Marking Alpine piles of exams is not my favourite thing to do. But now and then, amongst all the drivel, one comes across a classic unintentional bit of comedy that lends a moment of joy to the tedium. Following are actual, unretouched bloopers from either a personal essay, a book review or a short story written by actual students on their exams this year. Teenagers are so cute when they think they're being profound. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent ignorant.
"James Frey is the character in the book who plays him in real life."
Wow. That's quite an honour. What more poignant evidence could there be that you have a drug problem than having a character in a book play you in real life? Viewed, of course, through the looking glass.
"He cured Paul from a severe urinal infection and cured Melinda, a good wife of the prison chief, from a brains tumour."
It's tough to be a good wife, especially with a brains tumour, an affliction that clearly has crippled the author of this line. But God. Can you imagine coming down with a urinal infection? I'm never lurking in public washrooms again. Let alone a bus depot, where I might contract a terminal illness.
"She experienced baby-sitting, drugs and racism."
The poor thing. Having to contend with the scourge of narcotics and the evils of racism is bad enough, but baby-sitting? Surely that's too much torment for anyone.
"Carrie White is a shy, ugly, fat, self-confident teenage girl."
Yes, sir. Nothing will boost your self-esteem higher than being shy, fat and ugly. If only she were smelly, too, she'd be on top of the world!
"The three main groups are the brainy acts or the nerds."
Somehow I suspect that the true brainy acts can count a bit better than this.
"Living a life without any boarders is whatever individual truly desires."
I wonder if this author is bedevilled by roomers or by skate-boarders? Whatever.
"She found out that Philip The Driver was killed; Chloe came out with fractional legs. They were charged with felony vehicular manslaughter and found out that they were intoxicated."
I'll bet they were shocked. 'What?!! We were intoxicated?! Do you think it had anything to do with all that drinking we did?' Poor Phil The Driver. He'll have to get a new job now. I wonder what fraction of her legs Chloe is left with? She could sue, perhaps. But she wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
"Rebel or follow society and the rules it sets. I can identify many examples to this thesis statement for those that rebelled and got boned."
Hmmm. I'm still not entirely clear what this 'thesis statement' is. I think it's 'Follow society if you don't want to get boned.' No contest, then. It's a rebel's life for me.
"The cross symbolism refers to the crucifixion of Christ, which occurred, of course, in two thousand BC."
What really makes this one a classic, is, of course, 'of course'. Like it goes without saying that Christ was crucified three thousand years before his birth. And 4008 years later, a descendant of Christ was crucified by his exam mark.
"I started getting the worst headaches ever. I would have to take the maximum amount of Tylenol a day. My mom was getting worried about me, so she took me to the doctor. The doctor told me that I just might be a person that gets headaches."
I went to the doctor once complaining of a broken leg. He theorized that I just might be a person with a broken leg. I thanked him, paid him five hundred dollars for his professional hypothesis and went home to take the maximum amount of Tylenol.
This is my favourite. It's pretty profound:
"Life comes from birth."
Yes, it certainly does. This author evidently received the same training in the obvious that doctors receive. Life, my friends, does indeed come from birth.
Kill me now.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Insomnia And Canadian Politics
Having attended more staff meetings than I care to count over the last couple of decades, I am no stranger to boredom. I am, I would say, an expert on the subject, believe me. But nothing is as boring to me as Canadian politics. The very thought of Canadian politics makes staff meetings seem like bungee jumping by comparison. Staff meetings bore me to tears, sure, and quite literally. But Canadian politics bores me very nearly to death.
I know there are people who find Canadian politics fascinating. They are themselves the most boring people on Earth. Nothing about politics in this country comes within a million billion miles of being interesting, so anyone who thinks otherwise should go live on an island somewhere and lead vapid lives of unrelenting tedium until they die and have dull speeches intoned at their dreary funerals.
American politics can be downright fascinating. The USA is the most powerful nation in the world, for heaven's sake. How could the presidency not be of interest to all? Men of tremendous charisma have occupied the oval office, from Lincoln to Kennedy to Clinton, and if Obama gets in, he'll bring a vitality and excitement to the White House that good ol' Bonehead Bush could only dream of. But name me a charismatic Canadian politician other than, arguably, Trudeau, and even he wasn't interesting anymore once he quit saying fuddle-duddle. Chretien had a moment of charisma when he tried to strangle a protestor with his bare hands, and sometimes he'd root around in his pants in public, which I always found tremendously entertaining in a mortifying sort of way, but other than that, are you kidding me? Our prime ministers are so drab they make highschool administrators look like rock stars.
We were forced, in school, to read Canadian history. And I was a dedicated and attentive straight-A student. But one paragraph into any chapter on Canadian history and my head would hit the desk with a THUNK they could hear in other neighbourhoods. I took numerous history courses that featured Canadian politics heavily in the curriculum and this is what I remember now: Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Not a single fact has stayed with me. I am not the least bit embarrassed to say this. I don't WANT that tripe cluttering up my mind.
