Shadow

I am the sixth grade teacher at our school, but I am also teaching the seventh grade speech class this year. It's loads of fun and pretty humorous sometimes.
Right now we're working on Robert Louis Stevenson's "My Shadow"

It begins:
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me

Ricky said:
I have a little shadow that goes out with me....

There was no more poem after that. I was laughing so hard. Maybe you had to be there??
Stevenson would be so insulted :D

State taxes

Prof: It's worse than herding cats. Herding cats is much easier than dealing with the fifty states.

College athletics...

Prof: My daughter was a college athlete.
Student: What did she play?
Prof: She played swimming.

Motivation at its finest

[From Federal Income Taxation:]

"The case that follows ... has little if any remaining importance for the rule it adopts."

[...which is exactly how much remaining interest I have in reading it.--ed.]

Note: The first printed line under the case heading is as follows: "The facts in the case are complicated and confusing." That's the part where I went to get another cup of coffee.

heckler's veto

Prof: I did not have you read the Deferred Interest code sections because you would have lynched me.

::SMACK::SMACK::SMACK::

Student: "Sorry. There was a spider on her chair."

Delusional professor?

"My students do not guess. They reason; they analyze; they reflect; but they do not guess."

... and I had a lucky rabbit's foot

Prof [on how he got here]: They were looking for a tax professor, I was in the market, and the first guy they offered the job said no.

More picking on Congress

Student: Why does this statute say "knowingly and willfully" if it just meant Knowingly and not willfully?

Prof: Because Strom Thurmond wrote it, probably. I don't know. It's Congress.

People skills--the one thing law students can't figure out

Prof: Don't look at your screen. Your answers are are not on the screen. They're on my face.

My apologies...

... I had two classes over the past two days with entertaining professors, but I didn't have my laptop out to live-blog their comments. So I'm going to indulge in a rather lengthy post. Sorry. (Not really.)

• "[Scientists] all think they're so smart, but eventually a tax person will get the best of them. Because we know arithmetic, and they know differential equations."
• "Seven minus ten equals zero. That's exactly right. No, really!" (ed.--this had to do with taxes, so it really was right)
• "The way the tax law works is, they're gonna say, 'Is there any way we can tax these retained earning as dividends?'"
• "I'm putting on my border collie suit here and I'll nip at your heels on this for the rest of the semester."
• "And I don't want you all going around naked or looking like you don't know what's going on because you've been in my class." (ed.--I have no idea where that came from!)
• "Any CEO who has a nickname like 'Chainsaw,' uh, it's probably not only a company you don't want to work for; it's probably a company you don't want to audit."
• Re: hackers lowballing to get janitorial contracts: "Think about it. You're cleaning out trash cans, but you can clean out the company's bank accounts at the same time."
• Prof: "We have a lot of people sick--mono, strep throat--" Student: "Bird flu." Prof: "What? ... Oh, bird flu. I thought you said 'birthdays.' Like, twenty-first birthdays, maybe."
• "The KGB is still all over the U.S., is my understanding. I'm paranoid. ... O'Reilly said it last night, so it must be true, right?"

Why don't most MBA programs have a "tax person"?

Prof: "Maybe they have powerful lobbying skills or something and can sort of talk their way through taxes with Congress."

Traffic tickets

Prof: "My husband got a ticket for failure to yield right-of-way to a train. ... The police officer wrote him the ticket as he got his foot stitched up in the emergency room. He said, 'Were you the one whose car hit that train?' Now, I would argue that the train hit him."

The Law vs. Law School

Prof: "I've been able to separate the law from law school in my mind. The law is fun. Law school was traumatic."

A most gentlemanly "Forget it!"

From the court's opinion in George Pepperdine Foundation v. Pepperdine:

"A regrettable situation! but is it one that requires a burnt offering or that demands the swinging of human forms from the gibbet to gratify the rancor of intimate observers? ... While [plaintiff's] counsel has brilliantly unraveled the mysteries of a pleading and argued well for the certainty of causes not united and separately stated, yet he has not woven a pattern of justice out of the materials at hand whereby to adjudicate liability on the part of respondents."

Isn't that what lawyers do?

Prof: But we're not here to talk about standing for a bunch of reasons, one of which is I don't know anything about it. [musing] Though... That hasn't precluded me from talking about a lot of other things.

If a case appears in Westlaw and no one reads it...

Prof: The name of that case is [name of case], if you're interested. Or even if you aren't, that's still the name of the case.

Can we pretend we didn't?

Prof: Good morning. How was the Michigan [vs. Notre Dame] game? Did anyone see that?

