Man. All my HS graduation speaker did wrong was to quote Jethro Tull lyrics.
Incidentally, there is a w-lfs-n College at Cambridge University.
But she was being a little bitch for Christ. That's entirely different.
My high school valedictorian got up and told everyone how much she hated the place, and how ignorant everyone there was, and how hard she had to work to learn on her own, and how glad she was to leave.
2: True, Ben is seldom if ever a little bitch for Jesus.
Well, it might be better to hear someone give a speech that they actually believe in rather than a speech full of clichés and platitudes. I suspect that this girl was well known to be a self-righteous egomaniac, and anyone who was offended by this speech probably hated her already and wasn't expecting anything better.
The proselytizing mentality (i.e. that condescendingly insulting everyone in a room and making everywhere you go a more awkward place is fully worth it if you can guilt just one person into not going to hell) is always interesting.
speech that they actually believe in rather than a speech full of clichés and platitudes
Not mutually exclusive options there.
Oh my, I would have been furious if I'd had to listen to someone preach Jesus to me at my graduation. Having sat through several commencements, and thus valedictorian speeches, during grad school at an institution where the students are supposed to be both smart and well-socialized, I have to say that even when valedictorian speeches aren't bitchy or stupid, they're still hard to sit through. Perhaps this is a tradition that should pass.
I would have been furious if I'd had to listen to someone preach Jesus to me at my graduation
The odds of me getting up and walking out would have been very, very high. Especially in high school.
You cannot tell me that every student didnt see it coming from her. I cannot imagine that she didnt spend her High School days preaching to her fellow students.
"Jesus! Ms. God-Girl is giving the speech. Great!"
We were always too busy trying to figure out what, if anything, the girls were wearing under the gowns to hear any of the speeches. Doesn't that work for teh gays? (And is there some kind of law that requires high temp and humidity on graduation day?)
The proselytizing mentality... making everywhere you go a more awkward place
The self-centeredness of this really annoys me, which is why I've only just barely been able to restrain myself from engaging with god-botherers who preach on the subway. Jesus was not noted for taking advantage of captive audiences, if I recall from Sunday school.
(I realize that mixing it up with loonies on the subway is not a good policy, but damn, why do they always have to holler like that?)
11: is there some kind of law that requires high temp and humidity on graduation day?
Yes.
I actually don't remember most of my high school graduation at all - I think there was some beach-ball bouncing among the crowd - and it's perfectly reasonable to assume that it's because I was concentating on what was under some dude's gown. Although, in my day, teh gays were far too repressed to discuss it among themselves.
My high school valedictorian got up and told everyone how much she hated the place, and how ignorant everyone there was, and how hard she had to work to learn on her own, and how glad she was to leave.
Woo! "Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the cross-hairs. And take them down."
12 -- I usually get a bit of a vicarious thrill of enthusiasm from the subterranean God-botherers. They've found something they can really throw themselves into and live fully, and that seems great to me -- maybe I will get to hear some interesting oratorical composition and/or craziness. There is of course the odd subway preacher who does not seem really into it, just going through the motions.
How could you be upset about this. THese people just had four years of intensive training in tuning out people speaking to them.
My high school graduation was the last one I went to, and that was probably a mistake. I skipped college graduation to go backpacking with a couple of friends. That was the best one. Law school I missed because the stupid quarter system made graduation so late that I had to get my ass over here and get started on bar review.
The principal of w-lfs-n ... said that he would not characterize Spaulding as acting dishonorable or deceitful.
I should hope not, unless functional illiteracy is required of Principals in Florida.
Heh- It was worth it just to watch the school board get their knickers in a twist. As mentioned above, she didn't find the Lord when she was made valedictorian, so what did they expect?
Besides, the Lord was the one who made her the valedictorian. He must have wanted her to do it.
15: Mostly I find them entertaining -- there's a Spanish speaking guy who used to preach on the downtown A during my morning commute with a voice that could shatter glass. Not that it was terribly high pitched, but incredibly loud and grating. Him I hated -- it was almost painful to listen to him. Haven't seen him for a while though.
True, it may be that she had a deal with the Lord, that if he made her the valedictorian she would give this speech.
If she had become merely salutatorian she might have given a speech renouncing the treacheries of the god she used to trust and pray to, and instead hailing Wotan, Satan or both.
Wait, "condescendingly insulting everyone in a room and making everywhere you go a more awkward place " is a bad thing?
"True, it may be that she had a deal with the Lord, that if he made her the valedictorian she would give this speech."
Dear Lord, Please Let Me Beat Ogged in kicking. If you do, I will not ask for anything else this week.
I'm hoping her valedictory speech included the line, "You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!"
23: right, i thought that *was* how life was imitating unfogged.
11: (And is there some kind of law that requires high temp and humidity on graduation day?)
My high school graduation was so humid that it was interrupted. It was held on the soccer field as planned, despite fears of rain. However, during the ceremony, the bright sunny skies clouded over and the breeze became a stiff wind in our faces. As we were sitting on the risers -- in fact, just after the speeches, just as the first or second graduate's name was called -- this wall of rain became visible a few miles in the distance. Everyone literally ran for their cars and most of us managed to make it to them before it started pouring.
The odds of me getting up and walking out would have been very, very high. Especially in high school.
Oh, man, definitely. I was at my self-righteous-est in high school.
You know, I went to a Catholic high school and don't recall anyone nattering on about god during commencement.
That said, with the w-lfs-n thing, I completely expected her to have been bitchy in the way comment 3 describes. The Jesus thing totally threw me.
The one graduation I *do* remember, from grad school, was held outside on a brutally hot and humid June day. I was all done up in my dark robes w/ my melon cooking inside my dumb floppy hat; my parents were somewhere way back on the green with all the other parents & grandparents sitting as still as possible trying to avoid heatstroke. A little while after I did my walk on stage and got back down to the front row where all the PhD's were, anticipating an endless line of speeches yet to come, my cell phone rang; it was my father: "Hey, is it still hot out there? We're sitting here in [Irish Pub right next to campus] drinking cold beer! The A-C in this place is great!"
Although it took a moment to overcome my reluctance to stand up in front of the entire audience (front row, remember) right during the commencement ceremony and leave, I did join them shortly thereafter.
31: it's completely hypocritical for you, a practicing neuroscientist, to subject your brain to that kind of baking. You had no choice but to leave.
32 -- But he was not at that time yet a practicing neuroscientist.
Hmm. I'm kind of thinking calling this 18 year old kid a little bitch for talking about Jesus during her commencement speech more than a little harsh. I mean, yeah, a good portion of her audience surely didn't share her views. But then, to the extent I can even remember any of the commencement speeches I sat through, I seem to at least vaguely recall a bunch of them being filled with crap I found offensive or irritating.
