What made you smile today?

Wow!!!

Somehow I got on the Scott Brown campaign email list. But, Hotmail didn't like the looks of his email to me, so I got the following message:

Been sick. (Cold/ bronchitis crap.) (I don't know how dlowan managed to give it to me over the computer....) Sozlet and E.G. went shopping for me (chik noodle soup etc.) and then afterwards sozlet disappeared for a while and came back with a wrapped package, and a home-made card. Unwrapped it and it was the GOOD kind of Kleenex, with lotion! (It's the kind she always asks for when she's sick.)

Nice!

Feel better soon.

Thanks JPB!

Yesterday I was a wreck but I seem more human today so hopefully over the worst of it.

My anticipation of how the birther idiots and donald trump have and will react to the producing of Obama's birth certificate. I can't wait for the Daily Show tonight.

In a Yahoo Group I belong to, someone posted this:
This year is special. If you add the last 2 digits of your birth year with the
age you turned, or will turn, on your birthday in 2011 it will equal 111.
Another member (who is a math -- or maths as he says it -- teacher Down
Under) pointed out that this only works if the birth date is 1900-1999.

The next day, one of my co-workers comes into my cube and says, "Hey,
this is cool," and tells me about the 111 trick.

"Give me an age and year," he asked.

"Does it have to be me?"

"No. It can be anyone."

"OK. My nephew Bob. He ust turned 10 and was born in 2001."

"So, now we add . . . HEY!"

Hehehehehehehheheheheheh.

And, no, I don't have a ten-year-old nephew.

I was working with on personification my 6th grade students. I told them to look up the definition and rewrite it in their own words. One student wrote "To give inanimate objects bipedal qualities." (He's a sci fi buff with Aspergers).

Me: Mmm, not really. Look at the word "Personification" what word does it start with?

Him: Well....

Me: Person. This is about comparing things to humans.

He crosses out sentient beings and writes "creatures".

Me: Noo...oooo. The word would then have to be creaturification.

He: What's so special about us humans?!?

Me: It has nothing to do with us being special, the word is PERSONification.

He crosses out creatures and writes "sentient beings".

Me: <sigh> The word would then have to be "sentientbeingification".

I can't recall how many times he tried something besides "human" or "person" before he acquiesced. He did not find this funny at all. I however have been chuckling about it for hours.

Like anthropomorphizing? We give cats, dogs, lawyers, and boats human properties.

Sorry Tico. It just slipped out.

"To give inanimate objects bipedal qualities."

I LOVE that!

Having a big hug with my hubby after surviving another long hard day at work together.

Nice. Thanks for sharing. You just gave me my first smile of the day.

I must say I agree with him!!!

Yesterday we were doing some math and one of the students kept trying to talk about everything but maths and one of the other students said, 'Let's get back to the subject at hand, we're diversing here,' and I said, 'Diversing? What's diversing?' and he said, 'We're getting off subject, talking about other things,' and I said, 'Oh, you mean digressing.' To which he replied, 'Oh, is that what we were doing? I thought we were diversing.'

It's just a merge of diverting and digressing.

Happy dyslexics do that..

Yes - he is a happy dyslexic...and he makes me smile all the time. He is intent on improving his spelling so he was looking at a list of one hundred of the most commonly misspelled words and copying them and using each word in a sentence.
He's an extremely self-directed guy, and as he says, he has all the time in the world and nothing better to do with it - so he sets himself these little tasks.

Well, one of the words was 'acquainted' and the sentence he wrote was as follows:

'I would like to become better acquainted with God, but he doesn't visit my cell very often.'

I love reading his stuff. It always makes me laugh.

He sounds delightful!

If he's a SiFi buff, do you think an example of a nonhuman person might have helped? Galactica's Cylons, or Star Trek TNG's Data come to mind. On reflection, I actually find myself on your student's side. In philosophy, the concept of personhood only requires reason and self-awareness. Being a specimen of homo sapiens is optional.

'Delightful' is exactly the right word to describe him. He's one of the most delightful people I've ever met - inside or outside of a prison.

I guess it comes down to semantics as usual!