Tag: Students

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Fill In The Blank

Prologue

The Prompt: Fill in the Blank – Three men walk into a bar…

They all say “ouch”. Honestly, you think the second and especially the third guy would see what happened and avoid the collision. Must be that they aren’t all that bright or dexterous. But, seriously folks, how about that weather? I know that spring often takes her time here in New England, but this is ridiculous. I took two classes outside one yesterday and one today. Both days they complained about the cold.

This may or may not be a selfie from one of those outside classes.

It seemed like it got warmer today as the day went on. I never tested that theory by taking any other classes outside. Sorry, guys. To be honest, I never considered going outside again. I forgot to mention that both of my work computers broke over the last week. So, I couldn’t cast anything during class. Also, I cancelled my remote class again. No laptop means no camera means no class. So, I spent most of the day obsessing about the fact that I had no technology in a time when technology is essential in the classroom.

The Set Up

The Prompt: Fill in the Blank – Three men walk into a bar…

I refuse to finish this joke that usually masquerades as a bigoted comment against race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Okay, Snowflake, you’re so smart and funny. Why don’t you reclaim the joke then? Sure, I could rewrite the joke so that it contains none of that, but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. Besides, I’m not that good of a joke writer. If anyone else wants to try, be my guest.

Note: I got distracted yesterday. I think I mentioned that some students found out that I wrote the two books. Well, I let it slip during class one day. They found the novel online and started reading it. Since I’m more proud of the short stories than the novel, I brought in my proof copy for them to read. The student that I allowed to read the stories first came to me yesterday to tell me how much she enjoyed the first story. Consequently, I wanted to read them again to see if they held up. And, so, I never finished this entry last night.

Sorry about that. There’s bound to be growing pains. And you know once summer hits, I’ll be updating on a daily basis. So, just wait a few weeks and this page will become a vibrant and valuable member of the 2 Guys Gaming network. If only I could say the same about that main page.

The Adventure

As you see, I took a break from visiting bodies of water around the Jaffrey/Rindge area and instead chose to hike a trail. I pass this one during my commute, though, so I’m still only exploring more or less familiar haunts. Give me time. I went to watch a couple of innings of the softball and baseball games at a nearby school and I saw some other possible adventures in the neighboring towns. As always, stay tuned.

This particular stretch of hike only took about 45 minutes total there and back. I passed the Market Basket in town and also saw some signs leading to restaurants and gas stations. The local snow mobile association helps to maintain the trails, so that makes sense. Also, I thought the trail wasn’t particularly scenic. More utilitarian. Even so, I enjoyed the time outside and want to explore the trail further when I have time. As we say, stay tuned.

The Journal

Fill in the Blank: Three men walk into a bar…

After another day, I’m no closer to coming up with a punchline for this other than the sarcastic one and, some would say, the “cancel culture” one. But, honestly, screw off if you seriously stopped reading after that comment. I don’t need you in my life. Didn’t Jay-Z teach you anything? Always punch up. Especially in comedy. That’s why all of these conservative “comedy” shows always fail. They’re constantly punching down.

With all of that being said, I can laugh at myself. One of my students cultivated an image around an ultra conservative. I’m not sure how accurate it is or if it is just mostly for the LULz, but I treat it like the latter. This student mimicked the sticker on Woody Guthrie’s guitar, but his reads, “This machine kills socialists.” Another student, perhaps aware of my socialist bent, tried to save me, but I got a laugh out of it. Sure, it’s derivative. Of course, it’s offensive. It’s also funny as hell in context. Maybe I should pick this student’s brain for a new punchline.

Epilogue

Well, the kids discovered that I’m posting on Instagram again. I’m not sure if it translates to them coming to the page yet. If so, they’ll pretty easily be able to figure out who I’m referring to in each of my posts. I hope they understand that it’s all in good fun and I mean everything as a compliment and not an insult. Even so, I also understand that not everyone is comfortable being referred to online. So, if you find anything here that offends, let me know and I’ll be sure to change it.

But first, I need you to fill in the blank…Three guys walk into a bar

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Morphing Candle ?

