Honors students need not apply.

A large sorority has blanketed the bulletin boards in my building with a flyer that reads:

If your going Greek why not be a Goddess?!!!
Rush [Alpha Beta Delta]!

Luckily, I carry a Sharpie in my bag.

I love teaching this class.

In my "ESP and Aliens" class, we recently discussed hypnotherapy. We discussed the qualifications that one needed to have in order to practice hypnotherapy. I made a sarcastic remark to the effect that it seemed that all one needed to claim was ownership of a couch. I have one in my office, I said. Come to office hours and I'll see what I can do.

I got an email this morning, and it went something like this:

Dear Angry Professor,

I really want to be hypnotized. I have always been really interested in this phenomenon. Could you please hypnotize me? What I really want is for you to implant a "false memory" in me. I want to see how real it feels. I will sign any waiver that you require without having to worry about any liability. I am serious! Please write back and let me know.

Sincerely,
Interested Student

With great regret, I had to turn the student down, in the course of my rejection explaining about Institutional Review Boards and Ethical Treatment of Human Subjects and other bureaucratic nightmares associated with working with humans. What a party-pooper I am.

Here's what evil looks like.

Sometimes something is just so over-the-top offensive that it makes me wonder if that whole First Amendment thing was really such a good idea after all. But then I wonder: if it weren't for people like this, who would the rest of us laugh and point at?

I just learned that the "Reverend" Fred Phelps and his family at the Westboro Baptist Church have over the past year been picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, branching out from their usual picketing of the funerals of gay men and women, suspected (or mistaken) gay men and women, Catholic church officials, and gay supporters.

The logic? America has turned its back on God (and the Westboro Baptist Church in particular), and therefore God has become "America's Terrorist." Therefore the church members rejoice when Americans are killed, maimed, injured, etc.. But there's more, something strange that I can't quite put my finger on. From the WBC FAQ, "...These turkeys are not heroes. They are lazy, incompetent idiots looking for jobs because they're not qualified for honest work."

The mind boggles.

I give up.

Almost 10% of my class believes, "Ockham's Razor is used in the preparation of homeopathic remedies."

And so it begins.

Angry Toddler has only recently vocalized the fact that there are two kinds of days: "stay-home" days and "not stay-home" days. She woke up this morning and tried to persuade me that today was a stay-home day and that we could go to the zoo.

When she realized it was Monday and not a stay-home day, she cried. I did too. Welcome to the rest of your life, honey.