Thursday, March 1, 2007

I have 550 nerd points

One of the teachers has started awarding nerd points to people based on his own bizarre criteria (I lost nerd points for liking "Napoleon Dynamite" and gained them back for quoting the film). So he spends a lot of time walking around the school giving and taking away points. If you thought of Professor McGonagall just now, you get 50 points.

Tomorrow I have to run a workshop for business English teachers. This is actually my first time running a workshop, and I am not looking forward to it. Actually, I'm freaking out about it. Partly because not all of our teachers are the nicest people all of the time, so I'll get made fun of a lot and partly because I'm only used to teaching English, not teaching teaching, which I imagine to be completely different (I guess I'll find out). But mostly because I go through life with a really unhealthy level of anxiety.

Here is an on-time Friday Five, which is about otters:

1. How do you feel about teeter-totters?
Actually, I've never been on one because I didn't have any friends when I was a kid. Thanks a lot for reminding me.

2. What is something you otter get done this weekend?
Part 1 (of 3) of the workshop.

3. Who’s someone who seemed normal when you first met but got odder and odder as you got to know him or her?
Pretty much everyone I know, the exceptions being people who never seemed normal. Getting to know people involves finding out about their quirks. Everybody has quirks, so everybody gets odder as you get to know them.

4. Thinking of your mother: What’s something that always awed her?
Probably my trivia-brain.

5. What is your favorite small, furry, non-domesticated animal?
I love orangutans, but they're not really small. I kind of like bats in theory, but I wouldn't want to run into them.

2 comments:

Patrick J. Vaz said...

Do I get or lose nerd points for understanding why you lose points for liking Napoleon Dynamite and gain them for quoting it?

Who is Professor McGonagall? I suppose I could just google it, but then I couldn't take this opportunity to slip up and reveal that my origins are not on this planet you call Earth, which to us is but a mere speck of dust in the Universe.

Speaking of your native land, it's not all war-mongering and American Idol out here -- Stephen Sondheim is a guest voice on tonight's Simpsons! I'll tell his animated representation on my TV that you say hello.

There is much to admire about you; one of those things is that you don't seem to know it.

Patrick J. Vaz said...

Your mother just reminded me who Professor McGonagall is. Um . . . never mind. . . .