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#screensaver mishaps
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Do you have any other funny snake dating mishap stories?! The last one is absolutely hilarious. Or even just regular snake mishap stories you'd like to share?
You guys have no idea how hard being a herpetologist can be on your dating life, honestly.
Once had a guy not tell me he was afraid of snakes (not even just a little nervous, actual phobia) until two dates in, and, like, he was a nice guy but there's just no way that's working out because he couldn't even look at snakes and I have a lot of snake-based home decor and I didn't want to accidentlly commit psychological warfare on the poor guy who would see a huge TV screen with a snake screensaver the instant he stepped into my house
Clicked with a guy at a bar and promptly got into a long argument because he thought snakes don't have bones. Dude literally asked to see my degree because he was so sure I was wrong
First date, when I mentioned what I did, dude actually said "yuck." I couldn't mask my facial expression of absolute dismay and we called it a night, citing irreconcilable differences
One dude thought it was cool until I said I don't feed my snakes live food, was genuinely disappointed about that. Dodged a bullet early with that one
One guy tried to impress me by asking to hold a snake while being obviously very nervous about it, he literally made little squeaking noises and jumped every time the snake moved so I did not let him hold her as I was worried he'd toss her across the room if she moved too much
I guess my conclusion is I wish there was a dating app for herpetologists.
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new fave comment on this ficlet about Darcy meeting Ivan Vanko and his presumed baby Vanko cuteness. 
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haikyuuwaifu · 3 years
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Dynamite
Genre: Angst, Drama, Fluff, Crack, NSFW Content throughout
Warnings: Swearing
MASTERLIST
INTRODUCTION: GROUND ZERO| CULT 4 Y/N| DK| SUPPORT
Ground Zero: 
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-Ground Zero is prepping to release their first single. They are currently designerless AND songless. Jiro is a great producer, but music doesn’t work for her the way it does for Y/N.
-Katsuki and Hitoshi stream on their off time and make teenage boys cry. Believe it or not part of their fanbase is those boys. They blast demos LITCH ERALLY all the time.
-Katsuki only eats spicy shit. On a rare occasion he’ll eat something regular but mans is made of spice! And yet Kirishima still eats his fucking snacks. It’s like he likes shitting fire?
-Izuku really do be gettin girls numbers only for them to ask about the angry looking hot one LMAO.
-Keigo is so open and friendly, and he can’t understand how Katsuki has more followers than him. (It’s because he’s cold and aloof and girls find guys who ignore them sexy)
-Also, Hitoshi’s screensaver is a beach shot of Y/N in a thong bikini and nothing and NO ONE will make that mans change it. Keigo tries to swipe his phone ALL THE TIME to get that picture, and has yet to succeed.
-Dabi hate’s DK’s rapper Twice with a fiery passion. They get into twt beefs all the time and it drives shiggy crazy.
-There is a literal “religion” dedicated to Y/N that started with the OG’s Jiro and Hitoshi. Her friends are apart of it LMAO; but Hitoshi and Jiro won’t let the boys join. SO they must suffer in silence.
-Kirishima is a bitch baby who eats all the snacks. Like mans is a literal blackhole of snacks. He and Izuku are always competing for girls. It’s hilarious honestly.
-Izuku comes of as a sweet nice guy, because that’s his aesthetic; but mans can be a dick when he wants to be. Like the time he fucked the girl Kiri brought home the morning after; because Kiri fucked his ex-play thing ;)
-All Shotou wants to do is watch K-dramas and eat cold soba. Most of his free time is spent dealing with the dumbasses he calls his friends and crying to Shiggy about dropping out lol.
-Sometimes Hitoshi will go to Y/Ns and game there; so he has like double the amount of gaming shit; cause mans likes havin her ass in his lap while he makes teens cry. If she’s working on a new design she finds comfort sitting on him. Mans ain’t gonna complain ;)
-Shinsou ALSO HAPPENS TO BE BI...so yeah he can find his lifetime bestie sexy; but also other loud and aggressive persons ;)
-Shiggy, would just like to get through a single day without any mishaps...too bad that never happens
-Jiro produces the music, and she’s currently working on putting together their debut singles AND their albums. She’s not as confident in producing as Y/N and the girl will practically beg her to help...it hasn’t worked yet and THAT is why Ground Zero is waiting to release.
-Hitoshi WILL NEVER give up Y/N’s number to any of those ass clowns. He also hates Aizawa (Y/N’s PR Agent) because the man always fucks with him when it comes to Y/N even though Hitoshi KNOWS he’s married LMAO.