Oh, they say, but if you actually went to Ottawa to sit in the visitor's gallery in Parliament, then you'd see some really lively stuff. Nonsense. I did once. I went there. I was asleep in nano-moments. The chaperones thought I had narcolepsy. Before the Speaker Of The House, or whatever he's called, had even begun speaking, I was out like the proverbial light. It's a pure self-defense mechanism. There's only so much boredom the human brain can take.
I met the Prime Minister a couple of years ago. Paul Martin (I had to really concentrate just now even to remember his name) came to Burlington to visit a campaign office at the plaza across from the high school where I work. Cool, I thought. I'll go see if I can catch a glimpse of him. This'll be pretty exciting, I figured. So I walked over there, and lo and behold, sure enough, there he was. He strode off the bus and worked his way down a line of people shaking hands. It was winter and I had my hands in the pockets of my jacket. I didn't take them out to shake his hand until he was right in front of me. I saw no RCMP security. Nobody asked me in advance to please take my hands out of my pockets. If that had been the president and my hands had been in my pockets as he approached, the Secret Service would've been on me like Bill on Monica and I would've been picked up and hustled out of there faster than you could've said Ken Starr. But our national security personnel know that Canadian politicians' monotony is their chief protection. They're so boring nobody has ever gotten worked up enough about them to shoot one. If an American gets to shake hands with the president, it's a story he'll tell for the rest of his life to his envious friends and family. I tried telling my story to some friends of mine and they were snoring and drooling in an instant. Some of them fell down and hit their heads. I'm lucky they didn't sue me.
If I ever can't sleep, I just get up and put on the Parliament channel and boom, I'm sawing logs before I can put the remote down. I've nodded off three times just trying to write this blog. Canadian politics are boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, moreso even than a sentence that has the word 'boring' in it six times.
I'm never writing about this again. If I do, please send Chretien over to strangle me.
I know there are people who find Canadian politics fascinating. They are themselves the most boring people on Earth. Nothing about politics in this country comes within a million billion miles of being interesting, so anyone who thinks otherwise should go live on an island somewhere and lead vapid lives of unrelenting tedium until they die and have dull speeches intoned at their dreary funerals.
American politics can be downright fascinating. The USA is the most powerful nation in the world, for heaven's sake. How could the presidency not be of interest to all? Men of tremendous charisma have occupied the oval office, from Lincoln to Kennedy to Clinton, and if Obama gets in, he'll bring a vitality and excitement to the White House that good ol' Bonehead Bush could only dream of. But name me a charismatic Canadian politician other than, arguably, Trudeau, and even he wasn't interesting anymore once he quit saying fuddle-duddle. Chretien had a moment of charisma when he tried to strangle a protestor with his bare hands, and sometimes he'd root around in his pants in public, which I always found tremendously entertaining in a mortifying sort of way, but other than that, are you kidding me? Our prime ministers are so drab they make highschool administrators look like rock stars.
We were forced, in school, to read Canadian history. And I was a dedicated and attentive straight-A student. But one paragraph into any chapter on Canadian history and my head would hit the desk with a THUNK they could hear in other neighbourhoods. I took numerous history courses that featured Canadian politics heavily in the curriculum and this is what I remember now: Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Not a single fact has stayed with me. I am not the least bit embarrassed to say this. I don't WANT that tripe cluttering up my mind.
Oh, they say, but if you actually went to Ottawa to sit in the visitor's gallery in Parliament, then you'd see some really lively stuff. Nonsense. I did once. I went there. I was asleep in nano-moments. The chaperones thought I had narcolepsy. Before the Speaker Of The House, or whatever he's called, had even begun speaking, I was out like the proverbial light. It's a pure self-defense mechanism. There's only so much boredom the human brain can take.
I met the Prime Minister a couple of years ago. Paul Martin (I had to really concentrate just now even to remember his name) came to Burlington to visit a campaign office at the plaza across from the high school where I work. Cool, I thought. I'll go see if I can catch a glimpse of him. This'll be pretty exciting, I figured. So I walked over there, and lo and behold, sure enough, there he was. He strode off the bus and worked his way down a line of people shaking hands. It was winter and I had my hands in the pockets of my jacket. I didn't take them out to shake his hand until he was right in front of me. I saw no RCMP security. Nobody asked me in advance to please take my hands out of my pockets. If that had been the president and my hands had been in my pockets as he approached, the Secret Service would've been on me like Bill on Monica and I would've been picked up and hustled out of there faster than you could've said Ken Starr. But our national security personnel know that Canadian politicians' monotony is their chief protection. They're so boring nobody has ever gotten worked up enough about them to shoot one. If an American gets to shake hands with the president, it's a story he'll tell for the rest of his life to his envious friends and family. I tried telling my story to some friends of mine and they were snoring and drooling in an instant. Some of them fell down and hit their heads. I'm lucky they didn't sue me.
If I ever can't sleep, I just get up and put on the Parliament channel and boom, I'm sawing logs before I can put the remote down. I've nodded off three times just trying to write this blog. Canadian politics are boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, moreso even than a sentence that has the word 'boring' in it six times.
I'm never writing about this again. If I do, please send Chretien over to strangle me.
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