[You may need to be somewhat familiar with Notre Dame culture to realize the irony in this query. Let's just say that, yes, we did see the game, and no, we don't want to talk about it. --ed.]

Peg Leg Lucy (a.k.a. - Miss Delaura Talbert)

The only problem is that she'll be able to do the same at some point I'm sure...we did a Pirate skit in chapel the otherday. I read the story she acted it out. It was to tell the kids that they needed to come to school dressed like a pirate for "Talk Like a Pirate Day". They loved it.

That's all the explanation we need.

Prof: Any questions about land value basis?

Student: Why does the IRS depreciate the basis of things like property, when it is obviously appreciating in value? That doesn't make any sense.

Prof: [mumble mumble words that don't make a lot of sense] The short answer is, Congress decided it should.

So it happens to you too...

Prof: [soliciting principles of liability] Don't mention cases yet. You'll make my head hurt.

It's a science

Prof: Moment of honesty: raise your hand if you've played Mortal Kombat... Okay, women who've played, raise your hands. [Woman student], you play? What button do you push to make the "kick"?

Woman student: I just push all the buttons at once. Sometimes I win.

Prof: Oh. Well it's nice to see women playing that game. [indicating another woman student who had her hand up] You're both on call.

Should've shared.

Prof: Who's the final arbiter of the facts at a sentencing hearing?

Student: uhhh

Prof: Guess.

Student: The judge?

Prof: The judge. You have a piece of Snickers on your tooth. Right here.

Ah, tenure...

Prof: ...[Dean's name], who was dean at that time, and was in fact for most of the post-Renaissance period...

... Let's go picket!

Student [in response to another student's discussion]: I disagree.
Prof: Hey, it's America.

But don't worry...

Prof: There will always be prayer in the public school as long as there's algebra.

Like Intelligent Design?

Prof: Could we have an 'Ode to Electricity' [in a public school classroom]? Is that Constitutional? I mean it is kind of supernatural...

Suspicious clients

Student: "Perhaps [the accountant in the problem] is concerned that this is a cash-run business, and that [the client is] funneling some of that cash to fund illegal activities, like his meth lab in the basement."

How is this related to accounting?

Prof: "When I was a little kid, we had air raid drills. ... We were supposed to look out for German planes--never mind that we were in the hills of West Virginia. We had a big ammonia plant. If they'd hit that, we would have all been incinerated."

The professor's cats

Prof: "I feel a little like I'm talking to my cats today, and that's not good!"
Student: "I thought those cats could solve anything."
Prof: "Well they really can, but they stare and think for a long time."

That explains a lot...

Prof: "I'm not really into ironing, obviously. I wish I were. I don't have the time."

Quotable Quote of the Week

This delicious little tidbit was inserted (not by me) into an otherwise perfectly serious conversation:

The trouble with the rhythm method is that people are synchopated.

Congress

Prof (re: Congress's "contemplating" changing tax laws): "You don't have to worry about them too much, because they contemplate all the time and rarely do anything."

Huh? again

Prof (sorry, I don't know what he was talking about, other than that it was tax-related): "This is something come up with by the Democrats back in the 1940s, when people drank hard and smoke filled the rooms."

Huh?

Tax prof: "Tax legislation is like making sausage."

Form 4797

Prof: "That was sort of like explaining in five minutes the nerve endings in somebody's hand or something. ... Don't go talking about this to people at cocktail parties."

Reserved for final judgement

Prof [re: a prominent atheist]: She's now in a graveyard in Texas. I guess she's found out whether she's right, one way or another. We've not heard back.

precocious law students

Prof: It's really different for all you young kids. I mean you were all born in, what, 1997?

My new dream job

Prof: I don't know, just thinkin' out loud. That's what I get paid to do.

Did that go in the court brief?

Prof: How did [the plaintiff] win this case?

Student: I don't know.

Prof: He had a good lawyer and a lot of money. DON'T TRY THIS.

The little old lady from Pasadena?

Professor: "My husband has an aunt who's 90, and she still drives--with no license, I might add."

Chopsticks

Story 1
Last week two of my girls had birthdays on the same day. Dain's mum brought spaghetti from on of the many pizza places. Laura's mum brought the cake and drinks. We were eating and I was with the girls. The following took place;

Dain: "Miss Straub, I bet you are glad that this lunch does not need chopsticks."

"Why Dain?"

"Because you are not very good with them."

"How do you know?"

"I watch you eat at lunch when you use chopsticks."

Grrrr...why can't they pay that much attention in class...

