#amie syllabus

[the-music-keeper]

Okay. Objective #4 is done.

The research tasks are getting moved again, because this took all afternoon.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those of you who don’t know, I decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus, which is comprised of 9 units. I have completed four of the units (here is my queer cinema syllabus round up post with all the films I’ve watched and written about so far). It is time for me to make my way through Unit 5- Lesbians, which includes the following films: The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995), Bound (1996), Water Lilies (2007) [Skipping for now until I can get access to it], Saving Face (2004), D.E.B.S. (2004), Set It Off (1996), The Handmaiden (2016), Carol (2015), Imagine Me and You (2005), Two of Us (2019), Rafiki (2018), and The Color Purple (1985).

Today I will be talking about

D.E.B.S. (2004) dir. Angela Robinson

[Run Time: 1:31, Language: English] [Content Warning: there is one use of the r word] Summary: Plaid-skirted schoolgirls are groomed by a secret government agency to become the newest members of the elite national-defense group, D.E.B.S.

Cast:  -Sara Foster as Amy -Jordana Brewster as Lucy Diamond -Devon Aoki as Dominique -Jill Ritche as Janet -Meagan Good as Max ___

This write up will not be very long because this movie is not working with substantial, in-depth, layered messaging. BUT HOLY SHIT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. This is a shitty little cult classic that sees a paramilitary agent (who was recruited from some secret questions in the SATs) and a supervillain falling in love and running off into the sunset together. 

So, I’ve seen low budget films that have quite a lot to say and know it can be done, so I was curious about how in-depth this film might go into discussions of law enforcement, mostly because in the evil lair there is a sign that says The Only Good D.E.B. is a Dead D.E.B. But this is a light hearted comedy piece so though we do get Amy literally saying she’s a cop, there is not a whole lot of like anti-cop sentiment or anything in the film. 

The premise is a spy and a supervillian literally crash in to eachother, have some level of instant connection, the spy has her queer awakening and runs off with the supervillian, is rescued essentially mid coitus, and the supervillian is inspired to start returning all of the things she’d stolen over the years in an effort to get Amy to leave D.E.B.S. and just be in love with her. It’s riddled with hilarious sound effects, forcefields made of plaid, and a SECRET TUNNEL! 

What it does is show that the world’s most wanted supervillian is pretty chill, very gay, and has maybe been portrayed as more ruthless than she actually is (yes that is in fact Madam Super Villan dancing with her henchman in the gif above). What it does show is that little Miss Perfect Score on the secret spy test does not want to be a spy but felt obligated to do so because she was good at it. I did enjoy the repeated questioning of standardized testing, Lucy asking what the spy test tests for and Amy realizing that she doesn’t know and never bothered to ask yet that test was deciding her entire future. 

But again this was SO. MUCH. FUN. to watch and I would recommend it to many people even as just like a silly little wind down film if they were in need of a quick pick me up.

Also there was lots of gay kissing, which I feel is important to note. 

Favorite Moment

My favorite moment was Lucy breaking in to the D.E.B.S house to see Amy the first time. What an iconic piece of comedy: the plaid forcefield around the property that matches their school uniform, Lucy cutting a hole in the forcefield with what legitimately looks like a sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who, jumping over laser detectors on the grass that are also plaid, and climbing up the wall with those like hand-held suction cup things with the most hilarious and incredibly incorrect popping motion every time she sticks the suction cup to the wall. 

Favorite Quote 

“Yes, well, the poster child doesn’t know it yet but she’s into me.” 

I love when queer people recognize queer people, and appreciate that because Amy is young and was just getting out of a relationship with her boyfriend that she might not know her own sexuality yet or have a full understanding of what she is feeling. But Lucy Diamond is an established, adult, queer woman who definitely sees the way that Amy is acting around her and understands immediately what is happening. 

Score

10/10 

For this moment alone

THAT SAID. I do feel the need to justify this scoring. I tend to score things by what they put forth, so a show with campier premises and executions like this one would be scored almost exclusively by vibes. Things like The Miracle of Teddy Bear, for example, which takes itself incredibly seriously, has multiple layers of messaging, and incredibly realistic depictions of queerness, homophobia, and domestic violence is something I would score with a number of actual story telling factors in mind. 

This gets a 10 for vibes, I don’t think I had a single critical thought in the entire hour and a half watching it and I was having a fucking BLAST.

[todaysdocument]

The Supreme Court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional on June 26, 2013. 

In U.S. v Windsor, SCOTUS held that the federal government could not discriminate against same-sex couples. 

Record Group 267: Records of the Supreme Court of the United States Series: Appellate Jurisdiction Case Files

Transcription: 

[Stamped: " FILE COPY "]

(Bench Opinion)                 OCTOBER TERM, 2012            1  [Handwritten and circled " 1"  in upper right-hand corner]

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR, EXECUTOR OF THE

ESTATE OF SPYER, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE SECOND CIRCUIT

No. 12-307.  Argued March 27, 2013---Decided June 26, 2013

The State of New York recognizes the marriage of New York residents

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, who wed in Ontario, Canada, in

2007. When Spyer died in 2009, she left her entire estate to Windsor.

Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviv-

ing spouses, but was barred from doing so by §3 of the federal Defense

of Marriage Act (DOMA), which amended the Dictionary Act---a

law providing rules of construction for over 1,000 federal laws and

the whole realm of federal regulations-to define "marriage" and

"spouse" as excluding same-sex partners. Windsor paid $363,053 in

estate taxes and sought a refund, which the Internal Revenue Service

denied. Windsor brought this refund suit, contending that DOMA vi-

olates the principles of equal protection incorporated in the Fifth

Amendment. While the suit was pending, the Attorney General notified

the Speaker of the House of Representatives that the Department

of Justice would no longer defend §3's constitutionality. In re-

sponse, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) of the House of

Representatives voted to intervene in the litigation to defend §3's

constitutionality. The District Court permitted the intervention. On

the merits, the court ruled against the United States, finding §3 un-

constitutional and ordering the Treasury to refund Windsor's tax

with interest. The Second Circuit affirmed. The United States has

not complied with the judgment.

