Dan's Mass E-Mail
After the TA bitch (Instalments 8-14)
One year ago a TA who looked like Leon Trotsky would have been enough to entertain me but after experience the wrath of Erin the horrible in the first semester, even Leon seems kinda boring. So, as a result, I've actually had to find other things to talk about in my mass e-mail. Nevertheless, these e-mails are still probably more interesting than Bio (of course, listening to Nizar speak about how Tess of the d'Urbervilles shows Machievelian traits is probably more interesting than...)
Instalment 8: January 9th, 2001
Merry Christmas, happy New Year, joyous Kwanzaa and a very merry Festivus to each and every one of you. After a long month of mass e-mail withdrawal symptoms the wildest, funniest, craziest, and most entertaining mass e-mail returns tonight! So sit back, grab a bag of Doritos and get ready for instalment 8 of Dan's mass e-mail.
Reading over some of my previous mass e-mails, I've come to the conclusion, that this e-mail slowly transformed from an update of my daily life to pure nonsensical TA bashing. Regardless of whether you consider this a good thing or not (and I consider it a good thing), with the she-demon crawling back to the open crevice from whence she came and no longer TA-ing my Bio labs, I'll have to find some other things to keep people entertained (a difficult task unless I resort to inserting small pornographic pictures into this e-mail or pictures of shinny objects). In addition, Anthropology has ended for me which means no more movies of my Anthro proff in a speedo during class or delightful stories of monkeys defecating on him. However, in all seriousness, although I now know WAY too much about monkey genitalia (in my opinion, anything you know about monkey genitalia is WAY too much on the subject. It's one of those things like, say, Jean Chretien's sex life, where the less you know, the better), the course is still interesting and Brian Keating (the crazy monkey proff) is a great teacher so anyone who has an urge to drop, oh I don't know...Bio, should consider adding this class to their schedule.
OK, so enough about the past, it's time to move on the future and semester number two at the University of Calgary. I've been dropping and adding classes at a faster rate than the evil bitch TA devours raw fish heads over the past week so it's still too early to tell all of you about some of my wonderful classes since I may not even be in them by week's end but rest assured, I have signed up for Biology and to keep the tradition going, I had had my first lab of the new semester today. Now, I'm sure some of you are asking yourselves "Why would this moron sign up for Biology after all he suffered through last semester?". The answer to this is simple. Giving up on the class would be conceding defeat and I am not one to concede defeat as most of you obviously know. I can just picture she who cannot be named sitting in her lair deep bellow the earth's surface looking at the schedule of all her former students and laughing an evil laugh at every one of them who she has driven out of Biology. However, when she gets to my name, she will see that I could not be driven from Biology despite all of her best efforts and a little part of her will die inside because of this. While this scenario may sound like the ravings of a lunatic on LSD to many of you, I firmly believe this will happen. (And if this makes some of you consider me a madman, well then fine, but I ask you this: would a madman send out weekly updates on one of his TA's to everyone he knows? Umm...very mind.)
Anyways, back to my Bio lab I had today. Going in to the lab, I was, as you might imagine, petrified with fear that I would get the she-demon or someone of similar character. However, I am pleased to report that my TA is a very cool guy who is very...what's the word I'm looking for here.... "un-satanic". And to the best of my knowledge he is not in command of an army of flying monkeys (I could be wrong. I thought Nixon was a nice guy the first time I met him too). He's a very laid back TA and he strikes me as the sort wouldn't blink an eye if I cracked a giant container of E. Coli open on the lab counter, thereby infecting 24 students and setting him and the U of C up for a major lawsuit. While this makes for a great TA, it makes for a boring mass e-mail so hopefully some of my teachers and TAs who I haven't met yet will prove to be interesting folk.
While I do have one or two interesting stories about my Christmas vacation and final exams I'd like to share with you, I fear I'll have a hard time finding something to write about next week since I'll have to replace the 80 or 90% of this e-mail which is based on Bio TA stories with something so we'll save those stories for next week kiddies. Let's just say I had a great vacation and I hope everyone else did as well. So until next week, remember, fruitcake makes a great weapon and lay of the E. Coli.
Cheers,
Dan
P.S. Those of you who haven't received this e-mail before are probably wondering what one earth I'm talking about (actually, I'm sure that descriptions sums up everyone on this list). To see how the Bio TA bashing began, check out: "https://ibguide.tripod.com/email.html"
Instalment 9: January 16th, 2001
Get ready to be rocked, socked and droped...yes, that's right...it's another fun filled edition of Dan's mass e-mail.