Story 2
Chris (one of Delaura's students) has informed her and myself that Americans have long noses "like chopsticks". The mental image that creates....

Funnies

Some funny things from this school year:

John's Spelling Test:
durama (actual word: drama)
agesabition (actual word: exhibition)
babitaion (actual word: habitation)

Talk:
We have a talk with the fifth and sixth grade about personal hygene. Miss Straub talked to the boys about bacteria and how it can make you stinky. It really grossed some of them about, and one of them took it particularly to heart. The next morning the fifth grade classroom smelled of man's perfume as Jason has made sure that he smelled nice. I would have been happy for Dial soap, but that works too.

Miss Anderson's quiz:
Question: Which two middle eastern countries were at war this summer?
Student's Answer: Canada and Vermont.

Note: student was serious.............

It's all in your paradigm

Prof: Is there an argument that a rational person could believe the earth is flat?

Student #1: Well, unless they came up with some really contorted definition of "flat"...

Student #2: Well sure, why are we thinking in three dimensions anyway? That's so arbitrary.

Ah, Notre Dame...

Prof: How does the insurance company make money off this (annuity program)?

Student: I am not a good person for this question. The only thing I know about money is how to spend it.

Comparison/Contrast Essays

My kids are learning how to write essays this week in English. As they usually do they start with a Comparison/Contrast Essay. I had them write two paragraphs; one comparing one contrasting. They had to have six sentences each. They could choose any subject.

This is John Choi’s essay in all its glory, save the messy handwriting. If anyone can tell me what he’s talking about I’d appreciate it…

Comparison-contract
1. A pirras and chickens alike in several ways
2. Bath a pirras and a chickens are around and most have a small hole in the middle.
3. Bath a pirras and a chickens are about three or four inches in diameter and about an inch thick.
4. pirras and chickens are also similar in popularity
5. many people bay pirras or chickens for a special lunch.
6. Bath pirras shops and doughnut shops are popular places for families and friends to enjoy together.
7. pirras are baked in the oven but chickens are fired.
8. Although they look alike pirras and chickens are different in many ways.
9. Pirras have cherry insider while chickens are coarse inside like a fired food
10. many people slice their pirras and eat them as meet with cheese with them.
11. I usually have cereal for breakfast
12. however most people like to eat their chicken with nothing on them

just discovered something - John copied the essay from the example in the book but changed only the subjects. He gets a 0% and has to rewrite it for Monday. It's still amusing though.

A better investment

Professor [on writing a non-orthodox court brief]: Good advocates are gamblers. They've gotta be gamblers, because hey, it's somebody else's money.

I'd stick to the stock market.

[In the context of a policy discussion about state lotteries]

Professor: What about blackjack? Is that a good investment?

Student: Well, I don't know how good you are at blackjack.

Professor: Well, I can count to 21...

Creative accounting? (Or, How many states?)

Tax prof: "And that [deduction is] the same in all 42 states. And I'm counting the District of Columbia as a state."
[Students all look puzzled]
Student: "What about the other states?"
Prof: "They don't have income tax."

(And I was thinking that either, (1) the professor was showing us the "unofficial" addition method to use when figuring taxable income, or (2) he had forgotten the addition of a few states since he was younger.)

Regional accents

Professor (after misspelling "veterinary" as "vetrinary"): "It sounds like I'm from West Virginia or something."

Bungee jumping!

Professor: "Whenever I think of exculpatory clauses, I think of bungee jumping. ... If the rope snaps and you go 'splat,' is that ordinary negligence or gross negligence?"

And they wonder why people hate them

From Federal Income Taxation:

"As far as the IRS is concerned, once money is stolen, that money belongs to the thief and the thief must pay his or her taxes [on the stolen money as income] before returning anything to the victim."

No blaming the victim here

[in Family Law]

Student: The husband should be able to sue the wife in tort for hiring a hitman to kill him, but only as long as he's prepared for her to bring counterclaims for infliction of emotional distress.

Prof: Nah, there was none of that. She was just tired of him. I don't know what her problem was.

Why bother signing?

Prof: "You pay your bills this month and sign 'Mickey Mouse' [on your checks]. They'll all go through. Nobody looks at them."
Student: "Will you pay the late fees?"

Bumper sticker of the week

Come over to the dark side...we have cookies.

Probably a story behind that

Student: [answering a question about going after illegal activity as an IRS agent] I don't really want to get killed by Al Capone.

Professor: Well, the IRS tends to protect its own. Although I did know one guy who was killed by the Church of Scientology...

Ouch!

