In Which We Explain Our Absence and Make Some Amends
The Really Beloved Students, the other day, were nagging me some more about the updating of the blog. They were polite about this, naturally -- it was right before they took the midterm, if I remember this right -- but they were nagging. That's what it was. I'm just saying.
However, they are, as mentioned afore, Really Beloved, so here I am.
I'll tell you what the hell's been going on. It's eBay. Turns out that, if you get involved in eBay selling, you discover that 1) all your computer time is given over to checking your auctions, looking up the feedback profiles of your bidders, and hanging out in the community forums waiting for the regulars to get pink-slapped, and soaking up all the advice you can find, and 2) you have to spend a lot of timeover and ABOVE that wandering through the house and wondering how much you could get for all the widgets you've acquired over the years and if, should they actually belong to the other people living in the house, those people would miss them if they were gone.
So that's where I was. I'm sorry. I'll try to pay attention here, and remember to amuse you. Especially if you're one of the Beloved Students.
As amends, I will share with you the latest winner of the Touching Narrative contest. (Back story: I used to say, in my syllabi, that I would not accept late papers, but this is a lie, and a damned lie, and I got tired of telling it, so now I say if you turn in your papers late, you have to provide a Touching Narrative. The former winner of the Touching Narrative contest, from my freshman composition class last fall, may be found here.) Naturally, I have permission to blog this; and naturally, I have removed the student's name, in case the student wants to pursue a political career later:
Dr. Brannen,
After a series of horrendous weekend events that consisted of near
demolition of my body, I must take the cowardly way out and beg
you to allow me to turn my paper in tomorrow, which is Tuesday.
Let me attempt to give you a short but sweet narration of why I
was not in class today and failed to turn in the work that was
required of me.
Some background information: My current job is that of an
apprentice to a 76 yr. old tiny and perverse German man, who is a
Dressage master. I essentially have to do whatever he tells me all
day, and also feed, water, clean, and keep happy 44 sometimes
rather unpleasant horses.
This particular weekend I knew would be quite difficult---in
addition to our paper being due, I was also lucky enough to have
both my French and German midterms on Monday as well, so I
attempted to plan accordingly. I had a set little a study schedule
for myself, and had already started my paper and had made a
spectacular outline, that corresponded greatly to (as you know) my
brilliantly written annotated bibliography.
To make a long and touching narrative short, let me identify some
key issues that caused my weekend to be Hades-esque: Getting up at
6 am everyday to feed the cranky miserable horses, only getting
2-3 hours of sleep a night, having an impromptu apprentice lecture
that lasted two hours, being forced to take a Yoga lesson for
Riding and severely causing pain to my unflexible body, being
punished with an hour of sitting trots which caused me to believe
that my buttocks had actually rotted off, and seriously offending
a new young Japanese apprentice (who speaks little to no English)
by attempting to show him my daily routine at the stable with a
series of exaggerated (and apparently offensive) physical
demonstrations.
Now we come to Sunday, which was my ultimate demise. Though I was
supposed to finish up at 12:30 pm, I was informed around 11 am
that the young chap who usually comes to clean the 44 stalls, was
indeed not coming today, and I would have to fill in for him. In
addition, the mechanical transport that transfers the manure to a
dump truck was ultimately broken, and I would thus have to wheel
wheelbarrows weighing about 40-50 pounds with horse manure piss
up a muddy and steep hill and dump my cargo.
Around five and a half hours later, my still Unhappy yoga
stretched body searing in pain and covered in excrement, I had
only one stall remaining: the daunting home of a gigantic, black
2200lb mean and bitter satanic bit of horseflesh, ironically
named "Tigger" the horse. Only the most advanced apprentices and
trainers are permitted to handle Miss Tigger because she tends to
either entirely consume or hospitalize people. I, being one of
these talented and lucky individuals, usually didn't have to much
of a problem moving the bitter creature, until, of course, Sunday
around 7 pm.
When she first missed eating my face by mere centimeters with
stained and angry teeth, I thought nothing of it. It was when
she wheeled around and kicked straight out with her back legs,
grazing me in the thigh, that I became slightly intimidated.
Attempting to escape through the narrow space I had left myself
by the stall door, I didn't make it out quite fast enough, for
Tigger, spun back around, reared up on her hind legs and began
striking out at with her front legs. She clipped my shoulder,
and I as my body and head were falling to the concrete aisle
floors, I began to seriously contemplate my life decisions and
job preferences.
Finally returning to DUQ around 9 PM, battered, bruised, but
still among the living, I finally began studying. I started with
German, and than moved on to finishing up my paper. I realized
that my writing was horrific, probably due to the fact that I
was running on around six hours of sleep over the course of
three days, so I decided to put it aside and study French for a
bit. Around 4:30 this morning, as I had finally started to
continue the writing of my paper, my stomach suddenly informed
me that not really eating much all day after doing 12 hours of
manual labor and nearly meeting my death, and attempting to
survive merely on over ten cups of coffee, including a Venti
Cafe Mocha from Starbucks with not one, but two extra espresso
shots, was not the most intelligent decision. After vomiting
around four times, I returned back to my room, and fainted into
my refrigerator, and woke up around 8:30 this morning laying in
a pile of tiny bottles of Welch's White Grape Juice. My mind
somewhat delirious and muttering strange words in German, I
crawled into my bed and deemed myself vanquished.
I apologize profusely for the lateness of my paper and my
failure to attend class. I essentially suck at life lately. I
promise that you will have the paper either in your mailbox
tomorrow, or in your hands on Wed., and it will be amazing and
brilliant.
I really am truly sorry and such disasters will hopefully not
occur again.
