Saturday, May 03, 2008

Things that are awesome

When you ask an IT person how they did something clever, and they reply, "Nerd magic."

Sunny weather on cold days.

Students who do part of the assignment that they didn't have to (a question only for the upper level students in the course), and they reply, "But it was so much fun! I couldn't stop!" (And they got the answer right.)

The autumn colours on the trees. I kind of missed the best time for photos and now they are going dingy, but they were lovely while they lasted.

Class evaluations surveys that are full of nice comments.

A parrot that paces up and down outside the window like it wants feeding, but when you open the window to put out some seed, bypass the food and hop into the room instead. I guess it wanted warmth and company rather than food, for once.

Geekman. Just because.

3 Comments:

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

"Nerd Magic" is an excellent term... and when they get all geek-talky, I like the term "nerd hot talk"... stolen from West Wing.

I also like that you are having fall while we are having winter/spring.... It makes me think of warm sweaters and hot chocoalte... and that wonderful time before winter is just one long snowy marathon of dark afternoons and snowplows.

Anonymous said...

I love the term Nerd Magic!!

We usually use "IT Aura" for the computer faults that mysteriously fixes itself when the IT person comes to investigate the problem

michiexile said...

Fully agree with the list.

As for Nerd Magic - a common comment in my neck of the geek woods is the need to sacrifice black goats. For kernel compiles, for specific types of flaky hardware and for really weird programming techniques.

As for doing higher credit for fun; in Swedish high schools (Gymnasium), there's a third-year course on philosophy. At my school, the teacher posted the final assignment on his door; and in my second year, the final assignment was very interesting. (I think it was on the essence of personal identity)

So, I wrote a 10-page essay and handed it in. For kicks.