Held:

1. This Court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the case.

This case clearly presented a concrete disagreement between oppos-

ing parties that was suitable for judicial resolution in the District

Court, but the Executive's decision not to defend §3's constitutionali-

[page 2]

2                  UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR

Syllabus

ty in court while continuing to deny refunds and assess deficiencies

introduces a complication. Given the Government's concession, ami-

cus contends, once the District Court ordered the refund, the case

should have ended and the appeal been dismissed. But this argu-

ment elides the distinction between Article Ill's jurisdictional re-

quirements and the prudential limits on its exercise, which are "es-

sentially matters of judicial self-governance." Warth v. Seldin, 422

U. S. 490, 500. Here, the United States retains a stake sufficient to

support Article III jurisdiction on appeal and in this Court. The re-

fund it was ordered to pay Windsor is "a real and immediate econom-

ic injury," Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 551 U. S.

587, 599, even if the Executive disagrees with §3 of DOMA. Wind-

sor's ongoing claim for funds that the United States refuses to pay

thus establishes a controversy sufficient for Article III jurisdiction.

Cf. INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919.

Prudential considerations, however, demand that there be "con-

crete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon

which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult consti-

tutional questions." Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204. Unlike Article

III requirements---which must be satisfied by the parties before judi-

cial consideration is appropriate---prudential factors that counsel

against hearing this case are subject to "countervailing considera-

tions [that] may outweigh the concerns underlying the usual reluc-

tance to exert judicial power." Warth, supra, at 500-501. One such

consideration is the extent to which adversarial presentation of the

issues is ensured by the participation of amici curiae prepared to de-

fend with vigor the legislative act's constitutionality. See Chadha,

supra, at 940. Here, BLAG's substantial adversarial argument for

§3's constitutionality satisfies prudential concerns that otherwise

might counsel against hearing an appeal from a decision with which

the principal parties agree. This conclusion does not mean that it is

appropriate for the Executive as a routine exercise to challenge stat-

utes in court instead of making the case to Congress for amendment

or repeal. But this case is not routine, and BLAG's capable defense

ensures that the prudential issues do not cloud the merits question,

which is of immediate importance to the Federal Government and to

hundreds of thousands of persons. Pp. 5-13.

2. DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of

persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 13--26.

(a) By history and tradition the definition and regulation of mar-

riage has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the

separate States. Congress has enacted discrete statutes to regulate

the meaning of marriage in order to further federal policy, but

DOMA, with a directive applicable to over 1,000 federal statues and

[NEW PAGE]

Cite as: 570 U.S._ (2013)           3

Syllabus

the whole realm of federal regulations, has a far greater reach. Its

operation is also directed to a class of persons that the laws of New

York, and of 11 other States, have sought to protect. Assessing the

validity of that intervention requires discussing the historical and

traditional extent of state power and authority over marriage.

Subject to certain constitutional guarantees, see, e.g., Loving v.

Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, "regulation of domestic relations" is "an area

that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the

States," Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 404. The significance of state

responsibilities for the definition and regulation of marriage dates to

the Nation's beginning; for "when the Constitution was adopted the

common understanding was that the domestic relations of husband

and wife and parent and child were matters reserved to the States,"

Ohio ex rel. Popovici v. Agler, 280 U. S. 379, 383-384. Marriage laws

may vary from State to State, but they are consistent within each

State.

DOMA rejects this long-established precept. The State's decision

to give this class of persons the right to marry conferred upon them a

dignity and status of immense import. But the Federal Government

uses the state-defined class for the opposite purpose---to impose re-

strictions and disabilities. The question is whether the resulting injury

and indignity is a deprivation of an essential part of the liberty

protected by the Fifth Amendment, since what New York treats as

alike the federal law deems unlike by a law designed to injure the

same class the State seeks to protect. New York's actions were a

proper exercise of its sovereign authority. They reflect both the

community's considered perspective on the historical roots of the in-

stitution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning

of equality. Pp. 13--20.

(b) By seeking to injure the very class New York seeks to protect,

DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles ap-

plicable to the Federal Government. The Constitution's guarantee of

equality "must at the very least mean that a bare congressional de-

sire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot" justify disparate

treatment of that group. Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413

U. S. 528, 534-535. DOMA cannot survive under these principles.

Its unusual deviation from the tradition of recognizing and accepting

state definitions of marriage operates to deprive same-sex couples of

the benefits and responsibilities that come with federal recognition of

their marriages. This is strong evidence of a law having the purpose

and effect of disapproval of a class recognized and protected by state

law. DOMA's avowed purpose and practical effect are to impose a

disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter

into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority

[page 3]

4           UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR

Syllabus

of the States.

DOMA's history of enactment and its own text demonstrate that

interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, conferred

by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than

an incidental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence. BLAG's

arguments are just as candid about the congressional purpose.

DOMA's operation in practice confirms this purpose. It frustrates

New York's objective of eliminating inequality by writing inequality

into the entire United States Code.

DOMA's principal effect is to identify and make unequal a subset of

state-sanctioned marriages. It contrives to deprive some couples

married under the laws of their State, but not others, of both rights

and responsibilities, creating two contradictory marriage regimes

within the same State. It also forces same-sex couples to live as mar-

ried for the purpose of state law but unmarried for the purpose of

federal law, thus diminishing the stability and predictability of basic

personal relations the State has found it proper to acknowledge and

protect. Pp. 20-26.

699 F. 3d 169, affirmed.

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINSBURG,

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. ROBERTS, C. J., filed a

dissenting opinion. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which

THOMAS, J., joined, and in which ROBERTS, C. J., joined as to Part I.

ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined as to

Parts II and III.

[NEW PAGE]

Cite as: 570 U. S. _ (2013)          1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,

D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 12-307

UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. EDITH SCHLAIN

WINDSOR, IN HER CAPACITY AS EXECUTOR OF THE

ESTATE OF THEA CLARA SPYER, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

[June 26, 2013]

JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.

Two women then resident in New York were married

in a lawful ceremony in Ontario, Canada, in 2007. Edith

Windsor and Thea Spyer returned to their home in New

York City. When Spyer died in 2009, she left her entire

estate to Windsor. Windsor sought to claim the estate tax

exemption for surviving spouses. She was barred from

doing so, however, by a federal law, the Defense of Mar-

riage Act, which excludes a same-sex partner from the

definition of "spouse" as that term is used in federal stat-

utes. Windsor paid the taxes but filed suit to challenge

the constitutionality of this provision. The United States

District Court and the Court of Appeals ruled that this

portion of the statute is unconstitutional and ordered the

United States to pay Windsor a refund. This Court granted

certiorari and now affirms the judgment in Windsor's

favor.