Sincerely,
Full Legal Name of Student (a nice touch, really)
So there you are. Burnt popcorn, you've been bested. Gauntlet's down.
However, they are, as mentioned afore, Really Beloved, so here I am.
I'll tell you what the hell's been going on. It's eBay. Turns out that, if you get involved in eBay selling, you discover that 1) all your computer time is given over to checking your auctions, looking up the feedback profiles of your bidders, and hanging out in the community forums waiting for the regulars to get pink-slapped, and soaking up all the advice you can find, and 2) you have to spend a lot of timeover and ABOVE that wandering through the house and wondering how much you could get for all the widgets you've acquired over the years and if, should they actually belong to the other people living in the house, those people would miss them if they were gone.
So that's where I was. I'm sorry. I'll try to pay attention here, and remember to amuse you. Especially if you're one of the Beloved Students.
As amends, I will share with you the latest winner of the Touching Narrative contest. (Back story: I used to say, in my syllabi, that I would not accept late papers, but this is a lie, and a damned lie, and I got tired of telling it, so now I say if you turn in your papers late, you have to provide a Touching Narrative. The former winner of the Touching Narrative contest, from my freshman composition class last fall, may be found here.) Naturally, I have permission to blog this; and naturally, I have removed the student's name, in case the student wants to pursue a political career later:
Dr. Brannen,
After a series of horrendous weekend events that consisted of near
demolition of my body, I must take the cowardly way out and beg
you to allow me to turn my paper in tomorrow, which is Tuesday.
Let me attempt to give you a short but sweet narration of why I
was not in class today and failed to turn in the work that was
required of me.
Some background information: My current job is that of an
apprentice to a 76 yr. old tiny and perverse German man, who is a
Dressage master. I essentially have to do whatever he tells me all
day, and also feed, water, clean, and keep happy 44 sometimes
rather unpleasant horses.
This particular weekend I knew would be quite difficult---in
addition to our paper being due, I was also lucky enough to have
both my French and German midterms on Monday as well, so I
attempted to plan accordingly. I had a set little a study schedule
for myself, and had already started my paper and had made a
spectacular outline, that corresponded greatly to (as you know) my
brilliantly written annotated bibliography.
To make a long and touching narrative short, let me identify some
key issues that caused my weekend to be Hades-esque: Getting up at
6 am everyday to feed the cranky miserable horses, only getting
2-3 hours of sleep a night, having an impromptu apprentice lecture
that lasted two hours, being forced to take a Yoga lesson for
Riding and severely causing pain to my unflexible body, being
punished with an hour of sitting trots which caused me to believe
that my buttocks had actually rotted off, and seriously offending
a new young Japanese apprentice (who speaks little to no English)
by attempting to show him my daily routine at the stable with a
series of exaggerated (and apparently offensive) physical
demonstrations.
Now we come to Sunday, which was my ultimate demise. Though I was
supposed to finish up at 12:30 pm, I was informed around 11 am
that the young chap who usually comes to clean the 44 stalls, was
indeed not coming today, and I would have to fill in for him. In
addition, the mechanical transport that transfers the manure to a
dump truck was ultimately broken, and I would thus have to wheel
wheelbarrows weighing about 40-50 pounds with horse manure piss
up a muddy and steep hill and dump my cargo.
Around five and a half hours later, my still Unhappy yoga
stretched body searing in pain and covered in excrement, I had
only one stall remaining: the daunting home of a gigantic, black
2200lb mean and bitter satanic bit of horseflesh, ironically
named "Tigger" the horse. Only the most advanced apprentices and
trainers are permitted to handle Miss Tigger because she tends to
either entirely consume or hospitalize people. I, being one of
these talented and lucky individuals, usually didn't have to much
of a problem moving the bitter creature, until, of course, Sunday
around 7 pm.
When she first missed eating my face by mere centimeters with
stained and angry teeth, I thought nothing of it. It was when
she wheeled around and kicked straight out with her back legs,
grazing me in the thigh, that I became slightly intimidated.
Attempting to escape through the narrow space I had left myself
by the stall door, I didn't make it out quite fast enough, for
Tigger, spun back around, reared up on her hind legs and began
striking out at with her front legs. She clipped my shoulder,
and I as my body and head were falling to the concrete aisle
floors, I began to seriously contemplate my life decisions and
job preferences.
Finally returning to DUQ around 9 PM, battered, bruised, but
still among the living, I finally began studying. I started with
German, and than moved on to finishing up my paper. I realized
that my writing was horrific, probably due to the fact that I
was running on around six hours of sleep over the course of
three days, so I decided to put it aside and study French for a
bit. Around 4:30 this morning, as I had finally started to
continue the writing of my paper, my stomach suddenly informed
me that not really eating much all day after doing 12 hours of
manual labor and nearly meeting my death, and attempting to
survive merely on over ten cups of coffee, including a Venti
Cafe Mocha from Starbucks with not one, but two extra espresso
shots, was not the most intelligent decision. After vomiting
around four times, I returned back to my room, and fainted into
my refrigerator, and woke up around 8:30 this morning laying in
a pile of tiny bottles of Welch's White Grape Juice. My mind
somewhat delirious and muttering strange words in German, I
crawled into my bed and deemed myself vanquished.
I apologize profusely for the lateness of my paper and my
failure to attend class. I essentially suck at life lately. I
promise that you will have the paper either in your mailbox
tomorrow, or in your hands on Wed., and it will be amazing and
brilliant.
I really am truly sorry and such disasters will hopefully not
occur again.
Sincerely,
Full Legal Name of Student (a nice touch, really)
So there you are. Burnt popcorn, you've been bested. Gauntlet's down.
<< Home