Things Your Teachers Tell You that You Wish were Lies but are Actually True

Oh no.  Everyone has that moment when they realize that their teacher was right.  Dang it.

So here is the list of Things Your Teachers Tell You that You Wish were Lies but are Actually True:
- Things do need to be formatted correctly.  When your teachers ask for your last name to appear at the top of every page, or for the title to be in bold but not in a large font, just do it.  Make those stupid little formatting things the first thing you do when you start writing a paper.  Many profs just won't accept papers that aren't properly formatted.
- Wikipedia is not a valid source.  When you write papers in college, there is ALWAYS the possibility that you will get published.  The absolute last thing you want is to have some erroneous fact challenged and then have to reveal that you got it off of Wikipedia.  You might as well be making things up.  Just don't risk it - stick to articles from peer reviewed journals.
- Highlight your reading assignments.  I hate the phrase "close-read" because it is an evil neologism of Peak, but it is a valid concept.  You just don't retain enough if you just read and don't highlight or take notes.  Look at your essay prompts ahead of time and keep an eye out for quotes or arguments that you can make.

Those are the things that I have noticed so far.  There are certainly more but I'm probably conveniently ignoring them because I'm too proud to admit that Hankla had a point about writing in pen.  Grr.

Christmas Break, Y'all!

Major accomplishment, guys: I have finished my first semester of college!  I am now more highly educated than some significant proportion of the country that I am way too lazy to look up.  *Fist bump!*

This is a good time to talk about the college time-table.  Stop thinking about "four years".  I know it is tempting - you spent four years in high school, so it makes sense to think of college like that too, but it is an erroneous assumption.  College is not four years.  It is eight semesters.  This is an important distinction because every semester you will get new classes, new teachers, a new big fat tuition bill, and a new hatred for cafeteria food.

Anyway, make sure you don't make the mistake of undermining your accomplishment of conquering each and every semester!  It's a big deal to pass all of your classes over a four month period - and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!  Hats off to all of my fellow 1/8 of the way there-ers, as well as to all of you yet-to-be-former-peakers-ers.  May you all pass 1/8 of your classes :)

Cheers!

Lies Your Teachers Tell You

Just kidding!  There will be a post today even though it is still finals week because I need a freaking break.

I have some very exciting news for you: most of the time, when your high school teachers tell you a rule that sounds dumb, it is a rule that only applies to high school!  I knew it - there is no way that "linking verbs" was something that we actually have to avoid.  I mean, come on!  It is not possible to write anything without "were, to, be, is, was, has, etc".  It was all lies.  My lit professor has never even heard of linking verbs.

Start your count-down clocks because the following is a list of things that you will be able to stop worrying about the second you graduate:
- Using third person.  Most of my profs actually PREFER it when you use first person to express your own ideas.  If you go read some peer-reviewed scholarly essays, they totally use first person when they want to.  This applies mostly to literary papers and such, but when was the last time that you felt the need to write "I have observed the same phenomena as Newton" in a paper about physics?  Anyway, if you feel like your sentence is clunky because you are avoiding first person, feel free to use it (in college).
- Linking verbs. (see above) I don't know about you, but I don't think that I ever worried about linking verbs after we finished that unit freshman year.  Still, feel free to continue ignoring that made-up rule.
- Having your works cited page graded.  It has to be present and appear correct, but no one will ever sit down and look up all of your sources to make sure you cited them right.  Just use Easy Bib and be done  because it's good enough. (If you plan on publishing something, that's a different story, but even then you won't be graded on your works cited, just held accountable for it)
- Single-spacing long quotes.  You know that thing where if your quote is more than five lines long then you have to indent it and make the font smaller and single-space it?  Well that is mostly valid, but the single-spacing thing is just a way for your teachers to try to keep you from messing with the minimum length.  Just indent your quotes and leave it at that.
- The "3 levels".  This suckish phenomena is a creation of Peak and does not exist anywhere else.  Guess what?  Apparently most people don't need a little chart to tell them what kind of question they are asking - they can just tell.  Shocking.
- Annotating the prompt.  It is equally shocking that most people are capable of answering a question without first defining every word, writing out steps, and re-stating it in their own words.  No one saw that coming.

