Of Mice and Pumpkins
Yesterday on my moto ride back from school I saw a dead monkey in the road. I understand for many of you back in the States, dead road monkeys are no longer a novelty, but for me, it was a unique enough occurrence that I thought it needed mentioning. I didn't realize it was a monkey at first, and I was debating whether or not I should look as I approached. I figured that no matter what it was, it was dead, and since I have very few enemies in this country, that death would most likely bring me very little enjoyment. It actually was a very beautiful monkey. I kind of have a thing for monkeys so they're all great in my eyes, but this one was especially majestic. I think if you had seen my face I would've looked like a kid who walked in on Santa, Mickey Mouse, and Sponge Bob engaged in a suicide pact. Sarah reasoned afterwards that at least that proves there are monkeys in this country. But I was forced to correct her saying that it only proved there used to be monkeys here. That could've been the last one for all I knew.
Actually, an interesting thing about monkeys in Malaysia. About a week ago Malaysia dropped its plans to export some of its excess monkeys (apparently road monkey was not the only one.) when they discovered that the monkeys were largely unexportable. It turns out that 80% of the monkeys here are diseased and have TB, AIDS, and malaria. They were planning on selling them for the exotic meat market and for animal testing. I understand people who have a taste for exotic meat not wanting to eat anything with malaria (exotic has to end somewhere, I suppose), but I actually think it'd be a much better idea to test medicine on already diseased monkeys. I mean, we'd all be up in arms if they actually infected a monkey with any of these diseases, so why not use the already infected monkeys and maybe cure them in the process? I don't know, is that wrong? I really like monkeys. Anything I say is out of love.
Back to my students for a second:
One class, we talked a little about movie genres and I asked them to write a short story based in one of those genres. My favorite title by far was:
"Pirates verses robots at an island."
If we could get Samuel L. Jackson to sign on to this one, I swear it would be the next "Snakes on a Plane."
Yesterday I worked with my oldest classes on proverbs and idioms. I assigned everyone in the class to figure out what two of them meant, which was not exactly fair. There was kind of a range in difficulty, and I felt kind of bad for the kid who got both "All hat, no cattle" and "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." One of the students was insanely good at them though, and paraphrased "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" to "Don't be like the mouse fixing the pumpkin," which I imagine would be very frustrating for everyone involved. On one hand, the pumpkin's like, "dude, I'm fine, you don't have to change me, you don't need to put a flux capacitor there," and then the mouse is like, "why doesn't this flux capacitor fit into this pumpkin?" And then the Libyans come and kill Doc. It's enough to make the mouse enter into a suicide pact with Sponge Bob and Santa.
Actually, an interesting thing about monkeys in Malaysia. About a week ago Malaysia dropped its plans to export some of its excess monkeys (apparently road monkey was not the only one.) when they discovered that the monkeys were largely unexportable. It turns out that 80% of the monkeys here are diseased and have TB, AIDS, and malaria. They were planning on selling them for the exotic meat market and for animal testing. I understand people who have a taste for exotic meat not wanting to eat anything with malaria (exotic has to end somewhere, I suppose), but I actually think it'd be a much better idea to test medicine on already diseased monkeys. I mean, we'd all be up in arms if they actually infected a monkey with any of these diseases, so why not use the already infected monkeys and maybe cure them in the process? I don't know, is that wrong? I really like monkeys. Anything I say is out of love.
Back to my students for a second:
One class, we talked a little about movie genres and I asked them to write a short story based in one of those genres. My favorite title by far was:
"Pirates verses robots at an island."
If we could get Samuel L. Jackson to sign on to this one, I swear it would be the next "Snakes on a Plane."
Yesterday I worked with my oldest classes on proverbs and idioms. I assigned everyone in the class to figure out what two of them meant, which was not exactly fair. There was kind of a range in difficulty, and I felt kind of bad for the kid who got both "All hat, no cattle" and "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." One of the students was insanely good at them though, and paraphrased "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" to "Don't be like the mouse fixing the pumpkin," which I imagine would be very frustrating for everyone involved. On one hand, the pumpkin's like, "dude, I'm fine, you don't have to change me, you don't need to put a flux capacitor there," and then the mouse is like, "why doesn't this flux capacitor fit into this pumpkin?" And then the Libyans come and kill Doc. It's enough to make the mouse enter into a suicide pact with Sponge Bob and Santa.
Comments
Since I stopped living/working in NW Jersey, I don't see dead deer on the side of the road. Major roads. Roads you think would be patroled for these things more than at least once every two weeks.