Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

And How Does This Advance the Ball for You, Exactly?

This is an actual, verbatim conversation initiated by a student (shades of Minnesota Matron). And all I can think is, "....you're serious? Really??"

From: . [LXXXXXXX.D@xxxxxxxx.edu]
Sent: Sun 12/14/2008 2:44 PM
To: [thefirecat@xxxxxxx.edu]
Subject: please not a C

Hi its Dxxxxx
please not a c. i came to every class and thats my lowest grade this semester and that really brings down my gpa. And the intership i need requires a 3.0 gpa and im sorry for missing the one assingment. how bout i watch a old movie and send you a report on it or go see a play or somthin.


thanks for your time

From: [thefirecat@xxxxxx.edu]
Sent: Mon 12/15/2008 10:57 AM
To: [LXXXXXX.D@xxxxxx.edu]
Subject: RE: please not a C

Frankly it's a little late now to be concerned about your grade. I mentioned after the midterm that people had an opportunity to raise their grades by writing an additional paper; some students took advantage of that generous offer. You chose not to. The one assignment you missed didn't actually factor that much into your grade, especially since you were in class pretty consistently. You got a D on your midterm, a B on your paper on Othello, and a C on the final. That averages out to a C. Sorry.



From: . [LXXXXXXX.D@xxxxxxxx.edu]
Sent: Sun 12/14/2008 2:44 PM
To: [thefirecat@xxxxxxx.edu]
Subject: RE: please not a C


i was probly sleep when it was offerd... but ok :(:::::::


On second thought, I'm tempted to change his grade after all. I'm thinking a D for dumbass might be appropriate. Good thing that takes paperwork I don't have here. I'll have to settle for public, if anonymous, humiliation.

37 and a Wake-Up

I just watched (ok, several times) the CNN video of some lunatic throwing his shoes at George W. Bush. I gotta hand it to the man, he may not be quick with a phrase but he's got some pretty good reflexes. Check out that duck and cover action.

"Let me talk about the guy throwing his shoe. It's one way to gain attention. It's like going to a political rally and having people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and having people not gesturing with all five fingers...."

And you know what? If he'd been this much fun the rest of his time in office, I might not have hated him quite so much.

What to Do When You Run Out of Sick Days

Don't worry though. It's not contagious.

No, seriously? Best. Protest. Ever.

A Brush with Genius

Just read this message from Frank Reichlin, who was a year behind me at the MFA program at Eastern Washington University. I want to be Frank when I grow up, for various reasons, not the least of all being that he writes messages like this:

"that would be a lamb sausagette, I believe. Also known as a wooly banger, one of the cutest of all delectable meat products. The baby rabbit fuzzy-wurst being, of course, the pinnacle of sausage-meets-cute.
BTW. answer my goddamn email. now.
kisses, fpp"