And yeah, proselytizing to a captive audience is surely the least effective means of sharing your faith and I have less patience with grow-ups who take this tack. But at high school graduation, this is a kid who still has alot to learn about making friends and influencing people. She talked about something she cares passionately about -- a good thing. She forgot the cardinal rule of considering her audience -- a bad thing. I don't see why it's such a big deal either. Anyone who didn't care for her speech was free to just ignore her and talk to their neighbor (or text message their buddies) while ignoring the speech, just like you're supposed to do at pretty much every commencement speech.
(Ugh. I have even less, less patience with my typing/proofreading skills.)
32: Yes, I'm glad you appreciate the dilemma I faced. And despite the neurotoxic threat posed by the ethanol in the ice-cold beer, it was the fastest way to lower my core body temperature, and as such, downing that pint was the only responsible thing to do. I hope that my choices can serve as an example to all for how to treat that wonder of nature inside us all, the human brain.
33: I was then and am now a practicing neuroscientist, and will continue to be so until I can get all the way through without a mistake, at least once.
37 -- Oh, my mistake. I thought besides getting your degree, you had to be admitted to the bar and find employment with a neuroscience firm before you were considered a practicing neuroscientist.
38: cerebrocrat can speak for herself (himself?), but I interpreted 37 to be a mild witticism playing on a dual meaning of "practice." You assumed that "practicing" means "a certified professional in field X". She, apparently, was using it in the sense of "I'm still practicing, I haven't quite got it yet!"
Yes, and then 38 was a further joke. Let us all HA together!
And cerebrocrat has a Y chromosome.
I don't understand 39. If you're graduating from grad school in neuroscience, you've already been a practicing neuroscientist for several years.
Oh, I guess it was pretty mild. Clownae, on the other hand, achieved a somewhat spicier witticism with the suggestion that I could possibly have the kind of political connections it takes to get into one of the blue-chip downtown neuroscience firms these days. You gotta know somebody, but once you're in, you've got it made.
43: yeah, but BigBrain will really work you to death.
41: Oh, just one, you think? Have you SEEN my EYEBROWS? Why do you think I get so aggressive with the subway preachers?
44: I hear that half those guys are burned out before 40.
"Have you SEEN my EYEBROWS?"
By far the strangest thing I've read on unfogged.
46: I hear lots of them drop out of society and have second careers as professional boxers.
Do neuroscientists pad their billable hours?
A friend of made small talk with his lawyer on the phone once and found that 10 minutes cost him $30 or so.
Have you SEEN my EYEBROWS?
Cerebrocrat has to ask because he can't see them due to his enormous hand-stretched eyelids.
50: oh, yeah. Sure, they say they're investigating fundamental questions of human cognition, but really they're just smoking weed and watching "Mindwalk."
I'm kind of thinking calling this 18 year old kid a little bitch [...] more than a little harsh
I only used that term because she attended w-lfs-n High School, DK.
52: Wait... do you work in my building? And 48 can't possibly be true.
w-lfs-n High, home of the Little Bitches.
Gimmie a W!
Gimmie an M!
Gimmie a Y!
Gimmie a B!
Gimmie an S!
Gimmie an A!
Gimmie an L!
Gimmie a B!
Yayyyyyy Bitches!
My little private high school did not have valedictorians or speakers; instead each student had to pick 1-2 teachers. to "graduate them". Then, in a random order, those 1-2 teachers would come up and do *something* for two minutes in that student's honor. You never knew exactly what they would do. Some teachers always gave eloquent speeches in tribute, others told funny stories. Mine did a skit about how disorganized I was. It was totally hilarious and everyone--including me--fell off their chairs laughing, but it made me a little sad eventually. It was very unboring graduation, though. (We also got to wear whatever the hell we wanted.)
My college graduation was rather political.
I was coming down off a sweet, sweet MDMA high at my college graduation. Top honors in my department, bitches!
Fred Phelps protested UNC as an institute of sodomites, etc., the morning of my (eventual) graduation. I showed up in a robe that had been passed from one friend to another through several years and bore large stains of an unidentified nature. When a woman a few seats ahead of us threw off her robe to reveal her Carolina Blue bikini and held up a beer, KJ shouted, "I bet your grandmother's so proud!" It was dull and I was not nearly drunk enough because I had to go to work that afternoon.
I don't think I've been to any of my graduations since junior high. I'd have to check with my mom to be sure.
"Fred Phelps protested UNC as an institute of sodomites, etc."
Well, was he wrong?
I've only had one actual degree-granting graduation. It was fine, but the class before mine had Conan O'Brian as commencement speaker, so I felt a little gyped.
60: Heavens no. At the bicentennial of UNC the glbtq student group on campus had t-shirts that read "200 YEARS OF QUEERS." I'm sure I still have mine someplace.
61: Long-time friend and partner in crime. She comments here from time to time, actually.
You people who don't go to your graduations are such snots.
I've certainly been to all of mine. Family pictures, etc.
I began my high school commencement address by saying that I'd gotten up that morning intending to ask all the assembled for an extension. I instantly knew where all my teachers were, because I could identify the knowing laughter.
I am a snot, but there's something awfully annoying in not attending graduations. If you're travelling or whatever and can't, fine; but if it's just one of those "oh, it's a silly meaningless celebration" or it's too inconvenient or whatever things, that's just insufferable. We plebes are *proud* of our degrees, dammit.
What does pride in your degree have to do with sitting through a graduation ceremony?
Also, is someone keeping a list of B's peeves?
Do they strike you as unpredictable and idiosyncratic? Seem coherent to me, even though I embody a bunch of them.
69: Funny thing is, I wrote it that morning.
70 gets it right. At my college graduation ceremony nobody's name was read out loud except certain doctoral programs, nobody received a diploma, and nobody's parents could see where they were in the crowd. Why bother?
Do they strike you as unpredictable and idiosyncratic?
To some degree, but it's mostly just that there are rather a lot of them.
I can't help it that the rest of you are acquiescent lackeys.
Why bother?
It's a formal rite of passage, for chrissake.
77: Which is exactly what some of us aren't particularly into, and which has nothing to do with the accomplishment of earning the degree.
My mom informs me that I did attend my high school graduation. I think it wasn't coming to me because y'all are making them sound so dreary but mine was totally awesome.
bitchphd is animated by the idea that opting out of formalities is principally a way for the bourgeois to flaunt their bourgeoisie.
There does seem to be a deep-seated impulse to subvert graduation ceremonies particularly; at least the solemnity of them. At our local elementary school graduations, the parents often scream, hoot and holler. The fact there are so many graduations—my parents were amazed at the seriousness and pomposity of American school graduations—probably contributes to this.
Blog comments play to my strengths. B would murder me on screen.
It's just part of the grand American project of defining who you are by the way you advertise yourself to others.
If I ever do manage to graduate college, I am not only going to my graduation, I am going to dress to the nines and take it absolutely dead seriously, acting as pompous and full of myself as I can. Because, damn it, you know?
Lowering expectations: savvy.
And to the casual observer, indistinguishable from my habitual self-deprecation. In short, I'm a genius.