It may seem odd that I haven't got around to telling people exam and vacation stories yet but just be grateful that I'm not as bad as certain TV shows who announces characters to be pregnant and then don't say anything about it for the next 7 months. Speaking of which, I have the official odds as to who the father of Scully's child is:
1-9: Alien insemination or something to do with aliens
3-1: Mulder
6-1: Skinner
9-1: Bill Clinton (c'mon, who hasn't he knocked up?)
Anyways, back to business. Exams were uneventful for the most part except for Bio which was, of course, a living nightmare. By the time I got to question 40 (our of 100) all these bio terms were mixing in my mind and questions were answered using the "which letter haven't I picked as an answer in a while?" formula. To make matters worse, the queen of the harpies was up at the front of the room and I'm sure she was using some sort of mind destruction technique on me during the exam. Oh well, I passed the thing so I shouldn't complain (not that that's stopped me from complaining before).
Also, over vacation, I was watching TV (I'm tempted to end this paragraph right here and see what kind of reaction I get but I guess I'll continue on) and as I was flipping channels, I came across one of those news blurbs. You know, the ones like "Biology teaching assistant's corpse found overrun with E. Coli. Story at 11". Now, before I tell you what it said, I must say that I swear I am not making any of this up and if I am, may I be sentenced to an eternal Bio lab. Here's the exact word for word account of their blurb:
"It sounds like science fiction, but some scientists are injecting harmful bacteria into people's muscles to alleviate back pain. The only problem is , that if it's administered incorrectly, it could wipe out the entire human race. Back to you, John!"
The elimination of the entire human race is the only problem? Well if that's the ONLY problem, then by all means go ahead and start prescribing it like Ritalin. I'm just glad there aren't any OTHER problems associated with this since it would be terrible if it caused skin rash or something as unpleasant as that. I'm so paranoid about side effects, I'd never consider buying a cold medicine which might "harm by unborn phetus", never mind injecting poisonous bacteria into my back which could end up killing off the entire human race.
Unfortunately, I forgot which channel this was on and I flipped through all the news shows and couldn't find anything about it. One channel did have a nice leading story about a man's pets getting "savagely murdered" by a wild dog or something (you know you're in redneck country when...) but, alas, no news on this wonderful back pain cure.
And speaking of things as likely as the destruction of life on this planet, I'd just like to share my disbelief that a little team from Kingston is winning the hockey pool. There are few things I never expect to see in my lifetime: Man walking on Mars, Jamaica winning Olympic hockey gold, Bill Clinton becoming a priest, Marilyn Manson winning the Nobel Prize and at the top of this list is Matthew Fong leading, albeit if only for a week or two, in a sports pool. While I'm sure my team will end up triumphant in the end, it really makes you think (or not)...
I guess this sums things up for this week. Notice how I only referred to Erin the terrible once during this e-mail. While some say cocaine is the toughest addiction to break, TA bashing is a very close second in my books. Oh well, until next week, lay off the E. Coli and read the warning labels before you inject lethal bacteria into your muscles.
Cheers,
Dan
P.S. Anyone interested in reading the infamous "Happy Stories" can now do so at: "https://ibguide.tripod.com/happy/happy.html". Those of you who have copies of some of them, can send lend them back to me so I can scan them in and add them to the collection. Thanx.
Instalment 10: January 23rd, 2001
Wow, 10 mass e-mails already. Why, I can remember just last week when there had only been 9. Well, without a lame entrance, let's get right to instalment 10 of Dan's mass e-mail.
Now, as most of you know, there are few things I hate more than my Bio TA. Perhaps losing to Matt or that guy from the old Barks has bite commercials (What do you mean Barks has bite? Johnny? What do you mean...JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!!!), but that's about it with one glaring exception. And that one glaring exception is Calgary Transit. The sheer incompetence displayed by Calgary Transit rivals that of Los Angeles Dodgers management or George W. Bush but, nevertheless, I am forced to rot on the C-Train twice a day, in a ride which is only interesting at midnight when drunks come up to you and start up conversations (that or they just urinate on themselves).
