Fun with search tracking

Ok here are some of my favorite searches that have landed people in my fair carrot patch:

PENUS BLOW JOBS ( I particularly like the use of all caps-very A Prayer for Owen Meany of them)

how long should my penus be? (I don't know-I don't even want to know how long it is now)

Divorce Chris Dufresne (Although I have referred to a chris on this site, I've never until now referred to a chris dufresne-and I can't remember the last time I even mentioned divorce)

tarte cheek stain philippines ( How the hell did the philippines get involved?)

name photographer little girl sitting on suitcase waiting for train ( Look I know I'm an educated girl, but how am I supposed to know that?)

jumping welshman screensaver ( ?)

irish woman army blog ( although I am of irish descent, I am certainly not in the army-nor do I know any irish women in any kind of army-and certainly none who blog)

Fellow bloggers, what are the strangest searches that have brought viewers to your blog?
Come again?

I spend a great deal of time trying to get people to be exceedingly specific with language. Like many before me ( Stephen Carter, Mark Edmondson, Allan Bloom), I bewail how terms have lost their meanings due to indiscriminate usage.

For example, a student comes to my office and says , "For the paper where I have to pick an artist and explain how he or she is creative. I don't know who to do."

"The description says pick an individual. It says does not say the individual has to be an artist. You could pick an astronomer or a programmer."

"Yeah, whatever... but what artist should I pick?"

"No, no, not artist. The description doesn't say artist..."

Not only does she want to pick the topic of her paper ( who the hell can't think of ONE person in all of time and history who isn't creative?-I mean really), BUT she doesn't even acknowledge that an individual who is considered creative and an artist are not one and the same. ( Or is she even really listening to what I have to say-and this response comes after spending an entire month on the concept of "mindful learning.")

I spend all this time trying to be specific about my language. I tell people how I feel and who I am in very clear terms-I'm mean, I'm cruel, I'm undependable, and I'll hurt you. A lot. You'll most likely be crying in a basement somewhere using old copies of Newsweek as tissue paper inside of a month. And do they actually hear me? No, and therefore I get re-actions like this one:

I guess that when she said that I made her deeply uncomfortable by complimenting her and taking her seriously, she meant it.

Uh, yep. That's why I said it, on numerous occassions as clearly as humanly possible.

I spent several hours yesterday with students in my office who complained, despite the hours I put in writing detailed notes on essays and papers, that they couldn't understand what was wrong with their writing. Well, perhaps the fifteen times I wrote "pronoun" agreement in that paragraph might be a clue.

Eric often used be frustrated by tendency to repeat myself. I didn't before I got this job, but both students and colleagues seem to be physically incapable of listening to a statement and comprehending it. I have simply adjusted to saying everything five or six hundred times before it pierces even the first levels of awareness. My students tend not to understand a concept unless it is physically driven into the brain with a blowtorch and a sledgehammer. My colleagues often require even more forceful treatment. Luckily, I am more than happy to indulge in a little violence in the name of academic excellence.

No wonder I'm so tired all the time.



More incredibly vicious things to say when you break up

For the man who says that the reason he never bothered to break up with you is because he didn't want to deal with your hurt and upset.

"Please, I do my best work when filled with the inspiring love of a vanishing man. The only reason I even bothered to give you my phone number was your garaunteed disappearance. It was one of your few attractive qualities."