This is a summary of college only using two pictures; expensive as hell.
That’s my Sociology “book”. In fact what it is is a piece of paper with codes written on it to allow me to access an electronic version of a book. I was told by my professor that I could not buy any other paperback version, or use another code, so I was left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200. Best part about all this is my professor wrote the books; there’s something hilariously sadistic about that. So I pretty much doled out $200 for a current edition of an online textbook that is no different than an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5; yeah, I checked. My mistake for listening to my professor.
“Caravaggio was the BEST renaissance painter, because he knew his shit. Literally. Look at this painting, he’s painted shit on everything, even Saint Peter!”
“For those of you fortunate enough to Not grow up catholic, a baptism is where you mist a baby like an orchid to keep it from going to hell.”
“You get Extra Credit for you eerily comprehensive knowledge of Muppets. Now stop talking.”
“GOD I love flying buttresses. They’re so melodramatic!”
“I don’t call him “Da Vinci” because that means “From Vinci”. That’s like calling Steve “Of Greeley” instead of his real name and that’s just rude. And not just because Greeley is Awful.”
“Michelangelo was really depressed because his job sucked. Also because he was a bit of a douche, but mostly the job. He should have been doing literally anything else.”
“Everything can be improved with a Simpson’s reference!”
“Send me Memes, I like having recent content in my lectures.” *Next day* “Stop sending me memes. Please.”
*whilst angrily pointing at a picture of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* “The Turtles have all their names mixed up for their personalities and frankly that’s embarrassing. The techie should be Leo, the Flirt should be Raphael, The Boring Leader Dude should be Donatello and the angry one should be Carvaggio because that asshole literally spent his life drunk, fighting people and blackmailing cardinals. Carvaggio was the BEST.”
“I could have studied in Rome. I could be trying to match boxes of broken dicks to statuary. Instead of dicks I have you assholes.”
“Warhol was, as you young people say, A Troll. The art is not the Art, the Outrage is the Art. Which is kind of a Dick Move, which we old people say too.”
“Remember Kids- mental illness and heavy metal poisoning are not actually substitutes for Talent and Hard Work! Get therapy and don’t drink your paint water!”
person with a degree in a field: *says something accurate about said field* someone who has never even had a high school course in said field: wow you should really take a class in that field because you sound like an idiot. even I, someone who has never studied this in my life, know you’re wrong. person with a degree in a field:
my favorite out of context quotes from my archeology professor so far in no particular order
and floridians are just as human as you and me!
and the moral of the story is that there are no deadly snakes native to alaska
you might know this guy as one of the only archaeologists cool enough to be mentioned by indiana jones
it’s my dream to have my name said by harrison ford
i’m not going to apologize for having this class at 6am because you paid for it and it’s your fault.
we don’t all dress like lara croft. i tried to get it to be a thing on a dig and my colleagues yelled at me.
they were pretty good archaeologists except they were too racist to realize anything they found.
i take back what i said about us not dressing like lara croft because lewis binford here is wearing nothing but short shorts and a cowboy hat. take notes for an academic halloween costume!
archaeologists can be good artists! not me, though. or anyone i know. but if you can draw just know you have options.
sometimes you find dead bodies when you dont really expect it and you just have to deal with it
archaeologists are the only people allowed to get exited when they find corpses.
once i ruined thanksgiving dinner when i told my family i had gotten my degree in archaeology and my uncle commented he liked dinosaurs too
the closest i’ve ever been to a grizzly bear is when i left my glasses in my tent on a dig in alaska, saw a big rock in the distance, and almost screamed
additional quotes
ah yes. archaeologists. or, as i love to call us, pottery analysts
i mean he was kind of a good guy for helping us beat britain but he owned slaves so that really cancelled it out.
archaeology is like cultural anthropology, except after you interview the person you turn around and shoot them in the head.
do not use trees! trees are bad! don’t do it!
usually you find shards, but it’s super exciting when you find a really big shard
it’s basically like a waterpark, except you’re fully clothed and walking through a dark tunnel knee deep in muddy water. so, basically splish splash.