I

In 1996, as some States were beginning to consider the

concept of same-sex marriage, see, e.g., Baehr v. Lewin, 74

[studyaxis]

⌞🖳 Days of Productivity : Summer 2024, Log 55 of 100⌝ date: 10-July-2024 [Week 11] ♬♪ Back to Black • Amy Winehouse

🗒 today's progress: ✔ 90mins of Engg. Math; ✔ 60mins of DBMS; 🕰 today's study focus time: 02hr 48min 34s

↪ for tomorrow: 90mins of Engg. Math and Discrete Mathematics; 90mins of General Aptitude; Computer Organization flashcards and revision; Study 5 algorithms; ↪ for long term: aim for at least 8 focus hours; start on GATE practice questions; focus on finishing the syllabus;

[odettecarotte]

Louise Glück, NYT

Louise Glück, photo by Charles S. Hertz

b. 1943

The Nobel-winning poet was pitiless to herself, yet fiercely generous toward her students.

By Amy X. Wang The New York Times

She stood barely five feet tall — slight, unassuming, you had to stoop low to kiss her cheek — but whenever Louise Glück stepped into a classroom, she shot a current through it. Students stiffened their spines, though what they feared was not wrath but her searing rigor: Even in her late 70s, after she won the Pulitzer and the National Humanities Medal and the Nobel, she always spoke to young writers with complete seriousness, as if they were her equals. “My first poem, she ripped apart,” says Sun Paik, who took Glück’s poetry class as a Stanford undergraduate. “She’s the first person whom I ever received such a brutal critique from.” Mark Doty, a National Book Award-winning poet who studied under Glück in the 1970s at Goddard College, felt that she “represented total authenticity and complete honesty.” This, he recalls, “pretty much scared me half to death.”

Spare, merciless, laser-precise: Glück’s signature style as a writer. It was there from an early age. Born in 1943 to a New York family of tactile pragmatists (her father helped invent the X-Acto knife), Glück, a preternaturally self-competitive child, was constantly trying to whittle away at her own perceived shortcomings. When she was a teenager, she developed anorexia — that pulverizing, paradoxical battle with both helplessness and self-control — and dropped to 75 pounds at 16. The disorder prevented her from completing a college degree. Many of the poems Glück wrote in her early 20s flog her own obsessions with, and failures in, control and exactitude. Her narrators are habitués of a kind of limitless wanting; her language, a study in ruthless austerity. (A piano-wire-taut line tucked in her 1968 debut, “Firstborn”: “Today my meatman turns his trained knife/On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.”) In her late 20s, Glück grew frustrated with writing and was prepared to renounce it entirely.

So she took, in 1971, a teaching job at Goddard College. To her astonishment, being a teacher unwrapped the world — it bloomed anew with possibility. “The minute I started teaching — the minute I had obligations in the world — I started to write again,” Glück would confess in a 2014 interview. Working with young minds quickly became a sort of nourishment. “She was profoundly interested in people,” says Anita Sokolsky, a friend and colleague from Williams College, where Glück began teaching in 1984. “She had a vivid and unstinting interest in others’ lives that teaching helped focus for her. Teaching was very generative to her writing, but it was also a kind of counter to the intensity and isolation of her writing.”

Glück’s own poems became funnier and more colloquial, marrying the control she earlier perfected with a new, unexpected levity (in her 1996 poem “Parable of the Hostages”: “What if war/is just a male version of dressing up”), and it is her later books, like the lauded “The Wild Iris” from 1992, that made her a landmark literary figure. Teaching also coaxed out a new facet in Glück herself: that of a devoutly unselfish mentor, a tutor of unbridled kindness.

A less fastidious writer and thinker may have made their teaching duties rote — proffering uniformly encouraging feedback or reheating a syllabus year after year. Glück, though, threw herself into guiding pupils with the same care and intimacy she gave to her own verses. “There was just this voraciousness, this generosity,” says Sally Ball, who met Glück while studying with her at Williams and remained close with her for the three decades until her death. “Every time I moved, she put me in touch with people in that new place. She enjoyed bringing people to know each other and sharing the things she loved.” And as a teacher, Ball says, “Louise was really clear that you have to make yourself change. You can’t just keep doing the same things over and over again.” In that spirit of boundless self-advancement, Glück also taught herself to love cooking and eating. She once hand-annotated a Marcella Hazan recipe and mailed it to Ball, with sprawling commentary on how best to prepare rosemary. “She’s very beautiful and elegant, right,” Ball says, but “we’d go to Chez Panisse and sit down and she eats with gusto. It’s messy, she’s mopping her hands around on the plate.”

Paik recalls spending hours each week decoding Glück’s dense, cursive comments on her work. “I was 19 or 20,” she says, “writing these scrappy, honestly pretty bad poems, and to have them be received with such care and detail — it pushed me to become a better writer because it set a standard of respect.”

“She was 78, and whenever she talked about poetry, it felt like the first time she’d encountered poetry,” says Shangyang Fang, who met Glück when he was at Stanford on a writing fellowship. Glück offered to edit his first poetry collection, and the pair became close friends. “She would talk about a single word in my poem for 10 minutes with me,” Fang says. Evenings would go late. They cooked for each other sometimes, spending hours talking vegetables and spices, poetry and idle gossip. “By the end, I couldn’t thank her enough, and she said: ‘Stop thanking me! I am a predator, feeding on your brain!’”

[kitchen-light]

I think to me, it's an obligation of education. And I think it begins with kind of refusing to see reading as equating to celebration. And this is where I think a lot of my students, I found particularly young people, I tried to, you know, kind of revise this impulse to cancel authors, right? And I think, or take them off the syllabus. And I think, you know, if we take Whitman off the syllabus, we don't get to investigate. We don't get to investigate what's contemporaneous to Whitman, what he succeeded in, in innovating the the line. And thereby, we deny ourselves that education. We also can't see where he went wrong in his, you know, racism, his beliefs of Western expansionism, you know, and also the great trauma that he experienced as a queer person and how some of this, you know, self-rising barred, this sage was kind of like a persona in an ego mask, right?

