IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!

If you notice me blushing, giggling like a schoolgirl, and shyly hiding my face in my hands, please think nothing of it. I am, as they say, farklempt.
Tawk among yesselves.



SEARCHING FOR TRUTH

Earlier this week E-kvetcher kindly gave me a shoutout by posting a gratuitous link to my blog in one of his posts:
http://search-for-emes.blogspot.com/2010/02/visit-to-dubbelin-town.html

For those of you who relish the peculiar loshon of the Irish in their own ir hakodesh, it's worth a visit.
Especially for you, Spiros.



URSINE BLOGGER AND FRIENDS

Then yesterday, after I had quibbled with one of the commenters on Dovbear's blog (http://dovbear.blogspot.com/ - where I impart my dubious insights under the moniker 'Bad Penguin! Bad Penguin!'), someone anonymous wrote this in my defense:

"You're new here, so here's a brief into to our friend the Bad Penguin:
First, if you knew our Penguin the way we do, you will know that he has a very low tolerance for "hipster-douchebags," and has skewered them numerous times here in the comments.
Second, in order to fully appreciate Penguin, you have to have read him for a while. Give it time. I think of him as our resident raconteur. He's lived in various parts of the world and has stories from all of them. He often weaves them into his comments. Sometimes his comments are a little obscure, sometimes they are very biting, sometimes they are outright hilarious, often they are insightful, but, agree with them or not, they are anything but boring.
As for pipe tobacco, it's one of his great loves in life, and its a theme he brings up from time to time. If you were familiar with past comments of his, his bringing it up would have made more sense to you.
You yourself might find yourself disagreeing with him when it comes to US politics. If you are pro-Israel, however, you will love his comments. With respect to Israel, not only does he talk the talk, but he walks the walk, too. "

[SOURCE: The commentstring under this post:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2010/02/palin-at-tea-party-convention-prepare.html .
It's about Sarah Palin, who is mentioned again in this post:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2010/02/sarah-palin-is-f-ing-retard-steven.html .
Please do join the conversation - Sarah Palin is a fascinating subject.]

Oh my. That's eppes some praise!
That's also a far higher standard than I can possibly live up to.



MUQATATATATATATA!

Moments ago I saw this in a comment-string on Jameel's blog:

"Btw, there's only one non-Jewish "Dutchman" I'll accept moral lessons from. You know who you are, penguin. :) "

[Jameel's blog: http://muqata.blogspot.com/ ]

Thanks, Jonathan!
But rather than moral lessons (I am not worthy, I am not worthy!), how about small arms training? I'm actually a pretty good shot.



THE DIDACTIC FUNCTION

All of this reminds me of various high-school teachers insisting that I should shut up. My being the smart-aleck in the back of the class hissing the answers was, as it turns out, not helpful. At all.
Imagine my surprise - I thought I was being charmingly gifted, and smart as a whip.

The classes were English, History, Bible Studies, Physics, Algebra, and Geometry. Those being subjects in which I got top grades.

I was extraordinarily silent in French, German, Latin, and several other fields. As you can no doubt guess, I was at the very bottom of the class in those subjects.
No gain in highlighting that, it will be painfully apparent at the end of each year.

The point here is that when I keep silent, that might be because I don't know Jack.
On the other hand, when I do open my mouth, I may just be a smart-aleck.

The only exception to that would be BIOLOGY.



BIOLOGIE: KLAS I & II

Having Mijnheer H as our biology teacher in high school was a strange and beautiful thing. He had the reputation of being a monumental eccentric, unlikeable, odd. His cold fish-eyes would stare off into the distance while he monotonously droned on about stamens, pistils, cell walls, carbon, .......... an intense and boring flow of data. During that first year several of us would liven-up the class by making snarky comments about taxonomy, mutation, ribosomes, organelles, and speciation.
Mijnheer H didn't notice, and these antics kept everyone else from falling asleep.
As humour it was exceedingly juvenile.

Second year biology, however, was quite a different kettle of fish.
Human reproduction.
Oh my.

Dot, dot, dot.

Mijnheer H could not bring himself to mention various words. Ovaries (eierstok, ovarium). Testes (teelbal, zaadbal, testikuul). Vagina (schede, gleuf, vagijn). Penis (lid, plasser). Belly button (umbilicus, navel).

His excruciating embarrassment caused him to stutter uncontrollably whenever he tried to get those things out of his mouth. "Ovovavavavavavava......"
Someone would helpfully volunteer 'ovaries?' after having seen the word in the textbook.
Mijnheer H would then hiss "yes, thank you, I meant ovavavava... vaaaa... va...".

Imagine how utterly crippled he was as regards the erectile tissue (zwellichaam) in the corpus cavernosum (pl: corpora cavernosa) and corpus cavernosum urethrae.


"COCOCCOROCRAPUH-PUH-PUH-PUSS CACCA CACCA CAHAVARVARVARRRR ... AR ... ARRR ..."


What should have taken less than two weeks according to the lesson plan lasted over four fun-filled months.

We had discovered that by NOT helping him with the words, the entire two hour class would consist of him hissing and gulping as he fought his way into the third or fourth sentence of the paragraph.
The poor man was red-faced and drained at the end of each class.
It was enchanting.

Even the girls in the class got into it - imagine a fresh-faced young thing innocently asking him about the septum pectiniforme. Or, heaven forefend, the FRENULUM!!!!!


"FREHFERRUHFREFRERREFERFAGAFURRA... NUH-NUH-NILOOOH NUH-NUH-NUMMMMM!!!!"


Unfortunately the school administration eventually solved the problem by switching him out with the big curvaceous blonde who taught the same subject.
She had no issue with any of the vocabulary, and even though I had memorized all of the Latin terminology for the reproductive organs by the time I was nine, I still learned an enormous amount from her lectures.
Especially after she visited a slaughterhouse and brought in the bull pizzle for dissection.

If you will forgive the simile, comment-string conversations are like biology classes - sometimes you have to dissect with care and attention to the fine details, and sometimes you just gotta grab the bull by the horn.
What matters is your grasp of the subject.