Prologue

Mighty Morphing Power Rangers? Forgive me for my dated reference. However, one might argue that Power Rangers are timeless. Honestly, though, the only reason I used them was I couldn’t think of another morphing reference. Butterflies? I suppose. I feel like they are even more trite than Power Rangers. It’s the literary equivalent of getting a Chinese symbol that doesn’t translate to what you think.

I think these are literally the characters for “chicken” “noodle” and “soup” from my rudimentary research.

What are we actually morphing? Prompt: Language evolves. The meaning of a word can shift over time as we use it differently — think of “cool,” “heavy,” or even “literally.” Today, give a word an evolutionary push: give a common word a new meaning, explain it to us, and
use it in the title of your post.

This makes me two things. One, the morphing of “literally” makes me angry. We already have a word for what literally morphed into. I suppose, now that I think about it, that it’s kind of cool that we created a contranym out of literally. Still, I’m going to stay mad about it. The other thing is, “Stop trying to make fetch happen.” But, this is the prompt, so let’s try to make “fetch” happen.

The Adventure

The featured image depicts one of the lakes/ponds that I notice during my morning and afternoon commute. As of this writing, I’ve passed it almost 200 times. During the winter, I see huts dragged onto the ice for ice fishing. Though I finally got out on the ice again a couple of times this year, I haven’t fished this body of water. Even today, after wandering along a trail that followed the shore, I went back to the car to grab my rods. This is the part of the story where I say I forgot my rods, right? Wrong! The rods are in the trunk. However, I neglected to put my tackle box in there. So, still no fishing here. Another day, perhaps.

Instead, I stood on the shore and watched a bird of prey (perhaps a hawk) circle above. A momma and poppa couple of geese herded their four goslings across the water. I caught two Pokemon in Pokemon Go (A Karrablast and a Tangela). Overall, while not necessarily an “adventure”, I will be back either to fish or kayak or both. Stay tuned for actual adventures from this lake/pond.

The brief interlude, in spite of the lack of “adventure”, was much needed. It wasn’t a bad day. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, it was a pretty good day. During our lunch time (some students hang out in my room during lunch block each day), a student asked, “How’s everyone’s mental health” or something along those lines. I can confidently say that mine is pretty good right now. I’m in a good place. It has been a long and weird year, but a select group of students has helped to keep me grounded and finding what I love about teaching again. I try to tell them as often as possible what they’ve done, but I know I’m not thanking them nearly enough. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly be able to repay them for what they’ve done for me this year. If you find this, simply thank you.

The Journal

In spite of the good day and overall good state of mind, I needed the time to decompress. Teaching took a lot out of me today. The students were energetic, which is great, but they weren’t focused on school work, so it took a lot of energy to refocus them and keep them focused. I hope my exhaustion wasn’t read as anything negative.

Back to the task at hand. While I enjoyed my time wandering around the shoreline, I got no inspiration for a word to morph. Instead, I drove home and worked out while watching Last Chance U. Neither of those activities brought me much inspiration either. So it is that I ended up at Random Word Generator, pressing the button a few times until it landed on “candle”. I passed on a few like “risk”, “propaganda”, and “breathe”.

Why candle? Honestly, it comes from World of Warcraft and the kobold saying, “You no take candle!” So, I thought I might be able to come up with some sort of alternate definition using that connection. So far, nothing comes to mind. Hey, I genuinely tried with this one. Honestly, though, how the hell am I supposed to answer this one? If anyone comes across this post and has an answer, by all means, give me an idea.

Epilogue

Yesterday, I wrote about success and failure. Today I, once again, failed. But, I honestly tried. Given the weirdness of this particular prompt, I actually succeeded far better than expected. Even so, perhaps the topic of morphing is still relevant. Over the last two years, I morphed in several ways. I started working out and walking and got into better shape. I faced some of the tragedy of my past and came out stronger for it. A few times, I told people at work that they’d not recognize the me from 2 years ago. While I still have some ways to go (and that can be said about just about anyone), I am in much better place than I was. So, hey, I successfully morphed the word “Shawn” and that’s more important than any stupid candle.

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