Ocean Vuong, from Novel Dialogue Podcast: 5.1 We Have This-ness, Y’all! Ocean Vuong and Amy E. Elkins, published April 6, 2023

[yessadirichards]

What to stream this week: 'Young Sheldon,' Amy Schumer, 'Oppenheimer' and lots and lots of JLo

Christopher Nolan's “Oppenheimer” arriving on Peacock and a documentary and album from Jennifer Lopez are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: “Young Sheldon” returning for its seventh and final season, Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. exploring the power of gospel in a two-part PBS documentary and Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones pirate-themed video game.

— If you were holding out for “Oppenheimer” on streaming, now’s your chance to catch up before the Oscars (March 10), where it’s up for 13 awards including best picture, best director for Christopher Nolan and best actor for Cillian Murphy. The film arrives on Peacock on Friday, Feb. 16. Nolan and Emma Thomas, his producer and wife, are passionate advocates of the big screen experience, but they also know that most people will watch their films in the home — sometimes even as their first time. It’s how both discovered some of their favorites as well, they’ve said. In an interview with The Associated Press, Thomas added, “The nice thing about Chris’ films is because they are so very rich and reward multiple viewings, I think that they’re perfectly pitched for home viewings.”

— Jennifer Lopez has a new movie coming to Prime Video on Feb. 16. She co-wrote “This is Me…Now: A Love Story,” a movie musical about finding love which she called “the most personal thing I’ve ever done.” It is a star-studded endeavor, with appearances from her husband, Ben Affleck, Keke Palmer, Sofia Vergara, Post Malone and more, and ties in with her first studio album in a decade (see below). Also coming to Prime Video is Emma Seligman’s “gay high school fight club” comedy “Bottoms,” starring Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri as a few misfits who start a fight club to flirt with the hot cheerleaders (Kaia Gerber and Havana Rose Liu). In his review, AP Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote that, “The rites and rituals of the raunchy high-school comedy can be as prescribed as a class syllabus. But what makes Emma Seligman’s “Bottoms” such an anarchic thrill is how much it couldn’t care less.”

— And finally, Taika Waititi’s “Next Goal Wins” arrives on Hulu on Thursday. It’s based on the real story of the American Samoa men’s soccer team quest to qualify for the FIFA World Cup after an historic loss (31-nill) against Australia. Michael Fassbender plays the coach who tries to help. In his AP review, Mark Kennedy wrote that “’Next Goal Wins’ is most winning in the way it handles the team’s star player, Jaiyah Saelua, who became the first nonbinary player to compete in a men’s FIFA qualifier. Played with real tenderness and joy by nonbinary actor Kaimana, the way the team and coach relate to Saelua is genuine and touching."

— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

— Get ready for a second dose of J.Lo. On Friday, Feb. 16, she drops the Amazon original film “This is Me… Now: A Love Story” (see above) as well as her “This Is Me… Now” album. The 13-track set’s song titles include “To Be Yours,” “Mad in Love,” “Greatest Love Story Never Told” and “Dear Ben Pt. II,” a seeming sequel to a track on her 2002 album “This Is Me … Then.” The video for one new pop single, “Can’t Get Enough,” has as much JLo strutting as all of Paris Fashion Week. Lopez’s last album, “A.K.A.,” came out in 2014 and reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200.

— Blackberry Smoke — a Georgia-based band that has been together for 24 years and seven studio albums — makes a strong return with “Be Right Here,” blending blues, Southern rock and Americana. The album contains the arena country “Hammer and the Nail,” the rocking “Little Bit Crazy” and the driving, bluesy “Dig a Hole.” The band goes more acoustic with the wistful “Azalea,” about a loved one making a wrong decision, with the lyrics “Coming back don’t mean you're leaving here was wrong/Sorry ain’t the same as moving on.”

— AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

— In a new docuseries for PBS, Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. examines how sermon and song have long been a source of strength and wisdom in America, particularly among Black Americans. “Gospel,” a four-part series told over two nights has interviews with Dionne Warwick, U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock and more. “Gospel” airs Monday Tuesday on PBS.

— Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche play Christian Dior and Coco Chanel in a new historical drama “The New Look” for Apple TV+. The 10-episode series is set against the backdrop of Paris reemerging from Nazi occupation in WWII. Dior’s designs helped to lift an oppressed France and its culture with a stylish, modern glow up. As Dior rose to prominence, a rivalry developed between other established designers, including Chanel. “The New Look” also stars Maisie Williams, John Malkovich, Emily Mortimer and Glenn Close. The first three episodes of “The New Look” drop Wednesday on the streamer.

— Before Sheldon Cooper met Leonard, Penny or Amy he was a child prodigy growing up in east Texas. Iain Armitage plays the coming-of-age version of the character in the CBS comedy “Young Sheldon.” Emmy winner Jim Parsons who played Sheldon on “Big Bang” for 12 seasons, narrates. “Young Sheldon” returns for its seventh and final season on Thursday.

— Amy Schumer’s Hulu dramedy “Life & Beth” charmed viewers when it debuted in 2022 and the series returns for a second season on Friday, Feb. 16. Schumer writes, directs and stars as Beth opposite Michael Cera, who plays John, a farmer. The two fell in love in season one despite their differences and personal baggage. Now, the couple is planning to marry. Schumer has said the story is semi-autobiographical, inspired by her real-life marriage to chef Chris Fischer. All 10 episodes of season two will be available on the premiere date.

— Alicia Rancilio

— Batten down the hatches: Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones is finally ready to launch after more than a decade of development and delays. You are the captain of a pirate vessel in the Indian Ocean in the 18th century. You have a decent ship to start with, but if you want to make it really deadly you need to start collecting booty. That means pillaging merchant ships, battling rival scalawags, dodging the authorities and even surviving the occasional sea monster on your way to becoming the Pirate Kingpin. You can team up with friends or fight against them in epic naval warfare — something Ubisoft has shown a flair for in some of its Assassin’s Creed games. Set sail Friday, Feb. 16, on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC.

— Focus Entertainment’s Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden travels to the New World in the 17th century. The protagonists are a couple of paranormal investigators, Red and Antea, who are trying to clear the tormented wraiths out of a haunted settlement. They can help the lost souls ascend or banish them to eternal misery, and those choices have consequences down the line. It all gets more complicated when Antea gets killed — but fortunately she can use her supernatural powers to help Red finish the job. Banishers comes from the French studio Don’t Nod, best known for story-heavy cult favorites like Vampyr and Life Is Strange. You can take possession Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC.

