( Humour in the news )

From an NYTimes article about homeschooling.

'[Someone overseeing a large group of in-home tutors] cannot meet a third of the requests for in-home education that come in ... because they are so specialized or extravagant: a family wants a teacher to instruct in the art of Frisbee throwing, button sewing or Latin grammar. A family wants a teacher ( Read more... )

Thus an era passes.

I am actually free.

The sun is shining.

An editorial footnote to a 1668 poem by Waller:

---
Cartwright commends Kynaston's 1635 Latin translation of Chaucer's Troilus: ''Tis to your happy cares we owe, that we / Read Chaucer now without a dictionary'.
---

No idea about Cartwright or Kynaston, but A) what a hideous couplet; and B) how foreign is the sentiment!

I just encountered a Middle English word which I quite like and have no idea why: 'cardiacle', meaning 'heart attack'. Last recorded use in the OED is 1485.

You know, I never seriously thought about it this way before, but writing timed essays is exercise. In the sense that you need to be physically prepared for it (not, sadly, in the sense of actually being healthy). I did my first Exam Circumstance practice exam yesterday (no notes, stricly to time) and my hand wanted to go die afterwards. I did ( Read more... )

Things that become more annoying while revising for exams than they are normally:

( A study in the neuroses of high-stakes testing )

A thought on cartography ( Read more... )

This morning the other girl on my staircase knocked on my door. When I opened it, she began, "I don't know if you've noticed,"----gesturing behind her to where I could see into the shower through an open door, and saw various bottles of shampoo, soap, etc., scattered all over the tiled floor; I wondered what reason anyone would have to push a group ( Read more... )

Essay Crisis Poetry ( Read more... )