Just not at bloggingheads, you see.
cebrocrat is a neuroscientist?
Cool.
Please stop my daughter's seizures and fix her autism. Thanks in advance.
B., you're middle class. Pretty much everyone here is middle class. Come off it.
Embourgeoised if you do, embourgeoised if you don't. Say "la vee."
62 -- "gypped" has two p's, and is furthermore pejorative. Racist.
(the proper term is "Rom'd".)
96--true, but "gyped" has only one "p" and is totally non-pejorative, baby killer.
96: I bet you're one of those gypsy bastards in disguise, aren't you?
I would use "fleeced," but I wouldn't want to offend sheep.
87 is very well-phrased. Is the reference to Mailer intentional?
At one of my high school's graduations - either mine or the one the year before - one of the student speakers announced he was joining the priesthood. He did not try to convert anyone. I don't think this was the speech he gave at the audition (which was open to any graduate: no elitist valediction for us!).
102 -- 'd he go through with it?
101: Never read any Mailer. One of many holes in my education that I need to fill one of these days. To what was I ignorantly alluding?
I want to say we had a bearded rabbi give everyone a happy, nondenominational benediction, but now I can't remember if that happened in real life or just in a law school hypo.
105: Advertisements for Myself. Book of autobiographical essays.
92: Actually I'm currently part of the educated upper middle class. Nonetheless, the affectation of skipping graduation ceremonies annoys me.
(Oh and: Mailer is mostly quite skippable. The Executioner's Song is really good though.)
108 -- it's really hard for me to see how this counts as an "affectation". If somebody (like say, me) just doesn't get any charge out of a graduation ceremony, what's the point in attending?
I think of it as mark of respect to the institution you thought well enough to attend and meet the requirements of. A social, in the sense of community, obligation.
And given how ambivalent people are about just that, the throwing-off of clothes and hooting are comprehensible as rejections of the community. Very American, in the sense of Usan, as Frank Lloyd Wright thought to name our citizenship.
I dunno, the hooting and all that bugs me too, but I don't think they're rejections of community--I think that's mostly a class-based distinction in modes of celebration.
I don't care if people go or not. I care about the attitude that one is well-educated but/and can't be bothered to attend the ceremonies that are traditionally used to mark that education as an achievement. I can't help but see not going as basically an expression that one's graduation is a matter of course, and I find that attitude offensive.
112: What if someone chooses to celebrate the achievement another way?
I don't care if people go or not...I can't help but see not going as basically an expression...I find that attitude offensive.
Does not compute...
an expression that one's graduation is a matter of course
But it is a matter of course unless personal problems get in the way. It's all laid out, you read the books, you write the papers, you solve the equations, and finally you bite off a little piece of the frontier and chew on it until your committee says it's been drooled on enough and you're a Ph.D.
114 gets it exactly right. B, sometimes other people's preferences are just preferences, not affectations. I'm not big on ceremonies of any sort, particularly if I'm supposed to be a/the guest of honor. That's not because I'm trying to show off that I'm above such things, it's just because I don't particularly like ceremonies. Why must that be interpreted as a calculated insult to folks who do care about such things? And weren't you one of the people who was not big on fancy weddings? Same general idea, isn't it?
116: I'm not big on fancy weddings, but that doesn't mean that I don't think *some* kind of ceremony is called for. The big problem with fancy weddings is that they're tacky and override the ceremony (imho).
Look, it's the same as the last name issue. I don't care what people do, but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on the subject, what decisions mean, and what I think of people's decisions, even if at the same time I realize perfectly that it's none of my goddamn business.
You like venting, in other words.
You eel, B, you were decrying the "attitude," not the action, and people are saying that that attitude isn't necessarily behind the action.
When I get married, I'm going to schedule the wedding to coincide with a graduation, skip both ceremonies, and attend the reception in jeans and fleece - the only proper attire for listening to the opera performance I've arranged in place of a band - after which my wife will change her last name to mine.
Well, I'm glad I got talked out of skipping my graduation, even though I had no family in the area and few friends at the school. It took a while to attune myself to the idea of going for me, and not for anyone else, but once I did it was a lot of fun.
And I got my picture in the paper because I didn't wear shoes.
119: I'm not sure that's right. I think she's saying that it's open to interpretation, she interprets it in a certain way, and usually we behave in ways that at least take account of other people's possible interpretations.
120 nearly made me hork up my yogurt.
but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on the subject, what decisions mean
What ogged said. How is it that you're able to discern the One True Meaning that belies all of our various rationalizations for skipping graduations?
If I ever graduate from anything, I would have to attend the confirmation-equivalent. Blowing it off would assume that it is all about me, which it isn't.
The flip side to b's mantra that intention is nothing is that imputation is everything.
118: Yeah, newsflash.
119: Then there's no reason for people to get all insulted, is there?
126: Or at least that imputation makes the world go round.
in the world of mutated imps, it does.
in other words, this world.
cry, yogurt hork, cry
I've heard that sometimes imputees still feel their intended meanings.
Blowing off graduation is nothing; blowing off graduating altogether is where it's at. Emerson used to be with me on this, but I vaguely remember that he eventually went back to school.
"Yogurt hork" is a fantastic euphenism. If it were easier to say, I'd be all over that.
Thank you, 115. Though I wouldn't go so far as to assume that PhDs are a given, every other graduation up to that point really is a matter of course. There's no way anyone remotely educated could argue otherwise about high school, even if they'd somehow argue for college as an accomplishment.
Unless someone is very proud of paying their way through college, not just passing it. That should be shouted to the high heavens.
re: 134
At my undergraduate university, a relatively high percentage of students don't get to take the final honours year, and graduate with a lower degree. On my 'masters' program, roughly 25% of the people in any given year failed.
So I don't think one can necessarily take graduation for granted (unless the UK and the US are very different in this respect).
even if they'd somehow argue for college as an accomplishment
Ah, the humanities...
117: The problem is, for most institutions, the only graduation ceremony offered is the equivalent of a big fancy wedding, not merely "some ceremony" to acknowledge the event. For the same reason you dislike big fancy weddings -- that they override the event -- alot of people dislike graduation ceremonies. Heck, you don't even get to spend the ceremony surrounded by the people who made the experience significant -- instead, you sit with the random collection of people near you in the alphabet.
I went to all of mine, mostly because it was important and exciting to my mom to have that moment where I walked across the stage, shook some guy's hand, and accepted the thing they give you in lieu of the real diploma at such events. I doubt anyone at my college or law school would have seriously missed my presence had I chosen to skip it.
I cannot find any flaws in BPhD's reasoning, however, the fact that her conclusion is that it is a good idea to sit sweating in a fucking hall for three hours surrounded by arseholes dressed up funny, listening to boring speeches, is clearly a reductio ad absurdum and so there must be at least one error of fact or logic that has led to it. Wake me up when you work out what it is.