— Lou Kesten

[argroupofedu5]

Best Medical Universities: The Premier Choice for MBBS in Kyrgyzstan

MBBS in Kyrgyzstan: An Diagram

Seeking an MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) in Kyrgyzstan has ended up an progressively well known choice for universal students, particularly from nations like India, Pakistan, and Nepal. The combination of reasonable tuition expenses, high-quality education, and the chance to encounter a different culture makes Kyrgyzstan an alluring goal for medical aspirants.

Why Study MBBS in Kyrgyzstan?

Affordable Education:

One of the essential reasons students elect Kyrgyzstan is the cost-effective nature of medical education. Compared to nations just like the United States, the United Kingdom, or indeed India, the tuition fees in Kyrgyzstan are altogether lower. This makes it accessible for students from middle-class foundations who might discover it challenging to bear education in more expensive countries.

Quality of Education:

Medical universities in Kyrgyzstan offer a tall standard of education. Many of these universities are recognized by worldwide medical bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and are listed within the World Directory of Medical Schools. The curriculum is planned to be comprehensive and up-to-date with current medical practices.

English-Medium Instruction:

For worldwide students, language can be a boundary. In any case, many medical universities in Kyrgyzstan offer courses in English, making it easier for students from non-Russian speaking nations to take after the syllabus without the added pressure of learning a new language.

Streamlined Admission Process:

The admission process for MBBS in Kyrgyzstan is generally clear. Not at all like a few nations where entrance exams are obligatory, numerous Kyrgyz universities offer admission based on the student's tall school execution, particularly in subjects like Science, Chemistry, and Physics.

Assorted Social Encounter:

Considering Kyrgyzstan gives an opportunity to encounter a modern culture and way of life. The nation is known for its picturesque magnificence, wealthy history, and affable individuals. This worldwide presentation can be improving for understudies, both actually and professionally.

MBBS Expenses in Kyrgyzstan

The fetch of studying MBBS in Kyrgyzstan shifts depending on the college. However, on average, the tuition expenses run between USD 3,000 to USD 5,000 per year. Once you add living costs, the entire yearly toll can come to roughly USD 5,000 to USD 7,000. This is generally reasonable compared to the cost of medical education in Western nations.

Best Medical Colleges in Kyrgyzstan

A few medical colleges in Kyrgyzstan are eminent for their instructive measures and offices. Here are a few of the leading:

Kyrgyz State Medical Academy (KSMA):

KSMA is one of the most seasoned and most prestigious medical universities in Kyrgyzstan. Established in 1939, it is known for its amazing staff, modern infrastructure, and comprehensive curriculum. KSMA is recognized by WHO and the Medical Council of India (MCI).

Osh State University (OSU):

Osh State University is another popular choice among worldwide students. The Workforce of Medicine at OSU offers a strong MBBS program with English as the medium of instruction. The college is additionally recognized by universal medical bodies and provides a multicultural environment for students.

Jalal-Abad State University (JASU):

Jalal-Abad State University offers a well-structured MBBS program. The university emphasises viable preparing and clinical exposure, which are crucial for medical students. JASU is additionally known for its affordable educational cost fees.

International School of Medicine (ISM):

ISM is part of the International University of Kyrgyzstan and offers medical programs specifically planned for universal students. The school has modern offices and an updated curriculum that meets worldwide standards.

Asian Medical Institute (AMI):

AMI may be a generally newer institution but has rapidly gained popularity due to its quality education and affordable fees. The institute offers an MBBS program in English and has a different student body from various nations.

Medical Colleges in Kyrgyzstan for Indian Students

Indian students frame a critical extent of the international understudy community in Kyrgyzstan. The components that pull in Indian students incorporate the reasonable expenses, the acknowledgment of degrees by the MCI, and the accessibility of Indian nourishment and social communities.

Popular Colleges Among Indian Students:

Kyrgyz State Medical Academy (KSMA)

Osh State University (OSU)

Jalal-Abad State University (JASU)

Worldwide School of Medication (ISM)

Asian Medical Organized (AMI)

MBBS Admission in Kyrgyzstan

Qualification Criteria:

To apply for an MBBS program in Kyrgyzstan, students typically need to fulfill the following criteria:

Educational Qualifications: Completion of higher secondary education (10+2) with a minimum of 50% marks in Physics, Chemistry, and Science.

Age: The student must be at least 17 years ancient by the 31st of December of the admission year.

NEET Capability: Indian understudies must qualify for the National Qualification cum Entrance Test (NEET).

Affirmation Handle:

Application Shape: Fill out the application frame available on the university's site or through authorised educational consultants.

Archive Accommodation: Submit the specified archives, including scholastic transcripts, visa copies, NEET scorecard (for Indian students), and other relevant certificates.

Admission Letter: Upon successful evaluation of the application, the college will issue an admission letter.

Visa Process: Apply for a student visa at the closest Kyrgyzstan embassy or office. The confirmation letter, passport, and other required reports must be submitted for visa processing.

Travel Arrangements: Once the visa is granted, make travel arrangements to Kyrgyzstan. Guarantee to educate the university about your entry details.

Documents Required:

Visa (valid for at least 18 months)

10th and 12th-grade mark sheets and certificates

Birth certificate

Passport-sized photos

NEET scorecard

Admission letter from the university

Medical certificate (HIV test and COVID-19 test results)

Valid student visa

Conclusion

MBBS in Kyrgyzstan offers an amazing opportunity for students seeking quality medical education at an affordable cost. The country's medical universities are well-equipped, recognized globally, and offer programs in English, making it a reasonable choice for worldwide students. With simplified admission procedures and the chance to experience an unused culture, MBBS in Kyrgyzstan stands out as a promising destination for medical aspirants.

As the request for medical experts proceeds to develop around the world, getting an MBBS degree from Kyrgyzstan can clear the way for a fruitful career in pharmaceuticals. Whether it's the reasonable expenses, the quality of instruction, or the multicultural involvement, Kyrgyzstan has much to offer to yearning restorative understudies from around the globe.

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

Louise

Glück

b. 1943

The Nobel-winning poet was pitiless to herself, yet fiercely generous toward her students.