Professor: Here's a hypo for you: You're an IRS agent (sorry, I don't mean to slander you in any way)...

In case you were wondering

IRS Publication 525: "Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ [relating to self-employment income] if from your self-employment activity."

Career hazards

Tax law professor: The most common tax offense among lawyers is failing to file a tax return at all. This is usually a result of alcoholism, substance abuse, or depression.

Lost

Here in Korea the water is rather unpalatable so everyone drinks bottled water. We have water coolers on all the floors in the school and the kids provide their own cups (which often have lids because of the dust here). Jamies cup is cute - it's a bear. The lid is it's head. Today he lost the lid -

"Miss Straub! I lost my head!" I knew what he meant (even English speaking kids might say something like that) but could not resist...

"It looks like it's on your body Jamie."

Jamie gets a very confused look and feels his head...

After a second (still feeling for his own head) "No Miss Straub, my cup's head."

The not so full-service professor

Professor [as he writes Latin term on the board]: I may have the spelling wrong, guys, and I really apologize, but I really don't care.

Come on, it was orientation day...

Professor [in a class of about 70 students]: This is the online directory. That's why I have trouble identifying you. Some of your pictures are so bad... Look at this one! This is [one of the students in the class].

Free class pass... and I get to make fun of you

Professor: Who can tell me what [the USSG] is? I won't call on you next class if you can get this one.

[hand shoots into the air]

Professor: [pointing at her] Oh-ho-ho-ho! It's the gunner!

A pretty good one...

Prof: [Student], were you here last class?

Student: No, I wasn't enrolled yet.

Prof: What kind of excuse is that?

Accounting textbook examples

"Our author and other authors love to kill off the key employee. It doesn't usually work that way, unless you operate in Baghdad, or somewhere like that."

Is it really that easy?

Prof: "My pet dog could do [a Schedule M-1]! The cats of course could do it, but the dog, with a little training."

What are we coming to?

Prof: [question about representing the wishes of a minor vs. the kid's best interests]

Student: I think that's an ethics question.

Prof: I'm not above raising those.

Is this how attorneys operate?

Prof (telling us about an excessively complicated legal document that he and other auditors couldn't figure out): "We wrote the opinion that that particular attorney had perhaps been tussling with the bottle too much. Maybe that's why we could never reach him--he was in the tank, drying out."

Homework

Miss Talbert: Lorie, did you copy your answers from the back of the book?

Lorie: Oh, no Miss Talbert. I did not.

Lorie's Answers:
Question 1. Answers will vary
Question 2. Answers will vary
Question 3. Answers will vary

Miss Talbert: Yup, pretty sure you did.

The Plan

A few nights ago I got a call from a student. John was telling me that Matthew had been at his house to play and accidentally took John's bag and left his own. So told him he could turn his work in the day after, instead of the next day when it was due.

"Is that a plan?" I asked.

"No." John said

Oooookayyyy....expained again, same question, same answer. Try again...same thing. Finally I asked him what he thought was a good plan.

"No, no Miss Straub. It was not a plan. It was an accident. Matthew not mean to take my bag with him. He have the same bag as me."

Ah language barriers...I did explain to him what I meant about "Is that a plan."

Every lecture should have a llama

Professor: [After drawing our attention to a headline article in the Wall Street Journal two years ago about how it was trendy to buy live llamas as lawn decorations] I digress. Should this client incorporate as a not-for-profit?

Say what?

"The tax law of the United States, like automobiles and hot dogs, is created in a multistep process." (Federal Tax Research textbook)

Business ethics

Prof: "We're trying to integrate business ethics throughout the curriculum, so this is my contribution." (As the class enjoyed listening to a Weird Al song called "Don't Download This Song.")

Collateral

Prof: "I have a cousin... He saved his money, and we were all broke all the time, so we'd borrow money from him. ... He foreclosed on his brother's tennis shoe once--buried it in a box in the backyard.... [His brother] would give you the shirt of his back, and [my cousin] would give you the shirt off his back, if you had collateral."

John

Hi all! This is the first posting of the Laura on Frittering Away, so I shall share a story from class yesterday. We were writing letters in class yesterday and I was going around and checking to see what kind of progress the kids were making. When I got to John I asked him, "OK, John. Where are you?" John, without skipping a beat, looked up at me and, with a puzzled look on his face, replyed, "right here." It was like I was asking him a trick question and he was trying very hard to figure out what the catch was. I need to be more careful about how I word things.

Nutty professor

"The other day I was busy all day and got home and realized that I hadn't talked to a single person all day. So I commented to my cat..."