So, anyways, Calgary transit is currently operating under a work-to-rule campaign. Some of you may remember the work to rule campaign Alberta teachers operated in grade 10 which cost us such valuable programs as the Chess Club (fuck man!). The official word on this work to rule campaign is that "drivers may not be overly courteous to passengers and you might notice delays in service". Excuse me? Anyone who has ever taken Calgary transit will agree with me that all they'd have to add to that sentence would be "and trains might stop for 15 minutes at a time for no apparent reason" and it would perfectly describe transit during times when work-to-rule campaigns are NOT being run.
And while we're on the topic of transit, what is the deal with this U of C referendum on a universal transit pass? To fill in those of you in who don't know about this (or in the case of those of you who don't go to U of C: don't care about this), there is going to be a vote sometime soon on whether to force students to buy a mandatory transit pass or not. To me, this is one of the few problems with Democracy (problem number 1: George W. Bush in power. Say it with me: "subliminible"). Since this pass will save transit users 266$ a year, all of us cool transit kids will vote in favour of it. Everyone who is lucky enough to drive to school will vote against it since it will cost them 110$ a year. No one will be voting on the merits of this pass (I know I won't) so it will just be a matter of the majority dominating the minority. This makes about as much sense to me as holding a vote on whether or not Engineering students should be chained up and poked with sticks once a week. All Engineers will vote against it and everyone who hates Engineers (everyone else), will vote in favour of it. Of course, only 7% of students will even vote anyways so I doubt it really makes much of difference one way or the other.
Well now that transit has been beaten to death, let's move on to Biology. I was greatly saddened to learn that the TA bitch from hell still has a job at this university and she's even teaching an 8:00 am lab this semester for Bio 233 (class I'm in now). I can just imagine the fun of getting up on Wednesday mornings at 6 in the morning, riding the train in to school, and then sitting through a 3 hour Bio lab with the Queen of the Harpies. *Shudder*. I know the guy I have now isn't perfect...in fact he looks a lot like Leon Trotsky which I find to be a major drawback, but compared to what I had to put up with before, I feel like bowing down to him before every class. Of course, this would sort of be like bowing down to Trotsky and, disons, let's just say that that's about as high up on my priority list as having lunch with Dilworth or eating a 5 course meal during class. (Apologies to all non-Western students who will not get any of this)
Well, that's about all for this week. 5 more days until Super Bowl Survivor! Enquiring minds wonder if forcing 16 people to take a C-Train ride back and forth to Erin the Terrible's Bio lab would make for a more gruelling challenge. Until next week, lay off the E. Coli and remember to vote on the "poking all Engineers" proposition.
Dan
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Forward this to at least 10 people and your wish will come true. I was skeptical of this at first, but believe me, it really works. My friend didn't forward it to 10 people when he got it and now he's in a Bio lab with the She-Demon. My other friend, who didn't forward it, spontaneously came down with cancer, tuberculosis, small pox (even though the desease has been officially wiped out), glycoma, osteoperosis and syphylis within minutes of not forwarding it to 10 people. It may seem amazing, but trust me, clicking on the "forward" button on your computer screen will actually give you good luck even though this theory sounds so stupid even George W. Bush wouldn't fall for it. But, trust me, it works!!! Now make a wish!!!
Sorry about that but I've been getting a bunch of those chain letter things lately. Some of the stuff in those letters is worth a read but the whole "forward it or your cat will die" warnings just make them lose all credibility. I now return you to your regular scheduled e-mail.
Instalment 11: January 30th, 2001
Now, I'm sure you're all asking yourselves what it takes to write a mass e-mail. You're probably wondering if any ignoramus with an IQ over 60 could vomit up a better mass e-mail than Dan's mass e-mail. Well, to answer your question: yes. As a matter of fact, it takes neither brains nor wit to write a mass e-mail; only an evil TA and lots of insults. So, as a special treat, I present "how to write a mass e-mail.". (Alright, you're on to me. Nothing interesting happens now that I have Leon as my TA instead of the she-demon.)
Part 1: Introductory paragraph (I've written things which must be included in capital letters, comments and suggestions in brackets)
(Start with enthusiastic yet very nonsensical greeting. Ex: Alrighty then, strap your seat-belts in to your chair because this is gonna be one wild ride.)