By Amy X. Wang The New York Times

She stood barely five feet tall — slight, unassuming, you had to stoop low to kiss her cheek — but whenever Louise Glück stepped into a classroom, she shot a current through it. Students stiffened their spines, though what they feared was not wrath but her searing rigor: Even in her late 70s, after she won the Pulitzer and the National Humanities Medal and the Nobel, she always spoke to young writers with complete seriousness, as if they were her equals. “My first poem, she ripped apart,” says Sun Paik, who took Glück’s poetry class as a Stanford undergraduate. “She’s the first person whom I ever received such a brutal critique from.” Mark Doty, a National Book Award-winning poet who studied under Glück in the 1970s at Goddard College, felt that she “represented total authenticity and complete honesty.” This, he recalls, “pretty much scared me half to death.”

Spare, merciless, laser-precise: Glück’s signature style as a writer. It was there from an early age. Born in 1943 to a New York family of tactile pragmatists (her father helped invent the X-Acto knife), Glück, a preternaturally self-competitive child, was constantly trying to whittle away at her own perceived shortcomings. When she was a teenager, she developed anorexia — that pulverizing, paradoxical battle with both helplessness and self-control — and dropped to 75 pounds at 16. The disorder prevented her from completing a college degree. Many of the poems Glück wrote in her early 20s flog her own obsessions with, and failures in, control and exactitude. Her narrators are habitués of a kind of limitless wanting; her language, a study in ruthless austerity. (A piano-wire-taut line tucked in her 1968 debut, “Firstborn”: “Today my meatman turns his trained knife/On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.”) In her late 20s, Glück grew frustrated with writing and was prepared to renounce it entirely.

So she took, in 1971, a teaching job at Goddard College. To her astonishment, being a teacher unwrapped the world — it bloomed anew with possibility. “The minute I started teaching — the minute I had obligations in the world — I started to write again,” Glück would confess in a 2014 interview. Working with young minds quickly became a sort of nourishment. “She was profoundly interested in people,” says Anita Sokolsky, a friend and colleague from Williams College, where Glück began teaching in 1984. “She had a vivid and unstinting interest in others’ lives that teaching helped focus for her. Teaching was very generative to her writing, but it was also a kind of counter to the intensity and isolation of her writing.”

Glück’s own poems became funnier and more colloquial, marrying the control she earlier perfected with a new, unexpected levity (in her 1996 poem “Parable of the Hostages”: “What if war/is just a male version of dressing up”), and it is her later books, like the lauded “The Wild Iris” from 1992, that made her a landmark literary figure. Teaching also coaxed out a new facet in Glück herself: that of a devoutly unselfish mentor, a tutor of unbridled kindness.

A less fastidious writer and thinker may have made their teaching duties rote — proffering uniformly encouraging feedback or reheating a syllabus year after year. Glück, though, threw herself into guiding pupils with the same care and intimacy she gave to her own verses. “There was just this voraciousness, this generosity,” says Sally Ball, who met Glück while studying with her at Williams and remained close with her for the three decades until her death. “Every time I moved, she put me in touch with people in that new place. She enjoyed bringing people to know each other and sharing the things she loved.” And as a teacher, Ball says, “Louise was really clear that you have to make yourself change. You can’t just keep doing the same things over and over again.” In that spirit of boundless self-advancement, Glück also taught herself to love cooking and eating. She once hand-annotated a Marcella Hazan recipe and mailed it to Ball, with sprawling commentary on how best to prepare rosemary. “She’s very beautiful and elegant, right,” Ball says, but “we’d go to Chez Panisse and sit down and she eats with gusto. It’s messy, she’s mopping her hands around on the plate.”

Paik recalls spending hours each week decoding Glück’s dense, cursive comments on her work. “I was 19 or 20,” she says, “writing these scrappy, honestly pretty bad poems, and to have them be received with such care and detail — it pushed me to become a better writer because it set a standard of respect.”

“She was 78, and whenever she talked about poetry, it felt like the first time she’d encountered poetry,” says Shangyang Fang, who met Glück when he was at Stanford on a writing fellowship. Glück offered to edit his first poetry collection, and the pair became close friends. “She would talk about a single word in my poem for 10 minutes with me,” Fang says. Evenings would go late. They cooked for each other sometimes, spending hours talking vegetables and spices, poetry and idle gossip. “By the end, I couldn’t thank her enough, and she said: ‘Stop thanking me! I am a predator, feeding on your brain!’”

Photograph by Charles S. Hertz

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[aaknopf]

In Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt, Willard Spiegelman explores the highly unconventional path and mindset of this Iowa-born, late-blooming talent, who lived for much of her adult life in a small studio apartment in the Village and, after years of failing as a novelist, published her first collection, The Kingfisher, when she was sixty-two years old. She became an instant star in the field of American poetry; she died only eleven years later, leaving us with five beautiful books. A poet of long sentences and ornate, flowing music, Clampitt did not confide her secrets directly in her verse; the biography provides a kind of subterranean poetic map of her life. Of this energetic presence, a woman who wore vintage hats and scarves with flair, Spiegelman observes, “Amy knew how to live ‘poor,’ but she also knew, perhaps as compensation, how to write ‘rich.’” In the passage below, the poet immerses herself in studying Greek.    

. . .

