high school? 65) Have you ever entered a science fair? 66) Did you win? 67) Do you own a digital watch? 68) Does it play music? 69) Does it have a calculator? 70) Have you ever used a rare earth element? 71) Do you own a CRC? 72) Do you own a CRT? 73) Do you know RPN? 74) Do you own a laser (over 1 mw)? 75) Were you ever on a chess team? 76) A debate team? 77) Do you know more than three programming languages? 78) More than eight? 79) Have you ever made a technical joke? 80) Did no one get it? 81) Can you name more than ten Star Trek episodes? 82) Are you socially inept? 83) Do you own a pencil case? 84) Do you wear it? 85) Do you know Schrodinger's Equation? 86) Have you ever solved it? 87) Have you ever used the word "asymptotic"? 88) Can you count in binary? 89) Have you ever broken into a computer system? 90) A government system? 91) Have you ever changed your bank account? 92) Changed someone else's? 93) Done #92 for money? 94) Have you ever inhaled helium? 95) Do you know the Latin name for the fruit fly? 96) Do you own anything that is radio controlled? 97) Have you ever interpolated? 98) Have you ever extrapolated? 99) Have you ever used a modem? 100) Have you ever reached sexual climax while doing #2? ************************************************************************ Twas the night before finals author unknown Twas the night before finals, and all through the college, The students were praying for last minute knowledge. Most were quite sleepy, but none touched their beds, While visions of essays danced in their heads. Out in the taverns a few were still drinking, And hoping that liquor would loosen their thinking. In my own room I had been pacing, And dreading exams I soon would be facing. My roommate was speechless, her nose in her books, And my comments to her drew unfriendly looks. I drained all the coffee and brewed a new pot, No longer caring that my nerves were shot. I stared at my notes, but my thoughts were muddy, My eyes went ablur and I just couldn't study. "SOme pizza might help," I said with a shiver, But each place I called refused to deliver. I'd nearly concluded that life was too cruel, With futures depending on grades had in school, When all of a sudden our door opened wide, And Patron Saint Put It Off ambled inside. His spirit was careless, his manner was mellow, ANd all of a sudden he started to bellow. "On Cliff notes, on crib notes, on Last Year's exams. On Wingit and Slingit and Last Minute Crams." His message deliverd he vanished from sight, But we heard him laughing outside in the night. Your teachers have pegged you, so just do your best, Happy Finals to All and to all A Good Test! 25 Ways to Cope With Stress. 1. Jam miniature marshmallows up your nose and sneeze them out. See how many you can do at a time. 2. Use your Mastercard to pay your Visa and vice-versa. 3. Pop some popcorn without putting the lid on. 4. When someone says "have a nice day", tell tehm you have other plans. 5. Make a list of things to do that you have already done. 6. Dance naked in front of your pets. 7. Put your toddler's clothes on backwards and send him to pre-school as if nothing is wrong. 8. Fill out your tax form using Roman Numerals. 9. Tape pictures of you boss on watermelons and launch them from high places. 10. Leaf through "National Geographic" and draw underwear on the natives. 11. Tattoo "Out to Lunch" on your forehead. 12. Go shopping. Buy everything. Sweat in it. Return it the next day. 13. Buy a subscription to "Sleazoid Weekly" and send it to your boss's wife. 14. Pay your electric bill in pennies. 15. Drive to work in reverse. 16. Find out what a frog in a blender really looks like. 17. Tell you boss to "blow it out your mule" and let him figure it out. 18. Sit naked on a shelled hard-boiled egg. 19. Polish your car with earwax. 20. REad the dictionary upside down and look for secret messages. 21. Start a nasty rumor and see if you recognize it when it comes back to you. 22. Braid the hairs in each nostril. 23. Write a short story using alphabet soup. 24. Stare at people through the tines of a fork and pretend they're in jail. 25. Make a language up and ask people for directions in it. Bonus : Replace the filling of a Twinkie with ketchup and put it back in the wrapper. Author unknown. 50 Fun things to do in a final that does not matter (i.e. you are going to fail the class completely no matter what you get on the final exam) 1. Bring a pillow. Fall asleep (or pretend to) until the last 15 minutes. Wake up, say "oh geez, better get cracking" and do some gibberish work. Turn it in a few minutes early. 2. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming "Andre, Andre, I've got the secret documents!!" 3. If it is a math/science exam, answer in essay form. If it is long answer/essay form, answer with numbers and symbols. Be creative. Use the integral symbol. 4. Make paper airplanes out of the exam. Aim them at the instructor's left nostril. 5. Talk the entire way through the exam. Read questions aloud, debate your answers with yourself out loud. If asked to stop, yell out, "I'm SOOO sure you can hear me thinking." Then start talking about what a jerk the instructor is. 6. Bring cheerleaders. 7. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About five minutes into it, loudly say to the instructor, "I don't understand ANY of this. I've been to every lecture all semester long! What's the deal? And who the hell are you? Where's the regular guy?" 8. Bring a Game Boy (or Game Gear, etc...). Play with the volume at max level. 9. On the answer sheet (book, whatever) find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative. 10. Bring pets. 11. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say "They've found me, I have to leave the country" and run off. 12. Fifteen minutes into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out "Merry Christmas." If you're really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat this process every fifteen minutes. 13. Do the exam with crayons, paint, or fluorescent markers. 14. Come into the exam wearing slippers, a bathrobe, a towel on your head, and nothing else. 15. Come down with a BAD case of Turet's Syndrome during the exam. Be as vulgar as possible. 16. Do the entire exam in another language. If you don't know one, make one up! For math/science exams, try using Roman numerals. 17. Bring things to throw at the instructor when s/he's not looking. Blame it on the person nearest to you. 18. As soon as the instructor hands you the exam, eat it. 19. Walk into the exam with an entourage. Claim you are going to be taping your next video during the exam. Try to get the instructor to let them stay, be persuasive. Tell the instructor to expect a percentage of the profits if they are allowed to stay. 20. Every five minutes, stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, continue with the exam. 21. Turn in the exam approximately 30 minutes into it. As you walk out, start commenting on how easy it was. 22. Do the entire exam as if it was multiple choice and true/false. If it is a multiple choice exam, spell out interesting things (DCCAB. BABE. etc..). 23. Bring a black marker. Return the exam with all questions and answers completely blacked out. 24. Get the exam. Twenty minutes into it, throw your papers down violently, scream out "Fuck this!" and walk out triumphantly. 25. Arrange a protest before the exam starts (i.e. Threaten the instructor that whether or not everyone's done, they are all leaving after one hour to go drink) 26. Show up completely drunk. (Completely drunk means at some point during the exam, you should start crying for mommy). 27. Every now and then, clap twice rapidly. If the instructor asks why, tell him/her in a very derogatory tone, "the light bulb that goes on above my head when I get an idea is hooked up to a clapper. DUH!" 28. Comment on how sexy the instructor is looking that day. 29. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 minutes, put on a white mask and start yelling "I'm here, the phantom of the opera" until they drag you away. 30. Go to an exam for a class you have no clue about, where you know the class is very small, and the instructor would recognize you if you belonged. Claim that you have been to every lecture. Fight for your right to take the exam. 31. Upon receiving the exam, look it over, while laughing loudly, say "you don't really expect me to waste my time on this drivel? Days of our Lives is on!!!" 32. Bring a water pistol with you. Nuff said. 33. From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy. Ignore the instructor's requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave one way or another, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai. 34. Start a brawl in the middle of the exam. 35. If the exam is math/science related, make up the longest proofs you could possibly think of. Get pi and imaginary numbers into most equations. If it is a written exam, relate everything to your own life story. 36. Come in wearing a full knight's outfit, complete with sword and shield. 37. Bring a friend to give you a back massage the entire way through the exam. Insist this person is needed, because you have bad circulation. 38. Bring cheat sheets TO ANOTHER CLASS (make sure this is obvious... like history notes for a calculus exam... otherwise you're not just failing, you're getting kicked out too) and staple them to the exam, with the comment "Please use the attached notes for references as you see fit." 39. When you walk in, complain about the heat. Strip. 40. After you get the exam, call the instructor over, point to any question, ask for the answer. Try to work it out of him/her. 41. One word: Wrestlemania. 42. Bring balloons, blow them up, start throwing them around like they do before concerts start. 43. Try to get people in the room to do the wave. 44. Play frisbee with a friend at the other side of the room. 45. Bring some large, cumbersome, ugly idol. Put it right next to you. Pray to it often. Consider a small sacrifice. 46. Get deliveries of candy, flowers, balloons, telegrams, etc... sent to you every few minutes throughout the exam. 47. During the exam, take apart everything around you. Desks, chairs, anything you can reach. 48. Complete the exam with everything you write being backwards at a 90 degree angle. 49. Bring a musical instrument with you, play various tunes. If you are asked to stop, say "it helps me think." Bring a copy of the Student Handbook with you, challenging the instructor to find the section on musical instruments during finals. Don't forget to use the phrase "Told you so". 