135: There are plenty of people in the US who bogged down in the replacement for Limbo called "All but thesis". Having watched a few of those, I'd class it as personal problems rather then suddenly finding out their intellect isn't capable of handing the work. It's lack of organization and motivation, it's the angst over some relationship, or whatever, that does them in when they're working mostly alone.
I submit that the conflict lies in the tension between: (1) B's wholly reasonable expression of the idea that graduation is a significant life event that, like marriage or birth or death, calls for ceremony, for public recognition, for pomp and circumstance as it were, lest the genuine accomplishment be reduced to mundane triviality, to a taking for granted by the privileged of something that isn't taken for granted by a large segment of grads and ought not be taken for granted, and (2) the expression of many that "sweating in a fucking hall for three hours surrounded by arseholes dressed up funny, listening to boring speeches" is a truly unsatisfying means of publicly recognizing that accomplishment.
The whole dressing up funny bit seems in line with the sense of these ceremonies as an induction of new initiates into an exclusive society, of education as defining a new elite rather than of education opening doors to greater community. To that end, the hooting of relatives and goofy antics of grads cartwheeling across the stage as they collect their papers, disrupting the tedious decorum of it all, is a step forward, in my mind. Foregoing the gratuitous dry speeches would be better still.
pomp and circumstance as it were
Some, music is pompous
Some, music is dull;
...
(2) the expression of many that "sweating in a fucking hall for three hours surrounded by arseholes dressed up funny, listening to boring speeches" is a truly unsatisfying means of publicly recognizing that accomplishment.
Mmm. I'm with B on it being kind of lousy to skip graduations as a matter of respect to your classmates -- even if it's no big deal to you, it may be to them, and leaving the ceremony to the chumps who think they've accomplished something while the rest of us have something more important to do skip it seems snotty to me.
On the other hand, my god they're dull. For law school graduation I was about 4000 months pregnant, and the temperature in the auditorium was about 4000°C; no one said anything interesting; and as an impressive or beautiful ceremony, it failed completely. I didn't skip it, but I kind of wish I had, and my parents still give me a hard time occassionally about their having felt obliged to show up.
135: It is quite different, there was a far higher flunk-out rate at my UK undergrad than I've seen at any American school. Admittedly, the burn-out rates were pretty comparable, but typically those were due to aforementioned personal problems or the struggling person just jumped to another major or school and finished out their degree.
Also, the honours year is a big deal that doesn't exist in the US. The people from my subject who went on to do the fourth year certificate were all from the top half of the class and competing against a lot of top European and North American math students for a PhD spot, which is a hell of an accomplishment. But getting a plain ol' degree is still about as difficult as sitting through the graduation ceremony.
Has Newt shown any signs of trauma? A diploma shaped birthmark, perhaps?
My school, Reed College, took pride in flunking out or sweating out half its freshmen, including me and Jesus. I left with about a B-minus GPA, which isn't that bad at Reed (no one ever gets a four-point) but would have kept me out of grad school, and because of incompletes and changes of major, I would have required a painful extra year to graduate.
One guy made it into his senior year with a four-point but flamed out on amphetamines. It was a horrible story and he ended up dying of an overdose.
S/B "Jesus and me", out of respect.
144: It was Sally, and I blame graduation and the bar exam for traumatizing her to the point where she refused to assume proper birthing position, and entered the world butt first, peeing on the doctor.
To me, the habit of people to apply a consumer mentality to social obligations—It's boring! I'm outa here!—the tendency of institutions to lay on pretentious and pompous ceremonies without seriously considering the attendees and institution as a whole, or the virtue of simple dignity, and the propensity of people like our w-lfs-n girl to hijack such ceremonies as we do have for their own, obviously superior purposes are all aspects of the same phenomenon, and reflect the same decay of social sense.
As an individual, I put up with pompous graduations, just as I do vulgar weddings, hating them just as much if not more than anyone here, but feeling flight is not the answer. Knowing how bad it can get means I do appreciate when these things are done better. One of my graduations, and many weddings I've been to have had an extra poignancy because the planners have shown obvious care for the experience of everyone, not just the central figures.
145 will be the title of Emerson's conversion memoir.
IDP has just provided his answer to a question I was about to pose: How does the Unfoggedtariat feel about not attending a friend's weddings, on the grounds that it will be a Catholic wedding with a full mass, and thus long and tedious?
I am confronted with this dilemma this coming September.
I'm also confronted with the dilemma of whether to attend the bachelor party, which will probably be held at a strip club.
Maybe I can arrange to be hospitalized that week.
146: My daughter likewise attended the bar exam in utero. I blame it (and BARBRI) for her argumentative nature, which would be quite nearly adorable if she weren't so much smarter than me and didn't tend to beat me in most arguments...
There's no way anyone remotely educated could argue otherwise about high school, even if they'd somehow argue for college as an accomplishment.
I'm an educated person, and I know plenty of people for whom high school graduation was a hell of an accomplishment.
For the same reason you dislike big fancy weddings -- that they override the event -- alot of people dislike graduation ceremonies.
Agreed. Most h.s. graduations, however, aren't *that* huge. College, it depends; I couldn't believe how enormous the graduation was for my state U. Ph.D., and yeah, it sucked that the undergrads and MA students didn't even get their names mentioned. OTOH, Madeline Albright was the speaker. At my undergrad institution, they intelligently divided up the graduating class into colleges, and they each graduated separately, which meant yes, we all got to parade across the stage individually.
In any case, I'm all for making graduation ceremonies more meaningful and reasonable; skipping 'em altogether isn't the way to do that.
My daughter was born in March of my 3rd year of Law School. My wife returned to work and I watched my daughter full-time while I studied for the bar. hahahahahhaha Fun times.
Neil: Reed has grades, but until you graduate, they don't tell you what they are. Except for the Fs.
The guy with a supposed 4-point was subject to heavy gossip from unknown but perhaps-reliable sources.
151: Heh. Did you end up sitting in the pregnant lady row next to the bathrooms? I requested a seat near the bathrooms, for obvious reasons, and found myself in a row of six or seven other enormously pregnant women who'd done the same, and one confused and frightened young man who looked really bothered by being surrounded by surrealism when he was just trying to take the bar.
150: Tough call. Do you have to travel for the thing? If not, I'd say you should at least go to the wedding, assuming the friend is a good friend and someone you actually care about, as opposed to a casual work friend or something like that. Which come to think of it is obviously the case, what with you being invited to the horrific bachelor party.
Strip club followed by Catholic mass. I'm trying to think of an appropriate comment.
But Will, at that age you just break out your bestest daddy voice for: "And then the majority held that you have no remedy unless you find out about discriminatory practices within 180 days. Yes it did, meanie weanie majority! And Justice Ginsburg was very angry." And so on through the rule against perpetuities.
To do list: Skip as many graduation ceremonies as possible. Go to the opera wearing dirty work clothes. Tell a mother that she's raising her kid wrong.
