A relatively fun book cover design Creative Writing lesson (inspired by this rather annoying TED Talk) was nearly thwarted by a magic-marker-mystery . . . this morning I went to school dog-tired because last night, instead of sleeping, my wife endured what she described as "the worst pain I've ever felt"-- and she's pushed two children out of her vagina-- but this was some of sort of post-operative nerve pain in her foot and it just wracked her with monumental shooting, fiery agony-- so I didn't get much sleep either (and this sentence is going to reflect that) and when I went to grab my bin of markers and my bin of crayons, off the cabinet, so-- after perusing som excellent book covers and some downright awful book covers-- the kids could draw their own book covers for their current narratives-- to my dismay, my markers and crayons were missing!-- so I ran upstairs and asked the English teachers if they had seen them and I went down to the supply room but they were out of markers, so I borrowed some from Stacey-- and then I used my patented interrogation techniques on my first period class and my homeroom, to ascertain information-- but I highly doubted that a student would steal a bin of markers-- they'd have to carry it around the school!-- so I assumed it was a teacher, perhaps during detention-- and then when I went across the hall to ask the students in there if they had seen them, I saw both bins on the psychology teacher's desk, and I was like "my markers" and he was like "I wondered what these things were doing here" and his answer seemed very sincere-- and he's not the kind of guy to filch some markers without asking, he's as by-the-book as they come-- so while the mystery was half solved, there still some intrigue as to how the bins got across the hall-- janitors?-- who knows . . . I'm too tired to speculate.
My newest episode of We Defy Augury takes the most annoying book I read in 2023 and uses it as a lens to enhance the best book I read in 2023 . . . special guests include: Gandalf, Morpheus, George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld, Simon Sinek, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
You may have been tough enough to handle the cringeworthy antics of Larry David on Curb, but can you withstand the exponentially uncomfortable dynamics between Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, and Benny Safdie on The Curse . . . my advice is to give it a shot: my wife has bailed out, but I am hooked (and this is the first TV show I'm watching all by my lonesome since Saxondale).
Apparently, my wife likes her breakfast sausage slice in half longways . . . so she has two thin circular sausages with which to put on her egg-and-English-muffin sandwich.
Today a high school student in my friend's English class revealed the secret method he uses so that he doesn't get caught using AI to write his assignments: "I tell it to write like a seventh grader so it's not too smart."
I apologize for the hyperbolic title, but I'm truly at a loss for words . . . there are no words . . . but fuck it, I'll give it a shot: so let me begin at the beginning: last week, I ran into a spate of uncited AI writing submissions in ALL of the various high school classes I teach-- the same thing happened around the same time last year . . . kids are on good behavior at the beginning of the year, then they get lazy around winter break, then a few kids get zeroes for cheating, and then-- after seeing the consequences-- they shape up again for a few months-- then they get senioritis and fall apart again-- it's a wonderful cycle-- and while some of these uncited AI writing pieces were in my college-level writing classes, which is a serious academic integrity violation and requires all kinds of bullshit: phone-calls with parents; meetings with the students; emails and meetings with guidance counselors; academic integrity forms . . . it's a terrible and tragic timesuck (and both students and parents cry . . . which is both endearing and kind of funny) but I also got a couple of AI-written assignments in Creative Writing class . . . they were downright awful mock-epic stories-- which are supposed to be funny, but AI is NOT funny-- and with these kids I was more lenient-- Creative Writing is a relaxed elective class-- so I admonished them and told them to do the assignment again for half-credit . . . and one of the students who used AI was absent so I sent her a message explaining that I recognized her piece was AI (and so did Chat GPT Zero) and that she needed to rewrite it and this morning, I noticed a reply to my message in my Canvas Inbox and upon reading two or three sentences of this rather long apology for unethical use of AI to write her mock-epic, I noticed that her apology letter for using AI was definitely written by AI and that's when I felt my corporeal body being digitized and sucked into the metaverse-- and I let out a distorted, electronic scream . . . the very same distorted electronic scream that Neo let out when they were locating his corporeal body and he was being digitized and subsumed-- and then, just to make sure, I asked Chat GPT to write an apology note for using AI on an assignment and Chat GPT went right ahead and executed this task, without noting the hypocrisy and irony, and both the message sent by the student and the Chat GPT letter began with the same weird opening:
"I hope this email finds you well,"
and then the student-- or actually the AI, posing as the student-- expresses "deep regret" and then, and this is where I just need to show you the money-- and I should point out that I would normally never exhibit student work for entertainment purposes, that's just lowdown and mean . . . but this is NOT student work, it's written by AI and it's amazing-- and while the message was longer than this . . . because AI is incredibly bombastic and verbose if you don't give it very specific limits-- this is the heart of it and it's amazing:
Your guidance and support have been valuable, and I want to assure you that your message has resonated strongly with me I am committed to ensuring that our communication reflects the genuine connection and respect that our collaboration deserves. Please accept my heartfelt apology for any unintended oversight. I value our partnership and the trust you have placed in me. Rest assured that I am diligently working on the assignment and committed to re-submitting it no later than tonight. I am grateful for your patience, and I look forward to delivering a thoughtful and meaningful assignment.