50. Answer the exam with the "Top Ten Reasons Why Professor xxxx Sucks" Written by Jeremy Toeman (jt3h@andrew.cmu.edu) Feel free to add to this list, and distribute as you wish. 50 WAYS TO CONFUSE YOUR ROOMMATE 1. Smoke jimson weed. Do whatever comes naturally. 2. Switch the sheets on your beds while s/he is at class. 3. Twitch a lot. 4. Pretend to talk while pretending to be asleep. 5. Steal a fishtank. Fill it with beer and dump sardines in it. Talk to them. 6. Become a subgenius. 7. Inject his/her twinkies with a mixture of Dexatrim and MSG. 8. Learn to levitate. While your roommate is looking away, float up out of your seat. When s/he turns to look, fall back down and grin. 9. Speak in tongues. 10. Move you roommate's personal effects around. Start subtlely. Gradually work up to big things, and eventually glue everything s/he owns to the ceiling. 11. Walk and talk backwards. 12. Spend all your money on Jolt Cola. Drink it all. Stack the cans in the middle of your room. Number them. 13. Spend all your money on Transformers. Play with them at night. If your roommate says anything, tell him/her with a straight face, "They're more than meets the eye." 14. Recite entire movie scripts (e.g. "The Road Warrior," "Repo Man," Casablanca,") almost inaudibly. 15. Kill roaches with a monkey wrench while playing Wagnerian arias on a kazoo. If your roommate complains, explain that it is for your performance art class (or hit him/her with the wrench). 16. Collect all your urine in a small jug. 17. Chain yourself to your roommate's bed. Get him/her to bring you food. 18. Get a computer. Leave it on when you are not using it. Turn it off when you are. 19. Ask your roommate if your family can move in "just for a couple of weeks." 20. Buy as many back issues of Field and Stream as you can. Pretend to masturbate while reading them. 21. Fake a heart attack. When your roommate gets the paramedics to come, pretend nothing happened. 22. Eat glass. 23. Smoke ballpoint pens. 24. Smile. All the time. 25. Collect dog shit in baby food jars. Sort them according to what you think the dog ate. 26. Burn all your waste paper while eying your roommate suspiciously. 27. Hide a bunch of potato chips and Ho Hos in the bottom of a trash can. When you get hungry, root around in the trash. Find the food, and eat it. If your roommate empties the trash before you get hungry, demand that s/he reimburse you. 28. Leave a declaration of war on your roommate's desk. Include a list of grievances. 29. Paste boogers on the windows in occult patterns. 30. Shoot rubber bands at your roommate while his/her back is turned, and then look away quickly. 31. Dye all your underwear lime green. 32. Spill a lot of beer on his/her bed. Swim. 33. Buy three loaves of stale bread. Grow mold in the closet. 34. Hide your underwear and socks in your roommate's closet. Accuse him/her of stealing it. 35. Remove your door. Ship it to your roommate's parents (postage due). 36. Pray to Azazoth or Zoroaster. Sacrifice something nasty. 37. Whenever your roommate walks in, wait one minute and then stand up. Announce that you are going to take a shower. Do so. Keep this up for three weeks. 38. Array thirteen toothbrushes of different colors on your dresser. Refuse to discuss them. 39. Paint your half of the room black. Or paisley. 40. Whenever he/she is about to fall asleep, ask questions that start with "Didja ever wonder why...." Be creative. 41. Shave one eyebrow. 42. Put your mattress underneath your bed. Sleep down under there and pile your dirty clothes on the empty bedframe. If your roommate comments, mutter "Gotta save space," twenty times while twitching violently. 43. Put horseradish in your shoes. 44. Shelve all your books with the spines facing the wall. Complain loudly that you can never find the book that you want. 45. Always flush the toilet three times. 46. Subsist entirely on pickles for a week. Vomit often. 47. Buy a copy of Frankie Yankovic's "Pennsylvania Polka," and play it at least 6 hours a day. If your roommate complains, explain that it's an assignment for your primitive cultures class. 48. Give him/her an allowance. 49. Listen to radio static. 50. Open your window shades before you go to sleep each night. Close them as soon as you wake up. 50 MORE WAYS TO CONFUSE YOUR ROOMMATE 1. Buy a cat. Call it "clock" and whenever you see it, ask it the time, and thank it politely. 2. Become a Jehovah's witness. 3. Buy Pro-Nuclear propaganda, and stick it to the wall with shit. 4. Do a handstand on his bed, and shout obscenities at arbitrary Australians. 5. Complain about what the war is doing to the price of eggs. 6. Strap a McChicken sandwich to your wrist, and when your roommate asks you the time, say "I don't know, this is a McChicken sandwich". 7. Make voodoo models of him out of play-doh, then eat them. 8. Breath fire. 9. Vandalize the elevator when you're both in it and between floors. 10. Play sound effects records REALLY LOUD on his stereo. Dance like Pee-Wee Herman. 11. Choreograph cucumbers. Tell him that if they get any good, you'll put them on Public Access TV and mention his name. 12. Invent a language that consists entirely of different intonations of his name. Insist on speaking it in his presence, and write him notes in it. 13. Go to the local sewage works, and invite everyone over for a drink. Walk in saying, "Hey! These guys are great, we just HAVE to spend some time with them". 