The College years (O.K. for some it was days, and others decades,. . . whatever) Top ten things NOT to say during your thesis proposal 10. Ta-Daaaaaah! 9. Wow, I got SO shitfaced last night! 8. Like, are you gonna scale these? 7. Oh, yeah? Well, what do you know, anyway? 6. Are you ready to RUMBLE? 5. According to the New York Post . . . 4. Can I do something for extra credt? 3. Now for my next trick . . . 2. Good morning, tiger! (To your advisor) 1. Will this take long? I'm double-parked . . . When professors say this . . . They really mean this! This needs some minor revision. I never actually got around to reading this. My office hours are by appointment only. I like to screw out of here early. Ten percent of your grade is based on class participation. I'll be fudging your grades. This won't be on the test. Nap time! Bring the text to class. I don't have a clue how to lecture--we'll just kill time with group read-alongs. Not much is known about . . . I don't know anything about . . . We'll be spending a fair amount of time on this important concept. This was my dissertation topic. Talk to me in my office after class. Get out of my face. The tests will all be multiple-choice. I take questions directly from the study guide and have grad students do all my grading. Don't come in late during my lecture. I have the attention span of a fruit fly. Save your questions until the end. See above. The final will be comprehensive. I'll expect you to recapitulate in two hours everything I couldn't fully cover myself in 15 weeks. Everyone will prepare in-class oral presentations. This course is outside my specialty--I'll just bluff it and let YOU teach. There are two TAs available to help you. I can't be bothered. This year I'll be scaling the grades. I just passed tenure review. Let's break up into quiet discussion groups. I have a hangover. Let's have class outdoors today! I had beans for lunch. You won't be able to sell the text back to the bookstore. My contract wasn't picked up. Well, that answer would be beyond the scope of this course. I haven't a clue. Ha, ha . . . That was supposed to be funny . . . Please note the last day to withdraw. The midterm's gonna suck. The answer to number 4 is "b," and just skip number 17. I only got around to making up the test last night. The second list is optional reading. I have a rich fantasy life. I haven't had a chance to make up the syllabus for this course yet. The asshole department chair stuck me with teaching this course at the last possible minute. Well, it was on the syllabus. I'll hold you responsible for this even though I forgot about it myself. We'll just skip the term paper this semester. There wasn't enough in the budget for a TA. Bring a number 2 pencil to the exam. See above. Read chapters 5 through 10. I'm not coming in at all next week. Let's go over the exam. Half of you failed. I'm postponing today's exam. There's stuff on the exam I forgot to cover. You might be a college student if . . . you have the pizza delivery phone number memorized. you have ever shown up for class wearing the same outfit you wore to bed the previous night. your idea of a square meal is a box of pop-tarts. you have ever gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and had to step over more than two complete strangers sleeping on your floor. it feels weird taking a shower without wearing beach sandals. you schedule your day around "The Bold and the Beautiful." you have developed a weekly ritual of waking up blurry-eyed on Saturday afternoons and proceeding to determine where the hell you are. a baseball cap and some binaca make an acceptable substitute for daily grooming. you have ever done laundry at 4am. you have ever sung from a rooftop. you have ever vomited from a rooftop. Or down a stairwell. you know approximately how many people can fit into your closet, shower stall, or the trunk of your car. you have ever traveled anywhere with several bags of dirty clothes. you have ever seen a sofa fall past your bedroom window. On fire. you have ever paid $100 for a single book without batting an eye. you have ever sold that same $100 book eight months later, unread, for seven bucks. more than twenty percent of your household furnishings are made from milk crates. you have done a week's worth of food shopping at Walmart. you have ever heaved seventeen beer cans and a liter of vodka into a foot locker because someone at your door didn't use the secret knock. you have ever actually used some of the complex mathematical formulas from your physics class notes to determine the best way to "relocate" a granite statue. you know not to enter your room when a certain object is hanging from the doorknob. you have to lock up your television when you retire at night. you have ever been excited to find a pair of $15 jeans in your size. you have ever had to wait in line to brush your teeth. you have caught yourself using words such as "aggregate" or "egregious" in casual conversation. you have a calling card, but no phone. you have a credit card, but no job. your hair color changes more often than the season. there have ever been more than nine people in your car at once. you can tell the time of day by the noise level in the hall outside your door. the "home fries" you were served at breakfast look suspiciously like the french fries you were served at dinner the night before. you have inexplicable urges to have various body parts pierced. you actually know someone named Sasha. empty cans or cigarette boxes make good room decorations. you have ever climbed from your friend's third-story window to your own fourth-story window because you locked yourself out of your room. you set your alarm clock for 8:50am to make a 9:00am class. there are usually a few people out jogging in front of your building at 11pm. you have ever spent the day shopping without purchasing a single new item. you call your auto club more often than you call your mother. you have ever opened your door and found a naked person hurrying past it. you have rediscovered afternoon naps. you have ever found yourself at a hospital emergency room seeking treatment for a "slam-dancing" injury. you'd rather go hungry than break off your Internet connection to order a pizza. you include "photocopying" in your monthly budget. you were in debt by $20,000 before your twentieth birthday. you have ever seen someone ignite a fart. you store your toiletires in a bucket next to your bed. you have ever been part of a team whose goal was to get a goat in a volkswagon onto the domed roof of the administration building before dawn. people suddenly shut up while Letterman does the "Top Ten" list.