That nutty tax code!

Tax prof: "This is kind of nutty, but there are a lot of nutty things in tax."

Run now while you still can.

Professor: If you look at our tax structure--and you're better off not to--it's rather curious.

What indeed...

Professor: [explaining that some homeschooling is now structured so that parents hire a tutor to come in an teach their kids] Some teachers love this arrangment. I can just see the teacher sitting out by the pool in the back of the mansion with the kids. I mean, hey, what could go wrong?

Class: *nervous laughter*

Your tuition at work

Student: [after prof corrects a grammar distinction in a student's answer] Thank you, sir.
Professor: That's why we're here. I'm a full-service professor.

Law school hiring practices

Professor: Neither of my parents had high school degrees. My mother went through third grade and my father went through ninth. Then I went to tenth and I thought that was something! Then this job [as a law professor] came up...

Advertisements

Prof: "My cousin... I mean, she took some cleaner back [to the store] once because it cleaned, but it did not shine. The ad said, 'Cleans and shines.'"

Valid contracts

Prof: "You all know I'm always offering A's for your firstborn child. I love babies, they're so sweet. ... Is that a valid contract? Yes, but it's not enforceable. ... I can't deal in live children."

Reasons for not grading papers in class...

My students had to write 10 sentences for Reading using Selling words and other vocab I give them. One of the 6th graders Chris used the word "depress";

"I depress my thumb into his back."

Jack used some English Vocab "imperative";
“I was imperatived by my sister.”

He used interrogative and declairative in similar ways.

Now that's noble advocacy.

Professor: There's a saying among defense attorneys--"Innocent until proven broke."

And no dinner, either.

Professor: Pretend you're [fictional character in complex hypo].

Student: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to jail.

At least some candy?

Professor: So you need the bag man to cooperate with you to make your case and he says, What's in it for me? What do you say?

Student: I don't know.

Professor: Well that's helpful.

Federal Criminal Prosecution: nutshell version

Professor: What does a federal prosecutor do?
Student: Prosecute.
Professor: Prosecute who?
Student: Criminals.
Professor: Okaaay...

At least he's honest

Professor: "That question [on course evaluations], 'Is the professor enthusiastic about his subject?' The answer is, 'No.' Having taught this for a long time, I'm not enthusiastic about it. ... but I'm paid to stand up here and tell you things."

The same professor, critiquing a sample letter in the textbook: "The people who wrote the book are in California, so everything is all loose and casual. ... 'By the way, half your family died, we're really sorry, see you at the barbecue!'"

quod erat demonstrandum

Professor: Normal people do not really speak Latin. We do have a professor visiting this afternoon who actually speaks Latin, but he's not persona typica.

The *other* sacrament

Professor: [Waiting for a student to volunteer an answer and finally getting one to raise her hand] There you go! Bless you my child.

When I was your age...

Professor: When I was being educated 100 years ago and I came home and said the teacher scolded me, my parents didn't say, "Let's sue the teacher." They said, "Well, the teacher was probably right, you little rascal," and they took away my ipod... Well, no, maybe my abacus.

Tenure

Newly-tenured prof: "For some people, tenure is kind of like taking a permanent sabbatical."

Product Alert!

Freudian slippers, anyone?

Thankfully...

Now am grading English papers. The assignment is to write one each of the four kinds of sentences (exc., interr., etc..).

Jason's Declaritave sentence - "I hate dung."

For this we can all be thankful.

New Kind of Instrument

For homework my 5th graders were to list things that are "harmonious to the ear"...

One answer: "mp3 player" listed along with violin, cello, piano and other instruments

Conjugating IRS provisions

Federal Income Taxation prof: The IRS code looks like it's written in English because there are English words in it. Don't be fooled. It's not.

Computer Orientation

I spent nearly two hours in "computer orientation" this afternoon, but at least the guy in charge of the session was entertaining! Here's a sampling...

• "That's like ignoring a gaping flesh wound." (on ignoring anti-virus scans)
• "I could treat that with medication, but I choose not to." (on his tendency to save important documents on his hard drive, his thumb drive, and a CD)
• "[Your laptop] doesn't like to be where you don't like to be. I don't like the trunk of my car in August, it doesn't like the trunk of my car in August."
• "If you need WeatherBug, try the window. It doesn't tell you the temperature, but you can tell if it's raining."

What is that supposed to mean?

"The ABC's of Finding a Good Wife... It just sounds like a Protestant book."

--my very Catholic friend

Bumper sticker of the week

Dyslexic devil worshippers sell their souls to Santa.