There have got to be a few more B-isms to flout. I won't go so far as to picket abortion clinics.
for obvious reasons
...to make it easier to do lines of blow, in order to bring yourself back to top test-taking condition when you start getting tired?
155: I don't specifically recall requesting such a seat, but I did have one. And made many, many trips -- feeling excessively self-conscious the entire time that people would think I was trying to cheat or something.
Also, blaming the pregnancy hormones for my answer to question 3c on the essay portion of the exam...
157 reminds me of my advisor's confusion when I told him I was going to take a couple months off from working on my diss after PK was born: "but babies are easy, you just write while they sleep."
I can't remember if my response was "your wife* did all the childcare, didn't she?"
*Who was a professor in another department.
Di Kotimy:
She heard about the Rule Against Perpetuities frequently.
and ficticious payees...god, I hated Negotiable Instruments!
When I speak up at weddings when they say "speak now, or forever hold your peace", I'm not doing it for B, of course. I'm doing it for everyone.
158: lecture a woman on feminism and the unhealthfulness of avocados while thinking badly of people in open relationships.
Negotiable Instruments -- coincidentally the subject of question 3c on the essay portion of the exam. Which I pondered laboriously for about 5 minutes before finally writing "I don't know," and heading back to the ladies room. (I figured it may not have been the answer they were looking for, but at least it was indisputably correct.)
If a lawyer passes his bar exam on drugs, do they put an asterisk on his degree? Will it keep him out of the Hall of Fame? What if a lawyer on drugs wins a Supreme Court case? If he's caught, does he lose his case? If so, is it retroactive? For example, suppose the Roe vs. Wade lawyer was fried. Does abortion become illegal?
158: Extoll the virtues of that other, nearby society; express wonder that anyone lucky enough to live and work in such a paradise would not be eternally grateful, in a modest, self-deprecatory way.
Heh. I had one question that was plainly asking for some specific statutory provision from some NY corporate governance statute that I couldn't remember ever having seen, so I waffled for four pages about "The principles of equity underlying our Anglo-American system of law." I'd love to have gotten it back to see if I got any credit for all that writing, given that I just didn't know the answer, or whether I'd have been better off saving the time and writing "Beats me."
Di Kotimy:
You are a Virginia lawyer?
I actually woke up in the middle of the night before the Bar to look up the ficticious payee question. By a stroke of luck, it was on the exam.
No, never even been to Virginia. But Negotiable Instruments were a surprisingly large proportion of my essay exam. Disturbingly so for someone who eschewed all that financial type stuff during law school.
I didnt take the class, so I had to do major cramming.
169: I went with the "beats me" option, figuring if I wound up failing the thing, I'd just blame the baby.
I knew people who took a law school class in negotiable instruments just because it'd be on the bar exam. I figured the BarBri summary would give me better preparation and don't feel I had any problems.
Just a couple of years ago I revised a volume on the UCC section that covers the subject, and found it was all coming back to me.
173:
Me too! Everyone kept talking about spending massive amounts of time studying. I was taking care of a kid. That was my excuse. Fortunately, I passed.
Heh. I actually had a little conversation with HR at the firm that had hired me, asking if they minded if I flunked the bar, given that there was a fair shot I might go into labor during. They were very relaxed about it.
My college graduation was a lot of fun, though it was very cold.
Harvard has its major class reunions before Commencement, and the Thursday is scheduled so that the official commencement with the awarding of degrees is in the morning.
The Commencement speaker actually addresses the annual meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association in the afternoon into which all the newly-minted graduates have been initiated. I graduated in 1997, and Secretary Albright was our speaker, 50 years after George Marshall. The members of the Class of '47, who had heard Marshall describe his plan for Europe at their own Commemcement, were there for their reunions, and it was incredibly moving to be there all together.
168: From a distance, I can now say that there are some things about Canada that don't suck.
Here's another maxim to flout: don't wear sandals to a rodeo.
it being kind of lousy to skip graduations as a matter of respect to your classmates
don't even get me started on those fuckers
Wait- I thought most of the Unfogged were higher edumacted. If you skip the ceremony, when do you get your kewl hoods?
177 -- Albright must have had a little cottage-industry going, sometime in the late '90s, of speaking at college commencements. I wonder if you could use the US News and World Report university rankings for the institutions at which people give the commencement addresses as a kind of Q-rating for public intellectuals and high-level government functionaries.
In college I was surrounded by people for whom getting through college in graduation was not a big achievement. If their parents thought the commencement ceremony was a big deal, they went to the commencement ceremony. If their parents didn't want to travel to the ceremony, they saved the $40 on the ridiculous outfit and didn't go.
Most of my friends' parents didn't even come into the college city for the graduation, seeing it as incredibly inconvenient compared to having a family celebration back home. I went, because my family wanted to come. I didn't get my name read out loud, I didn't go up on stage, I sat in the audience surrounded by people I didn't know, my parents could only see me if I called them on a cell phone and explained my exact location in the crowd while waving, and the commencement speaker was literally laughably inaudible. After the ceremony I and several hundred other graduates were not told where to go and went marching through the bowels of the giant sports facility until we found a random exit to a loading dock. I got my diploma in the mail a month later like everyone else.
It was a good ceremony to go through, but only because I knew my family was also there.
178: I may have done that. There's a rodeo arena half a mile from my home, and I went there once during the sandal-wearing time of year.
I wonder if you could use the US News and World Report university rankings for the institutions at which people give the commencement addresses as a kind of Q-rating for public intellectuals and high-level government functionaries.
That makes sense, given this year's speaker at the sixth- or seventh-most prestigious Pittsburgh-area college.
Most of my friends' parents didn't even come into the college city for the graduation, seeing it as incredibly inconvenient
I have a new idea: anyone whose parents can't be bothered to show up for graduation doesn't get to graduate. I think this would go a long way towards equalizing the American educational system.
184 -- still seems a bit classy for the man. My idea needs work, unless he decides to cancel and reschedules for a community college somewhere.
185: What the hell are you talking about?
187: I'm saying, let's graduate the kids for whom graduation's a big deal instead of the ones who are all "yawn, let's have a garden party at the summer home instead."
187 -- She's biased against children of working single mothers.
Next lesson: B. explains why women who don't wear high heels are basically Nazis.
187 -- also, no parents of twins. Those little bastards are twice the drain on society that a single child would be.
189: I'm willing to bet that most working single moms manage to get to their kids' graduations. In fact I was going to say, "as opposed to those who genuinely can't afford to attend graduation," and then I thought about it and couldn't come up with a single first-generation college family I know who didn't manage to send a sizable contingent to graduation complete with airhorns.
185: might work in posh colleges where all the students are 22 and likely to have parents. In, e.g. community colleges where the students may actually old enough for their parents to be dead, not so much. But screw them, they're just working people trying to get ahead.
Don't forget gender normed playthings for children, when not cross dressing them or allowing hippie haircuts.
Oh gawd. What frightens me is that I think you're half serious about that.