GET READY FOR THIS E-MAIL BECAUSE IT IS (insert various adjectives. Things which describe wild sports injuries often work well here but anything will do. Ex: "the wildest, most exhilarating, bone crunching, tendon severing, MRI requiring, rotator cuff tearing, bone protruding from the skin) E-MAIL THAT THERE IS. YES, BE PREPARED FOR ANOTHER EDITION (may replace "edition" with "instalment number ?") OF DAN'S MASS E-MAIL! (note: exclamation mark is important since it shows the enthusiasm you have for the e-mail. An enthusiasm, no doubt shared by your readers.)
Part 2: Body
First idea: This idea should definitely be a story about your Bio TA since people don't really care about anything else. If you got back a mark which you didn't feel you deserved (and, remember, since you are Dan, you deserve 100% on every assignment due to your absolute brilliance) it's a good start to bitch about that. So, say for example your Bio TA gave you a mark you clearly didn't deserve on your lab. If that's the case, you should bring it to people's attention like this:
-So I got my lab back from last week and, suffice to say, I didn't do very well.
Hmm...that sentence is a little plain. Maybe you should qualify exactly how poorly you did:
-So I got my lab back from last week and, suffice to say, there hasn't been an injustice this big since Jim Carrey was snubbed from the Oscars for his performance in Dumb and Dumber.
No...it's still missing a little something... It's probably best to add some colourful insulting references to your TA here. (E-mail Tip #1: It's ALWAYS best to add colourful insults about your TA EVERYWHERE in the e-mail. Even in sentences which have nothing to do with her. Ex: I got my Math mark back and since it was not marked by the blood sucking lord of the underworld, I did fairly well.)
- So I got my lab back from the Queen of the Harpies and, suffice to say, there hasn't been an injustice this big since Jim Carrey was snubbed from the Oscars for his performance in Dumb and Dumber.
See, that works much better. I'm still not sold on the Jim Carrey line so consider replacing it with an insult towards Matt or the Dodgers if you can work that into the sentence somehow. But, all in all, that's a good opening sentence. At this point you want to elaborate on where you were robed of marks so make sure you go into detail about this while keeping e-mail tip #1 in mind:
- Apparently the she-demon felt that my using Times New Roman font detracted from the value of my paper so she (opps..replace "she" with "the TA-bitch" or any other insult you can come up with) docked me a mark for that.
At this point, you probably want to make some silly comparison to something ridiculous you could have done which would have also cost you a mark:
- Now, bear in mind, I would also have lost the same number of marks for ripping up my "Literature Cited section" and replacing it with a piece of used Kleenex with the words "All hail comrade Trotsky" (e-mail tip #2: Just mentioning Leon Trotsky is funny. Anyone who has ever had a class with Nizar will laugh at the mere mention of Mr. T's name).
At this point, you can rant a bit more about other places where you deserved marks and add a few more insults. Among those which I have used so far in the e-mail, in order of appearance (and feel free to make some more up):
-Mr.Nixon's long lost daughter
-Psycho TA from hell
-Queen of the Harpies (One of my all time favourite Simpsons lines. "Here's your crown your majesty!!!")
-Evil TA (my how unoriginal I was back in October...)
-She-demon
-Toad licking, blood sucking, little kid eating, Pepsi drinking, broom stick flying, Dodger cheering, wart infested, devil worshipping, country music listening, bitchy, ugly, evil, demonic, scourge of the under world
-TA mutt
-The scourge of my existence, the whale to my Nemo, the Moriarty to my Holmes, the Vader to my Skywalker, that satanic beast of the underworld herself
-Evil Bio TA bitch (I like it. Short and to the point)
-Princess of darkness
-Wicked bitch from the west
-The demon
-Useless, inadequate, skank rotting sack of spit who disguises herself as a human
-She who cannot be named
-The one of pure evil
-Darth Bitch
-The embodiment of evil
And, I'd also like to mention the following insult which alert reader Matt Freund sent in. If you can work this into your message, go for it:
-I'd rather be repeatedly raped up the ass with a barbed footlong e-coli-lubed lead dildo every half hour for a week straight and left for dead ruptured with uncontrollable anal bleeding and leakage than to have to look upon her wart-covered rotted puss-leaking green skinned troll of a "face" (if you can call it that) once more in this lifetime or the next
And thus concludes part one of "How to write a mass e-mail". Tune in next week for part 2.
Dan
Instalment 12: February 6th, 2001
Last week on Dan's mass e-mail...
Nothing interesting was happening in Dan's life so he decided to roll out part one of "How to write a mass e-mail". Here, he gave people useful pointers (TA insults, TA insults, Trotsky, TA insults) and a list of descriptions he's used so far to describe the hellspawn known as Erin. So let's continue with a look at other points in the body of the mass e-mail.
