NAKED FRISBEE TIME!

kortez, that's hilarious... But all true, I'm afraid.

No one over here is wearing clothes. And they all carry those funny, heavy round things with them all the time. It's a weird place, I tell you.

My mother loves to share with me little gems from her students' papers. They're simultaneously hilarious and depressing. Either kids don't give a shit anymore, or their IQs are dropping at an alarming rate...

For the record, I'm big into nudity, but not so much with the heavy frisbee throwing. And I think this artwork states "If I turn like this, can you count all my ribs?"

Or maybe it's just a pro-rib statement. Or maybe we're supposed to look for his missing rib, you know, since it was in ancient times that Eve was made, and this statue looks pretty old.

Did you read the ask.me on tips for dealing with stacks of student papers to grade? Inspirational (and I don't even teach). Too bad I can't find it.

Bowling with pancakes?

The Greeks didn't have to worry about the cold? Perhaps they only got nekkid in order to play.

Sheep can hear a zipper at 100m.

Thank you, taz; they'll be pleased to know they were right. And, before I grade any more papers, could you confirm that the ancient Greeks' greatest contribution to mankind is, in fact, the toga? Thank you in advance.

And thanks for the tip, safetyfork. I'm going to look for that on AskMe...I need some inspiration.

Naked Frisbee...I'll use that in class tomorrow. They'll get a kick out of that.

Sorry kortez - the toga party was actually the greatest contribution of ancient Rome. Now, it's very easy to get the Romans and the Greeks mixed up, but you can remember it this way: "He who smelt it, dealt it", and that would be the Etruscans.

Thank you for the mnemonic, taz. I'll work that in before the final exam. Any tips for getting them to grasp some of the more heady material, like humanism, idealism and, godhelpme, Plato's Allegory of the Cave? They did okay with Oedipus, but they dig sex and death.

Yes, that is heady, heady stuff, by which, of course, I mean "totally sweet".

Well, let's see: First of all, Plato is way before their time; "Diff'rent Strokes" was an '80s thing, plus Plato ended up dying of an overdose, which is just depressing. So just go ahead and throw that one out.

As for Humanism... well, there isn't really that much money in it. The days of famous humanists like James Thurber and Benny Hill are long gone. Today, unless you're one of the few lucky enough to land a sitcom, you will find yourself doing standup, and that's neither cool nor lucrative... So who wants to be a humanist? Toss that one, too.

Which leaves you free to concentrate on "Idealism"; a piece of cake! We are literally surrounded by examples of idealism: the ideal female body size is tall and thin; the ideal vehicle is an SUV, with a Porsche for weekends; and the ideal job is in management, because it pays more with fewer hours and less studying than medicine or law. We can see examples of idealism in Hollywood films, popular television shows and respected glossy magazines.

You're lucky that this area of academic study is really rich in audiovisual support; in fact, you could pretty much load up everything you need from Blockbuster Video and call it day.

Hope this helps!

Ha! It does help, and thank you for indulging me. I needed that.

(And if you want a job, let me know--you seem pretty well qualified.)