14. Secretly learn to forge his signature, then, when you get it just right, scrawl it all over his wall. 15. Watch documentaries guffawing loudly. Tape them and do it again later. 16. Grow a beak. 17. Tidy the whole place up over the weekend, and then tip everything you own onto the floor on Monday. Keep doing this. 18. Swear an oath that you will never eat anything that hasn't been through the food blender AND the microwave. Offer to cook every night. 19. Come home early one day and smear your face in blood. Crouch naked on his bed until he comes home, then jump out the window and climb down the drainpipe shouting "WOOF! WOOF! THE POPE'S A POOF!" 20. Sell crack to his little brother/sister/dog. 21. Run for office. On Mars. 22. Eat his record collection one night, then burp in his face. 23. Freeze dry all his clothes. 24. Give him a laughing gas enema in his sleep. 25. Pretend to be a metal detector, and go "BEEEP BEEEP" when cars go past. 26. Sleep in a coffin and eat virgins. 27. Nail a hamster to a plank in the middle of the room. Say you're trying to see if it's the new messiah. 28. Buy an exotic spider and put it in a plant pot. Go away for a few weeks and ask your roommate to water it every day. 29. Change your name to "4*atn(1)" and say to him "But you can call me pi." 30. Invite him to join the army with you. 31. Set yourself up as a modem carrier supply service. When your roomate picks up the phone, grab it off him and shout "EEEEEEEEEEEEEE" down it. 32. Smother him in baked beans, and tell him it's for charity. 33. Talk to people who aren't there. Then invite them over and don't talk to them. 34. Shout "NYAAAAAAAAAAH!" every time he opens his mouth. 35. Send him a letter. Put a return address on the back. 36. Set all the clocks in the room to Mongolian Standard Time. 37. Tell him he has cancer. Ask what type of funeral he'd like. 38. Buy a power drill and drill holes in EVERYTHING. Buy him some filler for his Birthday. 39. Sway from side to side whenever he enters the room. Ask him if he has any seasickness pills. 40. Write a poem in mirror writing on the sole of your shoe. Then wear it and jump on his favourite T-shirt. 41. Lie under his bed with a tea-cosy on your gead saying "croak, croak". 42. Scratch out brand names on everything in the fridge, and just write on them what type of product they are (i.e Dos Equis becomes "beer", "Budweiser" becomes "bottled urine"). Next day, write "Fridge" on the fridge door. Label everything by the end of the week. 43. Eat all his toothpaste and burp mintily while denying all knowledge. 44. Tell him the same joke every day. 45. Take a shower every time he says "dog". 46. Wear noting but a Groucho Marx mask and complain he never takes you seriously. Or out to dinner any more. 47. Stick pecils in your ears and hold conversations with him saying only "Speak up, for God's sake," and "What pencils?". 48. Open his mail, read it all out loud and then say "Oh, this must be for you". 49. Get T-shirts printed with "I hate " on them. Wear them all week. Offer him one. 50. Change all the lights in the room for strobe lamps. Then moonwalk backwards really slowly all the time. > >DAVE BARRY > > > > Many of you young persons out there are seriously thinking about > >going to college. (That is, of course, a lie. The only things you > >young persons think seriously about are loud music and sex. Trust > >me: these are closely related to college.) > > > > College is basically a bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly > >two thousand hours and try to memorize things. The two thousand > >hours are spread out over four years; you spend the rest of the time > >sleeping and trying to get dates. > > > > Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college: > > > > * Things you will need to know in later life (two hours). These > >include how to make collect telephone calls and get beer and > >crepe-paper stains out of your pajamas. > > > > * Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours). > >These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in -ology, > >- - -osophy, -istry, -ics, -ing,a a and so on. The idea is, you memorize these > >things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. > >If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to stay > >in college for the rest of your life. > > > > It's very difficult to forget everything. For example, when I was > >in college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of > >three metaphysical poets other than John Donne. I have managed to > >forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were > >named Vaughan and Crashaw. Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember > >something important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed > >in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in > >my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of > >brain cells. > > > > After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to > >choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and > >forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of > >advice: Be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts > >and Right Answers, and imaginary numbers. > > > > This means you must *not* major in mathematics, physics, biology, > >or chemistry, or any type of engineering be cause these subjects involve actual facts. If, foreexample, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class > >one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of > >the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result > >to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with *exactly* > >the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of > >chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen > >combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to > >come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have > >agreed on. Scientists are extremely snotty about this. If in engineering, although you have no idea how a diode in your computer works, you could be asked to find a current over the diode when the impedance of the circuit is 8.325 + j43,234 ohms and the temperature is over 300 degree celsius and at the same time find the reactive power and the real power of three phase circuit with capacitors and inductors. And if you don't understand what was just said, you're no engineer. > > So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, > >psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really > >understands what anybody else is talking about, and which innvolve > >virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these > >subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each: > > > > ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have > >read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to > >get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a > >book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, > >suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense > >would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters > >in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand > >times. So in *your* paper, *you* say Moby-Dick is actually the > >Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of > >reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are > >enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic > >interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English. > > > > PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and > >deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. > >You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs. > > > > PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. > >Psychologists are *obsessed* with rats and dreams, and want to be the next Freud. I I once spent an > >entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain > >sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat > >learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. > > > > If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, > >you should major in psychology. > > > > SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and > >away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of > >sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never > >once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because > >sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of > >their time translating simple, obvious observations into > >scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll > >have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have > >observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: > >"Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies > >of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists > >between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior > >forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will > >get a large government grant. What The Professor Really Means, by J. Timothy Petersik from the Chronicle of Higher Education You'll be using one of the leading I used it as a grad student. textbooks in the field. If you follow these few simple rules, If you don't need any sleep, you'll do fine in the course. you'll do fine in the course. The gist of what the author is saying I don't understand the details is what's most important. either Various authorities agree that... My hunch is that... The answer to your question is beyond I don't know. the scope of this class. You'll have to see me during my office I don't know. hours for a thorough answer to your question. In answer to your question, you must I really don't know. recognize that there are several disparate points of view. Today we are going to discuss a most Today we are going to discuss my important topic. dissertation. Unfortunately, we haven't the time to I disagree with what roughly half consider all of the people who made of the people in this field have contributions to this field. said. We can continue this discussion outside 1. I'm tired of this - let's of class. quit. 2. You're winning the argument - let's quit Today we'll let a member of the class I stayed out too late last lead the discussion. It will be a good night and didn't have time to educational experience. prepare a lecture. Any questions? I'm ready to let you go. The implications of this study are I don't know what it means either, clear. but there'll be a question about it on the test. The test will be 50-questions The test will be 60-questions multiple choice. multiple guess, plus three short-answer questions (1000 words or more, and no one will score above 55 per cent. The test scores were generally good. Some of you managed a C+. The test scores were a little below Where was the party last night? my expectations. Some of you could have done better. Everyone flunked. Before we begin the lecture for Has anyone opened the book yet? today, are there any questions about previous material? According to my sources... According to the guy who taught this class last year... It's been very rewarding to teach I hope they find someone else to this class. teach it next year. FINAL EXAMINATION Instructions: Read each question carefully. Answer all questions. Time Limit: 4 hours. Begin immediately. 