i dont believe in curses but my colleagues and i like to encourage the idea of them so people stop touching our stuff
usually, you would find a knife in a kitchen. or underneath your pillow to really freak out your roommate who is a history nerd and has no idea why you would sleep with a knife under your pillow and he’ll get really scared and freaked out and okay i’m getting off topic
no matter what the other scientists say, archaeology is a real science.
don’t worry, i promise you, and whatever government agency that’s spying on me right now, that i’m not a crazy communist trying to overthrow the government
by now you’ve noticed the big “POP QUIZ” written on the board. there isn’t one, but i wanted to see the looks on your face when you saw it. but you’re all dead inside so it’s not really funny.
everything was fine except the citizens of pompeii just woke up dead the next day
the number one question you should ask when you read old archaeology papers is “how the hell do you know?”
nothing pisses off old men more than young people asking “why” and “prove it” so do that as often as possible
this is incredible! all it takes is a computer the size of this room!
even more from the margins of my notebook!
when in doubt, it’s ritualistic
coprolites are the only shit archaeologists get excited over
i know the only reason you’re not laughing at my hilarious jokes is because it’s early
they called it the garbage project. which is also what people call the projects i work on when we apply for funding.
what you have to realize is that people are fundamentally weird. they do weird stuff now and they have done it thousands of years ago.
things come and go but pottery is forever
i dont know if you all know this but moose are terrifying abominations.
and today’s lesson is about the difference between dirt and soil!
please, please, please do not eat old butter you found buried in a bog.
normally i would say this blackboard is a feature because it isn’t portable and can’t be moved but this is a community college so who knows
one of my biggest fears is that this will get so many notes that someone in the class will see it and show it to the professor and he’ll realize half the notes ive been taking in class are jotting down the weird shit he says
This was the most magical thing I’ve ever read.
I would have loved this class. There are some good nuggets in there, among the weird. I’ve told my students a variant of this one:
“nothing pisses off old men more than young people asking “why” and “prove it” so do that as often as possible”
I worked with toddlers and pre schoolers for three years. Sometimes I accidentally slip and tell a friend to say bye to an inanimate object (“say bye bus!”) & occasionally they unthinkingly just do it.
I’m glad there’s a teacher version of “accidentally called teacher ‘mom’”
when I worked at Medieval Times occasionally I would slip in real life and call people “my lord”
One time during family prayer, dad began: “our father who art in heaven, American Airlines, how can I help you?”
One time my dad went to the White Castle drive-thru and the lady (who was supposed to say ‘Welcome to White Castle, what’s your crave?’) asked, “Welcome to White Castle, what’s your problem?”
She apologized profusely while my dad proceeded to lose his shit laughing.
Yesterday I went to Wendy’s and the girl said “Welcome to McDonalds” and then just sighed
I’m literally wheezing in laughter (literally with the literal meaning) at the what’s your problem one
Two days ago, I answered my phone with my work greeting. My mum laughed for five minutes solid.
So if my students finish a quiz/test early, I ask them to draw me stuff on the back (partly so those who need more time are less self-conscious about still having the test out, partly because fuck yeah, pictures), and it may be the single best decision of my career.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve told these kids that (a) the Romans believed there were demons in their public toilets and (b) the word for “janitor” comes from “ianitor”, which means “(door) guard”.
So now I’m getting drawings of superhero janitors taking on toilet demons, and it’s so beautiful.
Aaaaand today a student showed me a video of himself lighting a fire in his toilet while chanting the conjugation of the word “to be”.
He said he wanted to recreate the ancient toilet demons, and I have concerns.
K… but why conjugations of to be?
My students kept forgetting how to conjugate esse, so I turned it into a rhythmic chant that I had them say over and over. The problem is that when you chant ANYTHING in Latin it sounds like you’re summoning a demon, which they decided was awesome, so uh. Now I’ll just be randomly walking through the hallway and hear voices chanting, “sum es est! sumus estis sunt!”
I’m 99% sure my colleagues think I’ve started a cult.
Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m sure everyone will turn out all the better for it.
Steel Phoenix Studios 