So breathe a sigh of relief that you won't have to worry about certain Peakisms after high school.

Unfortunately, there are some things that you will continue to worry about.  Coming soon (with "soon" defined as "the next time I need a freaking break from studying"), Truths Your Teachers Tell You that You Hoped were Lies.

It's the Most Stressful Time of the Year!

Hello week before finals!  I missed you! NOT

Unfortunately, this means that all posting will be put on hold until next friday because shockingly I do have to study at some point.  Blame finals if you are upset.  Nothing would please me more than to provide you all with some humorous blog-breaks from studying for your own finals, but alas I do not have the time.

Go study, you peakers!

Fire Alarms

The fire alarm only goes off at 2 in the morning (actually, that is newton's fifth law of motion).  Now there is a very good chance that you will be involved in the early morning shenanigans that resulted in a ping pong ball being accidentally exploded with a lighter that ended up setting the fire alarm off, but if you weren't then you will probably be asleep when the alarm goes off.

In order to survive such evacuation scenarios, follow these steps before leaving your room:
1) Feel the floor with your hand.  If it is hot or if you hear screaming, skip to the last step regardless of your current condition.
2) Assuming that there is no obvious danger other than the alarm going off, get out of bed and make sure that you are wearing pants and a shirt.
3) Put on some shoes that aren't slippers and that are waterproof (because this is Washington (well, it's Washington here anyway) and it is probably raining outside.
4) Grab the nearest jacket.
5) Make sure you have your emergency deck of cards so that you won't be bored standing in the rain for 40 minutes while the firemen make sure that the only reason for the fire was idiocy and that there isn't some kind of mythical secondary fire that will kill everyone the instant you enter the building.  Similarly, if you have a car you can grab your keys and drive to McDonald's while they sort everything out (make sure you also have your license and wallet).
6) Take your keys with you because you will need to get back into the building at some point.
7) Leave your room and follow the screaming hoards down the stairs and out the fire exit.  Do try to scream in harmony with the fire alarm as you flee in an orderly fashion - it is too early in the morning for excessive dissonance.  Watch out for ROUSes

Good job!  Now you are all set to survive this minor emergency without being cold and/or barefoot in the rain or getting bored waiting for the RD to get his act together.

How to write a Limerick

This is a skill that is always handy.

I feel bad about this, but the only limerick that I actually know is a dirty one.  So if you are squeamish, skip the next few lines:
There once was a man from Beirut
Who had warts all over his root
He put acid on these
And now when he pees
He fingers his root like a flute

I am truly sorry but that is the only example I know.  If you want another example, go read Stacia's wall (if you know her, if not, google "limerick" or something).

Anyway, limericks are always useful for inside joke allusions, or making fun of people.  You should definitely know how to write one because you never know when you may need to sound clever whilst you make fun of someone.

A limerick is composed of 5 lines:
Line 1: 8 syllables, rhyme A
Line 2: 8 syllables, rhyme A
Line 3: 6 syllables, rhyme B
Line 4: 5 syllables, rhyme B
Line 5: 8 syllables, rhyme A

Generally speaking, you can add or drop up to one syllable per line if you have to.

So there you have it!  Limerick away!

Used Books

I would highly encourage you to buy used books.  BUT not because they are cheaper.  You should buy used books because they have the potential to make your life easier.  Most used books will have writing  or graffiti of some kind in them.  About 90.64% of the writing in used books appears to have been done by a drunken moron.  These are the comments that either make no sense but try to sound smart ("Hamlet is obviously Post Modern here"), or that are just plain dumb ("She wants him now"), or that are so obvious it hurts ("He's mad about her sleeping with his dad").

BUT sometimes you get a book whose previous owner was intelligent enough to be useful for more than just entertainment.  If you happen upon one of these lucky books, your reading time just got cut in half because now you only have to read the highlighted parts.  Score!

These books are rare but worth it.  So I would suggest buying the books that say they have highlighting or writing in them.  They are cheaper and you may just get some free entertainment or cliffs notes out of them.