1) H I S T O R Y Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. 2) M E D I C I N E You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have 15 minutes. 3) P U B L I C S P E A K I N G Twenty-five hundred riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek. 4) B I O L O G Y Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis. 5) M U S I C Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat. 6) P S Y C H O L O G Y Based on your degree of knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisia, Rameses II, Gregory of Nicea. Support your evaluations with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate. 7) S O C I O L O G Y Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory. 8) M A N A G E M E N T S C I E N C E Define management. Define science. How do they relate? Why? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions. Assuming an 1130 CPU supporting 50 terminals, each terminal to activate your algorithm; design the communications interface and all necessary control programs. 9) E N G I N E E R I N G The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel is appropriate. Be prepared to justify your decision. 10) E C O N O M I C S Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas: Cubism, the Donatist controversy, the wave theory of light. Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question. 11) P O L I T I C A L S C I E N C E There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any. 12) E P I S T E M O L O G Y Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of position. 13) P H Y S I C S Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science. 14) P H I L O S O P H Y Sketch the development of human thought; estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought. 15) G E N E R A L K N O W L E D G E Describe in detail. Be objective and specific. * * E X T R A C R E D I T * * Define the universe; give three examples. - TOP 25 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 25. In high school, you do homework. In college, you study. 24. No food is allowed in the hall in high school. In college, food must be provided at an event before students will come. 23. In high school, you wear your backpack on one shoulder; in college, on both. 22. In college, the professors can tell you the answer without looking at the teacher's guide. 21. In college, there are no tardy slips. 20. In high school, you have to live with your parents. In college, you get to live with your friends. 19. In college, you don't have to wait in a certain lunch line to be cool. 18. Only nerds e-mailed in high school. (Cool kids hadn't heard of it.) 17. In high school, you're told what classes to take. In college, you get to choose; that is, as long as the classes don't conflict and you have the prerequisites and the classes aren't closed and you've paid your tuition. 16. In high school, if you screw up you can usually sweet-talk your way out of it. In college, you're lucky to ever talk with the professor. 15. In high school, fire drills are planned by the administration; in college, by the drunk frat boys on their way home when the bars close. 14. In college, any test consists of a larger percentage of your grade than your high school final exams ever did. 13. In high school, when the teacher said, "Good morning," you mumbled back. In college, when the professor says, "Good morning," you write it down. 12. In high school, freshman guys hit on senior girls. In college, senior guys hit on freshman girls. 11. In college, weekends start on Thursday. 10. In college, it's much more difficult to figure out the course schedule of the man/woman you have a crush on, in order to figure out where he/she will be walking around campus and at what time to find them there. 9. Once you've obtained the information described in #10, it's much more time-consuming to run between classes to that place where you know he/she will be in order to "just happen to bump into him/her." 8. In college, there's no one to tell you not to eat pizza three meals a day. 7. In college, your dad doesn't pay for dates. 6. In high school, it never took 3 or 4 weeks to get money from Mom and Dad. 5. College men are cuter than high school boys. 4. College women are legal. 3. In college, when you miss a class (or two or three), you don't need a note from your parents saying you were skip....uh, sick that day. 2. In high school, you can't go out to lunch because it's not allowed. In college, you can't go out to lunch because you can't afford it. 1. In college, you can blow off studying by writing lists like this.