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Once you get your major TA bitchfest story out of the way and have added enough insults and witty comments (ex: I never thought the Antichrist would have a degree in Biology), you should move on to your secondary paragraphs, most notably, other TA stories! Now, the important thing to remember is that it's easy to turn any encounter with evil incarnate into an amusing story, all you really need is a situation where Erin talks. For example,
-We were in the lab today and Erin (umm...change that to "evil TA bitchface who feasts on little puppies") asked if there was anything she could do to help me out. "Why, you could cover yourself in honey and roll around in a pile of red army ants" I responded. Ha ha, no I didn't really say that but I thought about it as well as several other gruesome deaths.
See. Nothing really happened in the Bio lab but you got three and a half good lines out of it (which is three good lines more than you'll ever find in Matt's mass e-mail). And if she even brings up marking, you've got another few lines of material as well. Say for example she said "I haven't finished marking your labs from last week" during the class. You could follow this up with any of:
- What? Did she run out of red ink?
- What? Was she too busy sacrificing virgins and stealing human souls. She really should learn to budget her time better.
-What? Did her hoard of flying monkeys eat them? (E-mail Tip # 3: Flying monkey jokes are always funny. I'd love to somehow incorporate a flying monkey joke in with an anthro Prof. story but I could never make the connection. If you can, go for it!)
Now, sometimes evil TA stories won't give you enough material so you have to branch out and rant about other things. And one of my favourite topics to rant about is Calgary Transit since you're guaranteed to have a handful of delays and meet a half a dozen freaks in any given week on the C-Train. The problem is, since these occurrences are common, it's not always worth mentioning them so my rule of thumb is that a transit freak is only worth mentioning if the story involves urine and/or groping. (But really, what transit story, doesn't involve urine and/or groping?)
Another thing you can bring up is your other teachers. While not everyone has a TA from the mouth of hell, everyone has a teacher or two who will say or do something funny in a given week. For example, just this past week, my Biology teacher said the following. And I quote:
"...cut their sex organs off and put half a dozen in a box and give them to someone"
I mean, how can you not find that funny? In case you're wondering about the context of this sentence, he was referring to giving someone, ahem, "a bouquet of sex organs" for Valentines Day.
It also helps if you have an anthro teacher who likes to show you videos of himself walking around in a speedo and performing tasks with monkeys which can easily be misinterpreted. Sometimes the material just writes itself.
I also enjoy staying topical for mass e-mails and since Survivor is the topical thing these days (or if you want to be really creative, you can try making Meningitis and train derailment jokes), this would be a good spot to make a few wise cracks about the show. Nothing fancy, you can just say something along the times of:
"So where the hell is someone going to find beef jerky in the middle of the Australian outback? Although I have as much respect for Jerri as for some educators at prestigious Calgary Universities, I find it hard to believe that she would honestly believe that someone could smuggle beef jerky into the Australian outback. Of course, to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she thought there was a magical beef jerky tree which Kel had found and was concealing from the group."
Well I was gonna make this a two parter but I've still got some more to say, so, what the hell, let's pull a Star Wars and turn "How to Write a Mass E-Mail" into a trilogy. Tune in next week for the shocking conclusion and, until then, lay off the E. Coli and remember, Valentine's Day is coming up soon and those sex organ bouquets are going fast!
Cheers,
Dan
Instalment 13: February 13th, 2001
OOOOOOOOOO-K. Well, despite such kind feedback as "the last couple of mass e-mails suck" and "I'm gonna put block sender on your address", I've decided to nevertheless finish up the how to write a mass e-mail trilogy (don't worry, there will be no prequels. And a special thanks to the many Stars Wars freeks out there who angrily pointed out that Star Wars is not in fact a trilogy). But first...
-I'd like to appologize on behalf of my cousin for cluttering up people's in boxes. The guy really needs a hoby. Drunken tight-rope walking or knive juggling would be good places to start.