193: At CCs, it's okay to have your children attend instead of your parents.
I'm saying, let's graduate the kids for whom graduation's a big deal instead of the ones who are all "yawn, let's have a garden party at the summer home instead."
Because so many of the latter are in evidence.
Do you have an actual disagreement with anyone here?
I can't believe you people still let B bait you. After all these years!
I went to three garden parties after my own graduation. Those things are awesome.
185: So no one deserves a degree unless they're positively thrilled to get it? Geez. I'm with SCMT.
I would've been flayed alive if I'd even thought about dropping out of college. My dad is still somewhat tormented that I got a bad grade in my final year. For some of us, education is expected and not rewarded, get over it.
I'm sorry Ogged, it's just so hard to believe someone would be so cavalier and insincere about claiming to speak for the common man.
OK, B: coffee. Is cream and sugar OK? Which should be put in first? What kind of cream / milk / creamer is permissible?
203: Cream, although I'm trying to train myself to cut down to whole milk. My husband isn't helping much, b/c he keeps going out and buying half and half, the bastard.
202: Where did I claim that? I speak for myself.
Garden parties are fun. A friend threw me one after my PhD, and I was totally grateful.
Whole cream -- Milk tastes chalky. Put the sugar in first. Black coffee is for jihadists and the Phelps family.
He has an unmarried younger sister.
After my next graduation, I swear I'm going to go to like, thirty goddamn garden-parties.
A friend threw me one after my PhD, and I was totally grateful.
Congratulations.
208: I see I'm not the only one here with strong opinions. The problem with cream, y'see, is my stupid cholesterol. Goddamn doctors.
Q: What's worse than someone who buys half-and-half for your coffee?
A: Two identical people who buy half-and-half for your coffee.
What is a garden party anyway? Is it something only rich people do?
(those are two different but semi-overlapping questions)
What is a garden party anyway? Is it something only rich people do?
(those are two different but semi-overlapping questions)
A garden party *at the summer home* is something only rich people do.
214/5: Yes. Gardens are something rich people have, and therefore parties in them are something that rich people do.
My piece de resistance (accents grave + acute) will be wearing white socks with sandals at a rodeo instead of going to my son's graduation.
You people all skipped your graduations, didn't you?
Those who fear death never really experience coffee.
B., the graduation was outdoors right in front of the place where I lived. I not only skipped it, I walked past and taunted the graduates and their families.
I see I'm not the only one here with strong opinions.
But comrade, you are the only one trolling.
my stupid cholesterol
Dude. Duuude. Dude. Don't you ever try to claim that rigorous walking your kid to school and blogging from the couch regimen makes you perfectly fit, thank you very much.
I'm looking for someone else to wear the humorless crown for a while, SB. It's been messing up my 'do.
216 elides a crucial distinction. Having 'a summer home' does not distinguish between rich people and not-rich people. Indeed, I have 'a summer home' and 'a winter home,' and I am not rich; for while those phrases may mean different things, they certainly refer (for me) to the same thing.
224: I never claimed it made me fit, just that I'm not fat. See? Yet another piece of evidence that weight is a poor proxy for health.
So by that logic...
Arthegall has a home for every day of the year! Such opulence!1 Kill the idle rich! Defenestrate the kulaks!
When I am king, some dude named Gottlob will be first against the wall.
Some people save rent by living outdoors during the nice weather. They are the true poor.
Arthegall is a bourgeois oppressor.
I'll tell you what. I'll throw a graduation party for all of you in my backyard by the koi pond, and we can cook on the built-in gas barbecue and pull champagne out of the backyard fridge.
Comity?
I'll tell you what. I'll throw a graduation party for all of you in my backyard by the koi carp pond, and we can cook on the built-in gas barbecue and pull champagne out of the backyard fridge.
Heebie's ass says she can't be there. Have fun without her.
Yet another piece of evidence that weight is a poor proxy for health.
Alternatively, I'm right and you're fat.
233: In either case, she's getting more than you are.
No comity, whether Emerson agrees or not!
The war between the garden-haves and the garden-have-notes has raged since the Dawn of Time. Fresh tomatos, and parents who don't show up for graduation.
It's sort of tragic to think of people blessed with non-relationship who want to rush back into the burning barn.
Ogged exemplifies the destructive male gaze - when a woman admits that she is thin but unhealthy, he prefers to insult her for being healthy but fat.
233: We both know that's not true.
A garden party is a yard party with lots of vegetables and flowers and shit in the yard besides just grass. Like a barbecue.
We have a garden here, but no garden parties.
237: He's just mad that I'm better at baiting you guys than he is.
Yeah, about the baiting. You can stop any time, thanks.
Seriously. For reals. Let the thread be about something other than you.
THESE THREADS ARE MICROCOSMS of what would happen if we literally had a "national conversation on" something. Hoo boy, you can damn well better believe there'd be a lot of baiting going on.
A thread should not be, but seem.
A thread should be seem and not heard.
Also, I love the 'would' in 242. It's refreshing.
I was actually serious about the graduation thing, but okay. Thanks for reminding me of my place, SB.
A thread should be seem and not heard.
s/seem/seam/
Standpipe should start a fact-explaining blog.
212: Get your thyroid checked. I suffered through skim milk for years before the doctor discovered my thyroid was off. Now it's heavy cream for me and perfectly healthy cholesterol scores.
Whoa, I just realized that "Di Kotimy" is a pun.
251 -- Yes, incredibly witty, doncha think?
The s/// substitution syntax is extinct. Its fire has gone out of the universe. You, w-lfs-n, are all that remains of their religion.
John Emerson: B., you're middle class. Pretty much everyone here is middle class. Come off it.
Where are you? Where are you? Talk to me like that. I'll kick your ass. I'll kick all of your asses.
252: Yes, now that I realize it isn't Russian.
208: Allah hates fags!
The only thing good about half-and-half is when you buy some for degenerate houseguests who can't take their coffee without adulterants, and then they show their gratitude by leaving most of the carton when they depart, it tastes reeeeeeeally good on your cereal as long as you can feel assured that no-one's watching.
(You all let this thread get a little thorny while I was gone, so presto: back to breakfast foods)
dsquared: I cannot find any flaws in BPhD's reasoning, however, the fact that her conclusion is that it is a good idea to sit sweating in a fucking hall for three hours surrounded by arseholes dressed up funny, listening to boring speeches, is clearly a reductio ad absurdum and so there must be at least one error of fact or logic that has led to it. Wake me up when you work out what it is.
Here I thought you had offspring. Am I going to have to travel all the way to Wales just to kick your ass too? Sheesh, Wales.
253 isn't even close to correct
re: 258
He's not actually in Wales.
257: "Di Kotimy" as in "dichotomy." See? I'm very clever!
bitchphd: I have a new idea: anyone whose parents can't be bothered to show up for graduation doesn't get to graduate. I think this would go a long way towards equalizing the American educational system.
