School

A Daughter's Letter Home

Dear Mom and Dad,

It has now been three months since I left for college. I have been remiss in writing this and I am very sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. YOU ARE NOT TO READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU ARE SITTING DOWN. OKAY!

Well then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I…

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A Modest Essay

A Modest Essay 3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON? I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my…

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The Nature of Hell

A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate students. It had one question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof." Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to…

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The Tandem Story Assignment

This assignment was actually turned in by two English students:----------------------------------------------------------------Rebecca and Gary English 44ASMUCreative WritingProf Miller In-class Assignment for WednesdayToday we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story.

The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the personsitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then writethe…

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Dave Barry on College

Many of you young persons out there are seriously thinking about going to college. (That is, of course, a lie. The only things you young persons think seriously about are loud music and sex. Trust me: these are closely related to college.)

College is basically a bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly two thousand hours and try to memorize things. The two thousand hours are spread out over four years; you spend the…

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Letter Home From College

Dear Mother and Dad:

It has now been three months since I left for college. I have been remiss in writing this and I am very sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. YOU ARE NOT TO READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU ARE SITTING DOWN. OKAY!

Well then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when…

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Professor Bonk's Final

Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion years by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately known as "Bonkistry." He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it past him to come up with something like this. Anyway, one year there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going…

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Chocolate Fallus

My penis made me locally famous. I didn't find out about it until I got to the University. Before then my experience with women was non-existent. I'd been at a boys' school, and anyway I was pretty spotty. I couldn't believe when, all of a sudden, at the Freshman Ball, I was snuggling. I was even more amazed when we were in her room. We were both wasted. I didn't have a clue how to behave, I was terrified, but she…

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The First Principle

It is recounted that at King's College in the Strand around the time of the war, the Chief of Services would inevitably begin the year's rounds by teaching "a singularly important principle of medicine." He asked a nurse to fetch him a sample of urine. He then talked at length about diabetes mellitus. "Diabetes," he said, "is a Greek name; but the Romans noticed that the bees like the urine of diabetics, so they…

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