As Clampitt was assembling what would become The Kingfisher, she did something she had long promised herself she would do. It was, in part, a much-delayed homage to her father, the Grinnell Classics major who had first taught her the Greek alphabet. Having studied Greek literature in translation, in school and college, and having finally visited Greece in 1965, she enrolled in Ancient Greek language classes. As early as 1954 she had written about wanting to read Sophocles in a bilingual edition, making use of a newly purchased secondhand Greek dictionary. A decade later, on board ship en route to Greece, she took daily half-hour classes to learn basic conversational phrases. Her intellectual curiosity was, as usual, excited by anything having to do with language, whether native or foreign, contemporary or dead.     She got up the courage—as she had four years earlier when she enrolled in Daniel Gabriel’s workshop—to sign on for a weekly class in Attic Greek at The New School in the fall of 1981. She was sixty-one. She took her inspiration from the journalist I. F. Stone, who started his Greek studies at seventy-one in order to learn about Athenian democracy from Thucydides, in the original language. Her classmates ranged from curious young people to a retired physician who read with a magnifying glass. It was the kind of variegated community that had always appealed to Amy, this time in a classroom rather than in a bus or at a protest meeting. “Thrilling though formidably difficult,” the course was grist for an intellectual’s mental mill, with short selections from Pindar, Aeschylus, Simonides, and the Gospels circulating among the students every Saturday from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon, under the watchful eye of Sam Seigle, a moonlighting professor from Sarah Lawrence, whom Amy adored. He “has the learning and the imagination to bring the entire scene alive, and almost every minute he is striking flint with some new insight, historical or etymological.” The material was manna for the voracious student.     Interviewed forty years later, Seigle remembered his student vividly. Coming from the avant-garde precincts of Sarah Lawrence, the professor taught without a syllabus, encouraging students in an elementary course to devise their own paths through new material in a strange tongue. They were forced to think for themselves, he said, especially about the nature of the words and phrases they were learning. “Always curious,” he said, Amy took to “the precision of syntax, and the exactitude of the language” with her typical intellectual alertness. She thrilled, her professor recalled, to the difference between an objective and a subjective genitive (e.g., the two meanings of “the love of God”), a concept she had previously not known. After the semester ended, Seigle never saw her again. Nor did he forget her.     The following semester, Amy stayed uptown, at Hunter College, within walking distance of home on East 65th Street. Here she read Homer with Irving Kizner. She described this to Vendler as “one of the great experiences of my life.” And to Salter she recounted the mouthwatering thrill of those famous, ringing and untranslatable Homeric phrases like “polyphlosboio thalasses” (“the much-sounding sea”) whose sound is integral to the meaning, regardless how you translate it. She found “it impossible to convey the peculiar excitement that goes with all this: it’s like arriving in a place you’d dreamed of all your life.”     When she was young, Amy had dreamed of Manhattan, of England, of Greece. She landed, successively, in all of them. She had dreamed, too, of the Greek language, and now was immersing herself in it. She landed in Greek as well as Greece. She traveled both in the flesh and in her mind. One lovely result was a Petrarchan sonnet—“Homer, A. D. 1982”—that appeared in What the Light Was Like. It begins with a nod to young John Keats’s first great poem, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” which conveys the excitement available to both real-life travelers and stay-at-home explorers who experience an original only vicariously, like Keats reading Homer in translation: “Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, / And many goodly states and kingdoms seen.” Amy was a traveler of both sorts. Clampitt’s 1982 Manhattan is like, and unlike, Keats’s 1816 London.     Here is the octave of her sonnet, dedicated to Kizner:

    Much having traveled in the funkier realms of Ac-     ademe, aboard a grungy elevator car,     deus ex machina reversed, to this ninth floor     classroom, its windows grimy, where the noise of traffic,     πολυφλοίσβοιο-θαλάσσηζ-like, is chronic,     we’ve seen since February the stupendous candor     of the Iliad pour in, and for an hour and a     quarter at the core the great pulse was dactylic.

An attentive reader can hear the poet mingling the dactylic rhythms (DUM-da-da) of Homer with the insistent iambs (da-DUM) of English, and alternating in her rhymes between the hard, consonantal endings in lines 1, 4, 5, and 8 and the more mellifluous, liquid sounds of lines 2, 3, 6, and 7. The “great pulse” is a throbbing, bilingual one, Homer’s and Clampitt’s together. This poem projects the energetic fun that a polyglot intellectual can have, and can share with her readers.

. .

More on this book and author:

Learn more about Nothing Stays Put by Willard Spiegelman.

Learn more about Amy Clampitt and browse other books by her.

Hear Willard Spiegelman read from Nothing Stays Put at Grinnell College in Iowa, on Friday, April 21 (no registration required) and hear his featured guest appearance on the Close Readings podcast with Kamran Javadizadeh.

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

[kitchen-light]

And that takes a lot of time and rigorous discussion. And it can't happen if we just, you know, remove ourselves from the conversation. That might feel powerful at first as an act. I won't have so and so on my syllabus. But in the long run, we really just surrendered our agency and given the field back to the more dominant discourses.

Ocean Vuong, from Novel Dialogue Podcast: 5.1 We Have This-ness, Y’all! Ocean Vuong and Amy E. Elkins, published April 6, 2023

[modulationinstitute]

AMIE Syllabus

Download amie syllabus for section a & b from here-- modulation.in

[the-music-keeper]

Guys. Guys. GUYS. Y'ALL.

ONE OF MY COURSES JUST GOT PUBLISHED THIS AFTERNOON.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

my language class is gonna kill me 😰

[mr-smith-stories]

Mr. Smith #15: Mr. Smith Becomes A Professor

Mr. Smith sat back in his chair on a warm September morning, the first day of the autumn semester. The leaves had not started to fall from the trees, and as Mr. Smith peered out his window he could see Greenbirds hopping around on the field by the lake. Mr. Smith sighed, wishing desperately that he could pet those Greenbirds, which for some reason always flew away. Besides, he had an important job to do- today was his first day as a professor, teaching Child Psychology to a bunch of pretentious stuck up nerds and his friends, who he had blackmailed into joining the class.

Mr. Smith smiled to himself as students began to enter the class and take their seats. Mr. Smith’s friends all sat down next to Mr. Smith’s desk. Mr. Smith stood up, turning on his computer with the syllabus displayed on the screen. It was five minutes until the class began, but Mr. Smith figured it was time to start. “Hello, class. Welcome to Child Psychology. My name is Mr. Smith, but you must call me -“ Mr. Smith paused upon seeing who entered the classroom. He gasped. “YOU! The gay geniuses! Oh no! What do I do? I have to teach a class and now you’re going to make me look STUPID!”

Leo and Ritchie groaned while Alex held back a laugh. “We’re in class with YOU? Oh dear lord. This is going to be a long semester, unless of course you inevitably quit your job once you remember that we’re smarter than you,” Leo said.

“Now you listen here, devil spawn! I’M the genius here! You’d better RESPECT me, or you’ll be forced to leave this class!” Mr. Smith stamped his foot.

“Shouldn’t you be teaching instead of arguing with us?” Asked Ritchie.

Mr. Smith gasped. “You’re right! Oh no! Um, welcome to Child Psychology class. My name is Mr. Smith, but that’s Dr. Smith to you, because I have recently gotten my PhD in psychology, which is why I’M the genius here, and all of you stuck up intellectual rich brats had better not forget it!”