But my father was blind drunk that day (it was a day) so you don't think he could have been arsed to attend my graduation now, do you? And if I hadn't graduated I couldn't have got a job, and if I didn't have a job I couldn't have moved out.
You arguing like this, it's not fair. I can't kick your ass, because you're a lady and that's just not done.
For the past numerous months I had been pronouncing it "Dee Koh-timmy", as if it was Russian or something. Possibly influenced by my brief stint using the screen name "Dvi Sroves".
"Dee Koh-timmy"
I could plausibly see somebody whose accent was different from mine pronouncing "dichotomy" this way. This is about how I had been pronouncing "Di Kotimy".
"Whoa, I just realized that "Di Kotimy" is a pun"
gross or skeezy?
Urban Definition:
3. pun
The anglosaxon definition is a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words. However, the legendary Big Punisher has created a byword expression which exclaims something that is gross, or inappropriate for a given moment, or just plain shzleezy.
"You mean you sat your rusty butt down on the toilet seat of a public restroom in Union Station without a toilet seat cover? "You nasty Pun." Response from said filth mongrel, "I don't care."
I like zis. I vill be adoptink a Russian persona from now on!
(And yes, my attempts at accents are even more hideous in person.)
The breakfast report: Two omelettes, the sick gfs without feta, both with onion grass freshly cut from the garden. Yerba Mate for her, coffee from the stovetop maker for me.
Any easy dinner party recipe suggestions? It's tomorrow night, so all prep will be between work and dinner. I'm in California, which makes vegetables easy, although I understand that the weather is California-ish in other parts of the country right now. Vegetarian, please; I eat fish as of recently but have not yet cooked it.
Leftover half-and-half makes omelettes great.
269 to 266, that is.
268 I am not liking one bit. I am neither gross nor skeezy, sir!
" I am not liking one bit. I am neither gross nor skeezy, sir!"
Well, that is a real Di Kotimy!
Fish is actually really easy to cook.
270 -- vegetarian barbecue? thick slices of eggplant, summer squach, tomato are easy to grill. Here is a nice potato salad recipe, which you would need however to prepare in the morning or tonight -- it is easy to make but requires several hours in the fridge to get to the proper consistency:
Dressing:
Did you take a position on graduation attendance, Jack?
Mmm, yum. Will clip for the archives; this is more of a sit-down thing, 4 couples, etc. And I own no grill, which should change.
257: Thanks for asking so I didn't have to.
276: see 57. But I was too pissed off to join in the debate.
276 -- what, she's not allowed to mouth off about fish preparation until she puts down her marker on the graduation debate?
I had superb grilled asparagus last weekend, good lord, so good. Plenty of olive oil was involved, I believe.
I'll go spelunking in my own vegetarian food blog archives for dinner ideas.
Toss the asparagus with some garlic and parmesan cheese and stick it under the broiler for a bit. Yum!
283, yum!
Maybe with a cheesy risotto...
Here's what I personally would do on a weeknight for 8 people, as long as the group wasn't too formal:
- Good cheese, crackers, and a jar of roasted piquillo peppers to start.
- A big, beautiful salad -- possibly two, one green and one caprese, if there are good tomatoes to be had.
- A couple of big frittatas or gratins. This is an excellent frittata with zucchini and ricotta, really good even iif you aren't particularly fond of zucchini, or this buttermilk and sorrel one. You could even make one of each.
- Plenty of good crusty bread.
- Purchased dessert.
Oops, here is the first frittata recipe.
Link for frittata #1? I'm liking this idea. Maybe stilton and port for dessert.
It's about ninety degrees out, but now I want to eat gratin. Damn you rts!
I'm making migas for Jammies for dinner tonight.
Another vegetarian option (which I've been eating for the last two weeks): delicious ratatouille! Or, along similar lines, soupe au pistou.
287:
mmmmm that sounds good. I might try that this weekend. Thanks.
Ok, Chefs, any good barramundi recipes? I tried cooking it last night with red peppers, capers, and olive oil. It just didnt work out well.
"Maybe stilton and port for dessert."
Excellent. What time should we arrive?
What kind of port will you be serving?
I've been on a Malbec wine stint for the last couple of weeks.
Bruschetta's nice, although I suppose that even in California, you don't have good tomatoes yet.
Thanks. Maybe manchego and honey, actually. I usually just buy the better port at Trader Joe's, 10 yr tawny something something. I already know enough about wine that I can't drink the TJ's $3.99 wines anymore, and I'm trying to keep from knowing enough about wine that I don't like the $5.99 wines. (The $4.99s are kind of a DMZ.)
These are good recipes for me, I'm kind of an egg man. RFS, are you the tiger in question?
We have adequate tomatoes, which are probably better than elsewhere, but the heirlooms haven't shown up at the farmer's markets yet.
Also, can I recommend the song "Snake Farm? My drummer played it on repeat last night to and fro The Arcade Fire. He got it on a free compilation.
Snake Farm
it just sounds nasty
Snake Farm
it pretty much is
Snake Farm
it's a reptile house
Snake Farm
uuubbbbbbb
I like the assiduous avoidance of metaphor. People, this song is just about a Snake Farm.
Oh god, I love ratatouille. In my experience, though, it's a dicey choice to serve a non-vegetarian crowd, b/c the stewed tomato thing can be a bit much for meat-and-potatoes types. (although, who wants lousy eaters for friends, anyway?)
The only meat-and-potato type I know these days is my father, for whom I believe it's to frustrating to cook.
Wrongshore:
That is the problem with starting to enjoy wines. It just gets more and more expensive. Soon, you are paying $12 a bottle?!?!?!??!!?
On a related note, I was recently at a gas station that sold 5 kinds of Mad Dog! Sweet!
5 kinds! Wow. ' Course it causes massive headaches.
Ratatouille rules. Anchovies make it rule even more.
299: Did they have a chart explaining that the Blackberry ripple complemented Slim Jims nicely?
So what exactly is a meat-and-potatoes guy? I take it to be someone who dislikes all variety in food and is hostile to anything new—like children.
Incidentally, these are my favored anchovies for cooking. The company's motto should be "Anchovies the way they were intended to taste."
I prefer the Alito anchovy filets.
303 -- Way to unfairly stereotype children! There are, in fact, children who enjoy a nice bit of epicurean adventure. (Mine, thank God.)
Ooo, anchovies! Good idea for snacky snacks. In the absence of children.
Shit, we have to be sensitive to fucking kids now? Their ignorant widdow kiddie-widdie feewings are hurt if we stereotype them?
I was just saying that not having children to eat, I would go with anchovies. Is that so sensitive?
309: My kid personally called Ogged an asshole for complaining about his hair, so, well, yeah.
My kids are excellent about trying new food. In Greece, my son tried anything put on his plate.
I recently made spicy Indian food for my kids. At first taste, she looked at me with a what-have-you-given-me look, but then decided that she liked it.