If you live in New Jersey, today is not a good day to own a dog-- the rain is torrential and not letting up anytime soon-- but if you do own a dog and you need to step out for a while and leave your dog at home, then you might want to put on "Jon Glaser's Soothing Meditations for the Solitary Dog" so your dog can have a stress-free meditative rest while you are gone (actually, you'll probably want to listen to this brilliant piece of sonic art with your dog . . . but maybe don't listen with young children, as there's quite a bit of profanity).
Early this morning, before sunrise, my dog and I turned left down 2nd Ave for our usual constitutional to the park-- but we had to beat a hasty retreat because a pack of women was walking an even larger pack of dogs (some-- but not all-- of the women were walking two dogs) and I didn't want Lola to start barking maniacally at all these dogs in the early morning darkness-- no one wants to be woken up like that-- so I did the right thing, put the walk in reverse, and walked back up Second Avenue: back towards my house-- and I know the women saw me do this-- but then when they got to the intersection of 2nd and Valentine, they followed me instead going up to the next block and turning-- so I walked Lola up our driveway and had her sit behind the Mazda to wait until they passed and then one lady let her two dogs lead her onto my lawn and across my driveway, and I mumbled some passive aggressive stuff to Lola: You're such a good girl . . . I'm not sure why this lady is walking her dogs towards you when I obviously walked away from them to avoid a bunch of early morning barking-- she must be very stupid, unlike you, you're a good girl--and I don't really understand where this lady is going or if she knows what the fuck she's doing, but you're a good girl and if I see these ladies again maybe I'll be collected enough to tell them what's what with dog-walking-etiquette . . . or perhaps they will stumble on this post-- but when you see someone turn their dog away from your dog to avoid conflict, don't follow that person, and especially don't follow them and then walk onto their lawn and driveway with your dog, unless you want a bunch of early morning barking.
I walked out of my house the other night and there were four teenage vandals on my lawn, tampering with my wife's giant inflatable Christmas decoration (a snowman, penguin, striped pole, and holiday gift tableau) and so I yelled, "Hey, get off our lawn! Don't mess with that . . . it's the holidays for Christ's sake" and then, instead of booking away, the delinquents sheepishly apologized: "sorry sir . . . sorry" and then one of them said, without any prompting: "It's Mason . . . you know my brother Tyler," and I was like: yikes, that was the quickest, least compelled confession in the history of crime.