-I saw the she-devil for the first time today since last semester. I was in the Bio room collecting my plants and she was talking to two students, both of which were complaining about their mark she'd given them on an assignement. I sort of pretended to be looking for my plants just so I could catch their conversation. The frustration in the voice of the two students was just classic (I think one of them may have been your cousin Aarthi). Ahh...the memories... I could just feel all that old hatred flowing back to me and if there had been a tray of E. Coli culture in that room, I swear I would have leaped up, riped open her mouth and shoved every last drop of it down her throat. Of course, I suppose if I'd thrown a pale of water on her, it would have worked the trick too. I still don't see why she wasn't fired. I'm begining to think they didn't take all my comments about her I made on my performance review seriously. Jeez, you say one little thing about how you suspect your TA is the spawn of satan and they don't even take you seriously. Shesh.
Anyways, here's the end of "How to write a mass e-mail".
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A sports comment every here and there is also fun. You can mention how much the Dodgers suck or comment on Anna Kournikova's, ahem, playing skills. It wouldn't be a bad idea to bring up the hockey pool except I would suggest holding all comments on that off for a few weeks until the teams find themselves in positions in the standings more in tune with the ability of their general managers (smooth Dan).
Conclusion: (AKA Thank God (or Trotsky if you prefer) it's over)
The final paragraph is usual a good place to sneak a little tid-bit about what's actually going on in your life since people might not notice it here. However, people might become suspicious that you're actually telling them boring things about what's going on in your life if you don't disguise it well enough. So to disguise it, turn to E-Mail Tips # 1 or # 2 (not that anyone has actually taken the time to memorize the tips. You slackers...). For example:
-I've finally got a cable connection to the net so I'm happier than Nizar on Trotsky's birthday.
-I've finally got a cable connection to the net and it runs faster than little children when they're trying to get away from the evil TA-bitch.
And finally, before you go, you want to leave people with some insight so that the rest of their week can take on a greater meaning. This insight is composed of:
1) Lay off the E. Coli
2) Some other ramblings to do with the E-Mail. For example, in this e-mail, it might be wise to conclude with:
-Lay off the E. Coli and, remember, trilogies are best left to George Lucas.
Cheers,
your name here (and for those of you dumber than Dubya, you're supposed to write your actual name. i.e.: George W.)
P.S. This is a good spot to insert a cheap plug for your website. For example:
Due to popular demand, I've started writing down everything I have for breakfast on my web-site. Be sure to check it out at: "https://ibguide.tripod.com/breakfast.html"
Instalment 14: March 13th, 2001
Ittttttttttttttt's baaaaaaaaaaaack! That's right, get ready for another fun, fun, fun instalment of Dan's Mass E-mail; the only mass e-mail guaranteed to be mad cow disease free.
As you probably know, Calgary Transit is on strike which has many people very upset. But hell, as far as I'm concerned they can keep this strike up until evil TA-bitch wins a Nobel Peace Prize because I am loving it. As things sit right now, I get to drive in to school in a comfortable, climate controlled car with leather seats which takes about half an hour off my commute each way. Now, on the other side of things, I could get packed into a smelly train car with smelly freaks and be subject to 15 minute delays for no reason whatsoever. As much as I love the freaks, the competition is about as lopsided as a Dan v.s. Matt matchup.
Speaking of lopsided competitions, King Ralph completely obliterated the competition yesterday in Alberta's provincial election. Now this isn't too surprising considering how well things are going in Alberta - apart from the waiting lists in hospitals, poor education system, spiralling gas prices, and gargantuan tuition hikes...OK, maybe things aren't perfect but it's not like there's 6 billion dollars laying around to magically fix these problems, oh wait, yeah, there is. But nevertheless, Ralphieboy gets 74 of 83 seats which is a majority big enough to make Stalin jealous (of course Stalin did put ice picks into the backs of his competition so maybe the comparison isn't valid). Oh well...
I really wish I didn't have to bore everyone with transit and fat boy but I really can't find much of anything to say about my non-Satanic TA. I mean, Leon is extremely laissez-faire but until he starts eating small puppies in his spare time, that just won't make him interesting in my books. We did watch two frogs get in on today for those of you who like to know these little tid-bits. At least my Math 253 teacher is kind of entertaining this semester, albeit not in a "I wish you were dead" sort of way. I'll quote for you almost word for word, the introduction he gave us for our Taylor Polynomials lecture last Friday (and you thought Integration couldn't be funny...):
"Alright everyone. I swear this is a true story. A few years back I was sitting in a bar with my friend. Once again, I swear this is a true story. So, we're in this bar and this beautiful...um, person of the opposite gender comes up to my friend and she says she's having an argument with her friend and was wondering what the square root of 5 was. Now, I was obviously quite shocked but me and my friend got out a cocktail napkin and used what you guys are going to learn today to give her an answer. And I don't think I should tell you how the rest of the evening went but let's just say I was very glad to know my Taylor Polynomials that night."