Bad hair is a stereotype, yes. Everyone thinks boys should have ugly buzz cuts.
we have to be sensitive to fucking kids now?
It's a little easier to fuck children if you're sensitive about it, yes. Of course, you might be a sadistic pedophile, in which case sensitivity would violate your sensibilities.
313: feed him any octopus?
314: or waist-length queues.
Compared with many I know, my kids, now teenagers, eat a wide variety of foods. But many times they will order precisely the same food they ordered last time, and the time before that. And at home will often refuse something new. Varying a takeout order, or trying a new place often means overcoming resistance or just refusing to be put off or settle for the same old.
As I've mentioned before, my daughters had haggis when they were not quite two, and liked it. It was way preferable to the crap that's marketed as food for children.
If you could get a toy with sushi at a drive-thru, my kid would be the happiest kid ever.
DK and I obviously have very similar children.
In a few more years, B, if PK likes girls and my girl likes boys, we can arrange their marriage and guarantee good food for the wedding reception.
Since she was about 4 my niece has had her birthdays at a sushi place. Octopus and flying fish eggs are her favorites. At first she jammed it into her mouth like French fries.
I'm glad my food suggestions were appealing, whether or not they wind up getting used. I am indeed the tiger in question. I love ratatouille, but it's not quite the season for it, plus it would be a bit much to make it between work and dinnertime. It's better at least a day after you make it, too.
re: 319
I've said before, haggis is genuinely nice food. Rich, spicy, really not that unhealthy (unless you deep fry it and serve it with curry sauce, Glasgow style). Veggie haggis is also good, if a bit dry.
When my Mum took my brother (aged about 11) to Eurodisney, and they spent a few days in Paris, he insisted on eating all the exotic food he could find -- fish stews with lots of tentacled bits, etc. He was really disappointed she wouldn't buy him frog's legs or snails. As already said, not all kids are culinary conservatives.
My wife's nieces and nephews eat whatever they get. The idea that they could refuse to eat something that the adults are eating because they are 'picky' would seem ridiculously indulgent.
327: Oh, yum! You are bringing back memories of the veggie haggis I was treated to years and years and years ago. A haggis, some good scotch, and a true scotswoman reciting Robert Burns poetry -- really, quite a treat for this American rube. (Just about everything sounds a little prettier when you lot are speaking -- but I think the accent thing was covered in another thread not long ago...)
Should you have a recipe for that veggie haggis that you'd care to post... Eventually I should probably try the carnivore version, too, I suppose. Now I'm hungry.
So it is decided that in the theatre version of Unfogged, we all have Scottish accents?
Nattar, will you please start training me?
re: 328
http://www.vegsoc.org/news/2001/burns.html
I've never tried it though, we just usually buy Macsweens -- either the meat version or the veggie version. Macsweens ship internationally, I believe.
re: 329
Repeat after me:
'hoo noo, broon coo'
'the rain, in spain, disnae'
"Repeat after me:
'hoo noo, broon coo'
'the rain, in spain, disnae'"
Shouldn't I be saying "fooker" somewhere in there?
Absolutely Will! When the Scots or the Irish use any variant of "fook", it sounds downright charming.
in the theatre version of Unfogged, we all have Scottish accents
Did you know that we USians now have a a Scot hosting late-night TV? He can be pretty funny (though: his delivery is suspiciously similar to Eddie Izzard's), and I took this news to be a sign of the more-cosmopolitan nature of Generation Awesome! and other people who are up at 1am.
333: A few months ago, ttaM said Ferguson's smoothed-out accent resembled his own at this point.
I'm not feeling the charm, because I was raised on and rejected the hokey No. Amer. version of it. A real people with a real life, to be sure, and no doubt I'd like it if I ever visited. But people wearing kilts in Chicago give me a pain.
I would probably qualify as "meat-and-potatoes" in that I could be perfectly happy eating nothing but a steak and a baked potato every night for the rest of my life. I'm not opposed to trying new food (my mother exclaims that it's insane I'll eat sushi but I hate cole slaw, as though I am a participant in an international conspiracy of culture treason; also, ttaM has made me desperate to try Glasgow-style haggis as I already love the normal kind) but there are bright lines I won't cross and most of my adventurousness is into what are ultimately variations on otherwise standard fare. I was an extremely picky eater as a child and into early adulthood.
I was pretty picky as a child. I always went for the lobster whenever I could. I hated American cheese.
Mostly, I was just insulted when people (not my parents) would serve me kid food while the grown-ups were eating something good.
Robyn Hitchcock, introducing "See Emily Play" at his Games for May concert last week (quote inexact and from memory): "There are times any man will wish he was Scottish, and one of those times is when introducing this song, I'd like to do it in a thick Scots burr, instead I'll just play the song:"
I was kind of astonished when my honey's two year-old half-sister collapsed into a tantrum because she couldn't eat our dinner of asparagus and fish. Kid, aren't you supposed to crave chicken nuggets and ice cream?
330: So, ttaM, are the neeps and tatties served separately or mashed together? And if the latter, do the proportions matter?
My sushi girl will happily eat chicken nuggets with fries off the kid menu -- unless she sees something like lobster or filet mignon on the grown-up menu. Note to self: introduce next child only to inexpensive, adventurous food.
I don't get picky-eaterism. The stakes are so low - you try something new/weird and if it's good, you have a new pleasure available for the rest of your life; if it's bad, you have one yucky mouthful to live through. The risk equation here would clearly seem to favor adventurism.
I also don't get kids-only-eat-chickenfingersism. (First of all, "chickenfingers" - gag). The obvious alternative would seem to be kids-eat-what-they're-served-or-go-to-bed-hungryism. As observed by someone who doesn't have kids, of course.
re: 339
I'm no neepo-normativist. Either is fine, and in whatever proportions you prefer. With butter and lots of black pepper.
re: 333
Re: Ferguson and Izzard. Ferguson was doing surreal standup about 10 years before Izzard appeared on the scene. So if there's anything suspicious about the similarity of delivery, you are looking in the wrong place.
re: 334
Yeah, I get annoyed at 'plastic jocks' as well.
The accent smoothing thing is kind of inevitable for anyone who i) has a fairly strong accent and ii) lives among people who don't share it, I think. I saw a video from Christmas '92 recently -- I really don't sound the same.
341: The one bite rule is useful here. You must take one bit of whatever new food is served. If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it -- just like I don't have to brussel sprouts if I don't want to. Whether or not this rule explains a kid who likes chicken feet as much as chicken fingers, I'm not sure. But at least she's learned the occassional one yucky mouthful risk ultimately pays off.
Ferguson was doing surreal standup about 10 years before Izzard appeared on the scene.
Oh. I had no idea (obviously).
re: 344
I first saw him on TV in Scotland in the mid 80s. There are, Wikipedia tells me, audio recordings around of him from that period -- much more splenetic and angry than anything he does now -- but I've not found them online.
e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_at_the_Core
Back on the veldt, refusing to eat anything but American cheese had survival value.