“Did you just insult the entire class?” Alex asked.

“People insult me all the time!” Amy said. “When I was working at Target, I kept forgetting what to type into the cash register, even though what they bought was right in front of me, and people would tell me I wasn’t qualified to work there. It was so annoying!”

“That is annoying! When I worked at Target, I would lose the stuff people bought right after they gave it to me, and spend twenty minutes looking for their purchases when I had put them under the cash register. People talked to my manager and I got fired. It was a-nnoying!” Susan replied.

“Oh my God, that’s so relatable!” Amy high fived Susan, who sat next to her.

“They fired you?!” Frankie asked, alarmed. “What a cruel world for the working class! America is supposed to be land of the free and home of the brave! How villainous your boss must have been! To leave you out on the street like that!”

“Actually, I was living with my parents still, I was sixteen-“ Susan began.

“Oh, you were but a little sixteen year old girl! A child! How sadistic the system is to children! Poor, hard working children slaving away for hours at a cash register! It’s back to the Industrial Revolution! These are tough times for us all! Poor, young, naive, innocent Susan! A victim of the rich liberal elite!” Bob began to sob.

“I hate the rich liberal elite. They refuse to acknowledge hard working kitty cats and how we contribute to society as a whole! Cats should have equal rights with humans! I want a cat to be president one day!” Kitty yelled.

“I want to see a trans person in office one day,” Alex said.

“A trans person?! A cat would make a better president than a trans person! Trans people are delusional!” Kitty paused. “Oh, look at the clock. It’s time for my nap. Cats sleep multiple hours a day, you know.” Kitty laid his head down, closed his eyes and began to meow softly.

“Please, TEACH the class, Mr. Smith.” Ritchie groaned.

“Yes, let’s try not to make this as painful as possible,” Leo remarked.

“That’s DR. Smith to you!” Mr. Smith pounded his fist on the white board.

“Oh yeah?” Ritchie snorted. “What was your dissertation on?”

Mr. Smith began to gesture with his hands and mouth words no one could hear. “Is a dissertation a type of dessert?”

“No. Oh my God!” Leo facepalmed.

“What is your PhD in?” Asked Ritchie.

“I studied genius IQ in children at the puppy farm! Did you know children from the puppy farm have more consistent scores on standardized tests?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Do you mean they all fail?” Asked Leo.

“Yes! Because their minds are pure with the beautiful, creative freedom of thought taught at the puppy farm! These children know all about Greenbirds and Oak Trees, but these tests simply don’t know how to measure intellect. If they did, why do all these geniuses score so low?” Mr. Smith scratched his head.

“Jesus Christ,” Swore Leo.

“Just get on with reading the syllabus.” Ritchie sighed.

“Ok, devil spawn,” Mr. Smith said. “First, there are no tests. You will instead be asked to prove your genius level intellect at the end of the semester by playing a game of Jenga against me. If you lose, you’re obviously not a genius and you fail automatically. If you refuse, you fail again.”

“That’s not very fair-“ Ritchie began.

“Shut up devil spawn! I’m the genius here! I know what I’m doing!” Mr. Smith threw a marker from the board on the ground.

“You’re such a cute professor,” Said Philip. “I’ve never had a professor as handsome as you.” Philip smiled in a daze, then snapped to attention. “But no homo, right?”

Mr. Smith sighed. “You’re cute too. No homo.”

“You can’t flirt with the students, that’s completely inappropriate!” Alex said.

“What does the word, “flirt” mean?” Asked Mr. Smith.

“I think it means that thing on a male’s neck that moves when you talk.” Philip said.

“You’re such a genius, Philip. You’re almost as much of a genius as me,” Mr. Smith said. “Anyway, there are no assignments, except one quiz. The quiz is just, ‘True or False: Mr. Smith is the smartest person to ever live.’ If you answer differently than how I want, you fail.

“Next on the syllabus is attendance. If you don’t constantly remind me that I’m smarter than you, I will count it against your class participation and attendance and you will fail. Writing this was a lot of work, so that is the end of my syllabus. Now we will move on to lecturing.” Mr. Smith pressed a button and began his slides.

“Now, before we begin, let’s establish some background knowledge. Does everyone know what a child is?” Mr. Smith addressed the class.

“Are you kidding me? This is Child Psychology. Of course we know what a child is!” Leo exclaimed furiously.

“Well, as your professor, I have to account for the fact that most of you did not attend the school of the puppy farm, and are wherefore not as educated as me. And that some of you are level 10 or 50 IQ.” Mr. Smith said smugly.

“For the last time, I am obviously not a level 10 IQ, and Ritchie is obviously not a level 50 IQ! We are both geniuses and you are just jealous of us!” Leo snapped.

Mr. Smith scatched his chin, then began to gesture with his hands and mouth things. “I didn’t have any jello with the sandwich Mom packed me today.”

“That’s not what jealous means!” Leo snapped.

“Shut up and let me lecture, devil spawn, or I will give you a Detention!” Mr. Smith stamped his foot.

“This is college, you can’t give me a detention-“ Leo began.

“Shh!” Mr. Smith shushed him. “Let’s discuss the maturity of children. Despite common miscontraceptions, children are very mature. I know this because people are always comparing me to a very young child, and I’m very mature. Children must wherefore be very mature and geniuses, and lose their genius intelligence as they get older, except me because I have 1 million level IQ.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Said Leo. “You’re not qualified to teach us anything! That’s it! I’m walking out! Who’s with me?”

Ritchie and Alex got up to leave, followed by several other students. Mr. Smith yelled, “Wait! Don’t go!” More students got up to leave, so Mr. Smith became enraged. He ran to his desk, picked up his computer monitor and chucked it out the window. “Whole lot of good you did me!” Then he picked up one of the student’s backpacks and threw it across the room. Then he tipped his desk over and dumped water all over his computer, and chucked that out the window for good measure. As more students began to leave, Mr. Smith ran to the whiteboard and began to pound on the white board while yelling, until finally everyone was gone, including his friends who thought it would be funny to leave and make Mr. Smith angry.

Mr. Smith ran out into the hallway. “That’s IT! I’ve had it with you gay geniuses! I quit! I’ll never teach ever again!” Then he called the dean and quit his job, which he had only gotten because the dean had eaten yet another apology pot brownie from Mr. Smith’s father.

Fin.

***