The Old Prof

What the hell?

I just brought my wife home from the hospital. It is now Friday night. She has been there since Tuesday at about 11 in the evening. She had a hacking cough for several days but never complains so until I saw her sort of lurch as she walked I didn’t realize how serious it was. I decided it looked like what I had thought was bronchitis was really pneumonia cause she was getting weak. So at 10:30 pm we drove to the hospital. By only 3:30 the next morning a doctor told me that x-rays showed “ a touch of pneumonia” and blood tests revealed a blood sugar level above 400. Today with her blood sugar level at 200 and something and what the morning nurse told we was the worst Pneumonia she had ever seen (We were, she said, lucky we got it before there was “respiratory shutdown”’) apparently non–existent, we came home. Not only was there now no trace of pneumonia but two x-rays showed that it never existed. She had bronchitis. Though the lack of fever that I had remarked on was now listed as high fever. Thus through the miracle of modern medicine a nonexistent malady had been cured and was as if it had never been. Well, except for the massively high sugar levels which seem all too real.

If all that seems a touch confusing, its nothing to the confusion I am feeling. Some one is nutty as hell. Perhaps its as my wife said about a nurse to whom I had tried to confer the apparently unacceptable information that my wife has amnesia and long explanations and directions given to her and not to me were not likely to be productive. “She’s not very smart and people like that have your life in their hands”.

Anyway we are home with a sack full of medicine.

And….

As I was sitting there waiting for my wife to finish her yellow colored hospital food I noticed a white plastic cup full of ice (with opaque sides) and too high for my wife to see into. I thought I might point out to her that she had ice that she wasn’t using. I said, “This cup is full of ice”. She looked at me and said, “imagine! And you thought I couldn’t identify ice when I saw It?” Why I was just about to say to you, “What ees theeese thing white man?”

ahhh

Posted by Old Prof at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now for something completely new

I am beginning to understand the cause in the sudden drop in test scores.

As I was erasing the board a couple of days ago and the new class was entering a young guy turned to the girl who had just come in and inquired, “Is that a new tattoo?” She said what? And he repeated, “Is that a new tattoo”? She looked confused and said “what”? He, I thought, patiently it seemed, repeated his question; “ “Is that a new tattoo?” she said with a very puzzled look on her face and in a faltering voice, “new?” and carefully, quizzically, spelled the unknown word, “ N E W” ? Still, having identified the strange new vocabulary item she never quite understood the question well enough to formulate an adequate answer.

I suspect they are dating heavily right now.

I have a feeling that speaking English at that level might hinder any really deep understand of the upcoming history lecture. On the other hand she was in attendance which is more than I can say for many.

Go Bramas

Posted by Old Prof at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I make my own fun

I had just corrected two sections of tests and just joking around I intended to tell one class that I didn’t think they were cheating because the scores were so low. What came out was “The test scores are really low. Have you thought of cheating?” Yup, I think they had.

Posted by Old Prof at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Playing hard to get

I guess I’m learning how to use that electronic “rattrap”. Apparantly if its too easy the rat thinks it’s no fun. (They tell me.)

I think the rat (Mouse actually) had knocked some laundry down on the black enameled steel tunnel of an electronic trap. Unable to just walk in and get the peanut butter the mouse laboriously tunneled in and in the artificial dark entered the trap; there I found it, where having sampled the delights it envisioned, it was manifestly no longer interested in the bait.

Victory is mine. Oh and whats really cool is that the trap, having succeeded, blinks a nice green light to announce its success. It looks great in the dark. (I had mistyped it as I and the sentence came out reading I looks really great in the dark. Truer and truer.)

Posted by Old Prof at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)