THREE . . . count them, THREE-- that's right, I generated three great moments in education over the past two days-- for an average of 1.5 great moments per day; so without further fanfare-- because this is already too much fanfare-- here they are:
1) yesterday, a girl in my College Writing class asked me a strange question: she wondered if I knew anything about the PE mid-term . . . and though I told her that I did NOT know anything about the PE mid-term-- why would I know anything about the PE mid-term?-- but I told her I was totally willing to hypothesize about what I thought should be on the PE final, and then I went into an impromptu monologue about something I am fascinated with-- the sundry and miscellaneous rules of in-bounds and out-of-bounds in various sports . . . and while the girl that asked the question tuned out immediately-- before I even finished contrasting tennis and basketball!-- some of the athletic boys in the class got involved, and we went through a number of sports, hashing out when a ball or player was considered in-bounds or out-of-bounds and we agreed that knowledge of these rules would make an excellent PE final and we had a generally excellent time speaking on this topic-- especially because our hypothetical final monumentally annoyed the girl who originally asked the question;
2) in Public Speaking class this morning, we were about to present informational speeches and when I asked for a volunteer to go first, once again-- and this happens all the time-- a girl asked if she could "go second"-- this is a common and logical request in Public Speaking class . . . the kids are great-- they actually signed up for Public Speaking so they like to speak in public . . . but they still don't want the pressure of leading-off, so I'm always getting requests to go second or third-- but someone has to go first . . . and today, in another great moment of teaching, I finally solved that dilemma-- a girl asked if she could "go second" and another student quickly claimed "going third" and someone else actually claimed the fourth spot-- so we were all lined up and ready to roll, but someone needed to go first and then I had an epiphany, a stroke of brilliance and I said: "Ok . . . I will go first" and the kids looked at me like: "Wtf?" and then I drew a line on the board and I said: "Tennis" and, once again, they were like "Wtf?"
3) then I did an informational speech on the topic of "In? Or Out?" and first I went through sports where the ball is "in" if it hits the line-- soccer and volleyball and tennis-- and then I discussed the anomalous nature of basketball, where the ball is "out" if it touches the line-- and we also reviewed how the sides and top of the backboard are in-bounds-- but not the supporting braces up top; we talked about football and the fact that if your foot hits the line, you are out; I outlined the complication of pickleball: the ball is "in" if it hits the line, unless the serve touches the non-volley zone line, then that serve is "out"; I brought up darts and what happens if the dart splits the wire (you get the higher score) and that started a whole debate on if darts and bowling were even sports at all (they are) and then I broke down the weirdness of baseball-- the ball can roll foul but if it rolls back into fair play before the base, then it's a fair ball-- and if it hits the foul pole then it's fair, so yu should call the foul-pole the "fair-pole" and then I actually learned something new from the lacrosse girls in my class-- and this rule seems plumb-fucking-crazy-- in lacross, if the ball goes out-of-bounds after an unsuccessful shot, when the ball crosses the end line, then the team whose player/player's lacrosse stick is closest to the ball is awarded the ball . . . wild stuff-- and now I'm making this extemporaneous informational presentation into a Google slideshow, entitled "Is it IN? Or is it OUT?" so that next semester, when a student asks to "go second" the class will be in for a real surprise (and perhaps no one will ever ask to go second again . . . but maybe I need to prepare a number of these boring and technical speeches, so that any time I don't get a volunteer to go first, the entire class gets tortured . . . there so many great topics I could present on: Transcendentalist Philosophy in American Literature, How to Keep a Salubrious Sleep Schedule, Here Are Some TV Shows Old White Guys Like, Seven Ways to Improve Your Pickleball Game, and -- of course-- How Robert Moses and the Automobile Destroyed Our Once Great Nation).
While I mainly think New Year's Resolutions are silly and indiscriminate-- why are you going to stop drinking in January? it's the coldest and most depressing month of the year, the month when you need a drink or two to make it to spring . . . plus it's not like you're putting on that bikini for a few months so why are you so gung-ho about the gym?-- and maybe I would make and keep New Year's Resolutions more if I lived in the Southern Hemisphere . . . it's certainly easier to start a new routine when there's more sunlight-- but, despite all these complaints, it seems that every year, I make some absurd or half-hearted resolutions, so I will continue the tradition: I resolve to keep making my podcast-- I just finished a new episode: "Traveling Through the Dark: Reflections on "Reality" in which I discuss an educational resolution too complicated to explain in this sentence-- and I also resolve to make the episodes a bit shorter and more focused . . . I also resolve to focus on flexibility more-- I have a strained calf right now and it sucks-- so I see much stretching in my future-- which is a really, really boring resolution-- so I need to add a more exciting resolution: perhaps I will try to resurrect my idea for a string of TikTok videos (the only problem is that I need my calf to heal to execute these videos so this resolution is going to have to wait a bit).