He then kept telling us other little tid bits throughout the lecture like "finding it to 1 decimal place may be good but maybe not good enough for what you're looking for if you get my drift".
Well that's it for this week. For anyone interesting is some good old fashioned illegal gambling, Jeremy's NCAA basketball pool is out with a jackpot over 50$ so if you're interested tell me tomorrow and I'll get you a sheet (or you can e-mail me your picks if you're out of town.). It's two bucks to enter but, as Mastercard says, beating Matt is priceless. Oh well, until next week lay off the E. Coli, and all hail King Ralph.
Dan
Instalment 15: April 17, 2001
Show time! It's time for the only mass e-mail which makes as much sense when it's writen on 3 hours sleep as it normally does. Of course, it's also the only mass e-mail which makes as much sense when writen by a rabid monkey as it normally does...
I actually do have an evil she-demon Bio TA story but before we get to that, I'd like to present: "Dan Writes his Bio Lab the Night Before it is Due: A chronological look at what goes into writing a Bio lab."
4:30 pm: Back from school. Knowing my Bio lab is due the next day, I grudingly walk upstairs to my computer...to check my e-mail.
5:30 pm: After rousing games of Computer solitaire, frogger, and "Continuing adventures of Cyberbox" (don't ask), I decide to start working on my Bio discussion. Of course, seeing as how it's almost super time, I realize I would kill my own momentum at about the same speed Matt kills a sports team's momentum by cheering for them (I could swear it's October because the Leafs are falling at an alarming rate, eh?) so I wait until later to get going.
6:30 pm: All right, I've started working. Of course, the first thing I realize is that I did the result section wrong so I have to re-do it. It's all right, a minor set-back. I should be done the lab in two hours time. Max.
8:30 pm: Hmm...hadn't counted on those set-backs and distractions. Never the less, I'm ready to start on my discusion. I should be done by 10:30. Plenty of time to still study for Math.
9:45 pm: Various print-outs, binders and textbooks are thrown across the room in a fit of anger.
10:14 pm: Someone who will not be named asks me via ICQ if I've "got a good concluding sentence" for my lab yet. HAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, because all I need is a concluding sentence and I'll be done. Yeah, right. My one consolation is that I'll be done this thing by midnight.
11:00 pm: I wander down to the basement on what is the first of many trips for blessed cafeine giving Coke.
12:35 am: With the lab nowhere near completion, I'm trying to think of some way I can blame this on evil-TA-bitch. This reminds me that Jerri is on Letterman tonight. I take a short break.
1:00 am: Back to work. Should be done in two hours.
1:23 am: I proof read a paragraph I've just written and realize that I've put a sarcastic comment about Bio labs in the middle of it. I've also referred to the bluefin tunafish as a "fishy" twice.
2:17 am: At last! My empty Coke can pyramid is complete! Back to work.
3:00 am: Realizing I'm going to pass out if I stay up much longer, I head back to bed.
6:00 am: Alarm goes off. #*%@! Time for the finishing touches.
8:14 am: Eureka! It's finally done.
Now, time for the evil scurge of the underworld story. Actually, I don't have a whole lot to say but last week in Lab, I was busy freezing mice when I felt a cold chill. Looking up, what should my eyes gaze upon but she who makes blood stop flowing; yes, the evil Bio TA. She apparently came in to chat with Leon about marking labs and I must say that my opinion of Leon droped in half just by the fact that he didn't ram a crayfish up her nose right on the spot. I didn't want her to see me for fear that she'd do something to ruin my lab but, from what I did gather, some of her students had complained about her marking on a question and she was asking for Leon's advice on it (which isn't the smartest thing to do, because, even though I love Leon and the slacker-TA image he stands for, he's not most sharpest claw on the crayfish). What made this situation even more difficult for me was that they were right next to the jug with the "Waning! Highly toxic!" label on it and one little accident could have melted the witch right on the spot but I decided to show some self restraint (Yeah, I know. But hindsight is always 20/20).
Oh well, that's all for now. Until next week, lay off the E. Coli, especially at 3 in the morning.
Cheers,
Dan
P.S. One word stories and "signs you're addicted to Survivor" are up on my web site. "http://ibguide.tripod.com"
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