Style note: cigarette cases
 

Did DS do that thing that amoebas do when they become two? It's double the Claven.

Style note: cigarette cases
 

You do me great honor, ma'am.

Your affleck update
 

Yay! Less of Ben.

Sept. 30 — Will Ben Affleck’s spy character get shot down? The hunky actor has replaced Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan in the flicks based on Tom Clancy thrillers, but the word is that he may be on his way out. PARAMOUNT IS SAID to be in the early stages of making the next flick in the series, and the buzz in the film biz is that the moviemakers are “seriously reconsidering” casting Affleck in the role.
“It’s not been a good year for him,” says one source. “His star has fallen considerably since ‘Sum of All Fears’ — and ‘Gigli’ — needless to say — did not help.”
Paramount denies the story, insisting that they’re not looking to replace Affleck. When asked if he would definitely star in the next Jack Ryan film, however, a Paramount spokeswoman said she wasn’t sure.
http://a799.g.akamai.net/3/799/388/f...ws/2027312.jpg

Cue the cheesey music!
 

One of my best friends had a higher BAC for his DUI than his GPA that semester.

He would also go to class only on exam days (usually three a semester), get one of the best scores in the class* on the exam, and receive a final grade of D from the teacher for lack of participation.

*graduate level finance courses

Cue the cheesey music!
 

It was kind of this way for me the first 7 1/2 years.

Cue the cheesey music!
 

double blind testing took away the whole participation problem, but you do have to show for the tests. my act almost crashed last term. I missed a test completely, no make up possible. I needed to get a 3. on this project (diff one) to pass the class. he didn't grade them on time, and the day before graduation I had to tell my proud 'rents, I maybe wasn't graduating. believe me, that kind of thing can take the luster off the graduation dinner.

Cue the cheesey music!
 

I have a bunch of friends that got their Ph.Ds and are junior professors who get stuck with the intro classes, and their stories are pretty funny. Papers that are taken straight from the internet. Kids who "forget" that there are exams or quizes. Kids who complain that stuff that was talked about in class but not part of the reading was on the exam. People who were never seen in class before who show up for the exams. All sorts of ridiculous pleas for extensions or extra credit or whatever.

One of my friends has been plugging random phrases from papers into google to see what comes up. Half the time she finds an identical paper. She's taken to terrorizing her students at the beginning of the semester by telling them that she knows more low down dirty tricks than they do (she teaches classes on new media) and can find pretty much anything on the web.

So this is a nice poll question: What's the best trick you pulled in college / grad school / law school? Me, I told a professor (truthfully) that I couldn't turn in a paper because a bomb had gone off in Istanbul.

Nostalgia
 

Ohmigod, that totally reminds me of the time I skipped an advanced language class for like 6 weeks, and then finally went to the prof. and acted all contrite and then got a little weepy (sincerely, it wasn't an act, because I hate to be chastised by purported authority figures), and she gave me this very stern lecture that she just couldn't imagine how I could get higher than a C- in the course because I couldn't possibly catch up, and then I got a B+.

Good times!

Cue the cheesey music!
 

My school took pity on me, or maybe they just didn't want to have to put up with me for any longer, so they sort of pushed me through.

I almost never went to class, I showed up for exams but I hadn't prepared at all. I got every grade you can possibly get.

When I got my first report card, which contained both an A and an F, I thought my parents were going to kill me. Fortunately, or unfortunately, since I was paying for my own education and living on my own by then, there wasn't much they could do but yell a lot.

I made sure they didn't get any report cards after that. I also didn't get any more Fs.


I don't have any good excuse stories, I never asked for extensions or anything. The funny (as in peculiar) thing is that my habits weren't all that different in law school. Never mind studying for the bar exam.

I did have a student in law school who all but plagiarized and I did find it on google. I also scared the shit out of him, poor boy was practically in tears. Somehow I doubt he will ever do it again. He was damn lucky I'm nice.

Nostalgia
 

Oopsie.

Cue the cheesey music!
 

I failed micro economics twice in undergrad. I finally passed it at community college over a summer term.

Several years later, while getting my MBA, I was terrified at the prospect of having to take micro economics again. To my surprise, it was quite easy. What's up with that?

I guess school's a lot easier if you actually go to class....

Cue the cheesey music!
 

My freshman year roommate had a photographic memory. We had the same class second semester, but I had it in the evening. So he took the exams in the afternoon, and I took them later on. They were usually 50 question exams. He would get back to the dorm and repeat, in order and verbatim, each question asked on the exam. He would possibly forget one or two questions. I got an A obviously, but only b/c the Prof was an idiot* for not changing the exams.

*oh right, and b/c I cheated.

Cue the cheesey music!
 

It got easier because you already understood the concepts by then.

Personally, I find sitting in a classroom listening to someone drone on at me about whatever about as physically painful as I imagine the 9th circle of hell to be. I can't stand it. The reason I spoke in class in law school was because I was so fucking bored I thought I was going to die.

I think that is why when I do teach I do everything I can to make it interesting, which includes showing clips from TV shows and movies and whatever else.

When I lecture at CLE programs I throw candy at people when they ask questions, tell jokes, heck I would stand on my head if I thought it would make it more interesting.

Cue the cheesey music!
 

Funny how that works. I had a semester that I forgot to show up to. Fifteen hours of 0.00. Didn't really seem to hurt me in the long run, and it was a fun semester.

Cue the cheesey music!
 

Not really a dirty trick, but I spent the week after spring break of my freshman year (which happened to be midterms week) in the hospital. Didn't have to make up a couple of the tests (guess teachers felt bad or were too lazy to make up make-up exams). One of those classes was an art history class and the prof had given a crazy hard midterm. I got to use the much easier final exam as my entire grade, thus angering my roommate whose grade was lowered by at least a letter grade by the freakishly hard midterm.

I also got out of the final for calculus when I was taking it the summer before college at the local u because my dad died. Also not much of a dirty trick, but it did keep me from having to learn integrals. I had aced derivatives, so I got an A. Never understood integrals though. Probably cut my math career short.