-Y/N hosts weekly dinners and Shinsou is almost always late.
@dabilove27​ @lia-faerie-queen​ @amarillyis​  @bakasbitch18 @amberisnotcrazy​ @bbymilkbread​
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kpop-zone · 4 years
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Itzy reaction to their s/o accidentally confirming/exposing their relationship in an interview
Yeji
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„So have you been all alone in Jeonju?”
“Oh no, my girlfriend Yeji had been with me.”
Yeji watched with wide eyes how you cheerily answered the question of the interviewer, letting the fact slip that the two of you were a couple. Your face suddenly turned whiter than snow, realizing what you had done. Your managers pulled you away from the cameras and Yeji stared at the screen, although she couldn’t see your face anymore. She didn’t even mind that your relationship was outed. She didn’t want to hide it from the beginning, but she felt sadness creeping up inside of her, knowing that you would get into a lot of trouble with your company. As soon as the event came to an end, Yeji called you, immediately hearing the guilt in your voice. You felt bad for forcing her into all of this turmoil.
“Hey, jagi, it’s ok. How are you feeling? What did your managers say?”
She tried to calm you down, while already working on a plan, how you could solve this mess without either of you losing their career.
Lia
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“Didn’t your girlfriend Lia mind this sexy dance collaboration?”
“Oh no, she trusts me completely.”
You answered the interviewer’s question instantly, only realizing after you spoke that you basically just confirmed the dating rumors. You started to stutter, trying to save the situation, but everyone knew that the media wouldn’t let that one slip.
Lia found out about your mishap, because her company called her instantly, wanting to meet up as soon as possible. She was afraid. She worked hard for her career and she didn’t want to lose it so quickly. Your girlfriend talked to her group members, apologizing that she had caused a scandal for all of them, but they encouraged her to stay strong. Guilty you texted her that you would meet her in her company because they had called you, too. Her hands were shaking, because of nervousness, but when she saw you, she calmed down. Before entering the meeting, she pulled you to the side, telling you that she loved you and that you would make it through this together.
Ryujin
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You were at the airport, waving to your fans with your phone in your hand, not remembering that you had a picture of your girlfriend kissing you as your screensaver. It wasn’t until the next day when there were pictures of your fansites that had zoomed in on your phone that you realized your mistake. Ryujin was in the middle of an interview when the news came out and the interviewers suddenly started to ask her questions about the two of you. Ryujin started to panic, looking at her members for help who tried to save her as best as possible.
She was mortified.
When you called her, she didn’t pick up at first. She wasn’t mad at you, but she just hadn’t been ready to go public with your relationship. After all, she was a rookie. Who knew how the public would react? But when she scrolled through the internet to estimate how bad the scandal would be, she saw that the two of you actually had a lot of supporters. Ryujin realized that love could never be a bad thing, so she shouldn’t have to hide her relationship in the first place. She called you back, telling you that your mistake could have happened to her, too and that she would make an effort to bring the point across to her company that she didn’t intend to give up on you.
Chaeryeong
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Your group and Itzy were at an award show together, standing next to each other on the red carpet, each giving their own interview, but Chaeryeong and you were constantly stealing glances at each other, low-key flirting. When the interviewer suddenly turned the word to you, asking who you thought was the best-dressed tonight, you just stuttered, because you hadn’t really been listening.
“Um...My girlfriend of course.”
Your whole group looked at you in shock and the members of Itzy standing right next to you, gasped loudly. Chaeryeong became red like a tomato, hiding her face behind her hands, making it really obvious who you were talking about. Both of you just stood there shyly, not knowing what to do until your leaders saved you, trying as best as possible to change the topic of the interview. The rest of the night you tried to avoid the other with little success. You found yourselves sharing nervous glances with each other, because both of you needed the other to calm down. You met up backstage, agreeing that you never actually said who you were dating. Therefore, leaving the decision to the professionals of your companies on how the scandal could be handled best.
Yuna
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Yuna and you had been really bad at hiding your mutual affection from the start. Whenever you were at award shows together, both of you started to joke around with each other, although you were sitting on tables that were located on the opposite ends of the room and the both of you would send playful winks at each other. No one was surprised when the dating rumors arose that your companies, however, shot down immediately, but no one really believed them. You were on a variety show with your group, when the MC just asked you nonchalantly whether your girlfriend Yuna liked your new hair style while you were completely immerged in one of their games.
“Oh yeah, she likes to run her fingers through it.”
Yuna copied your motion on screen, covering her mouth with her hand while looking at her members in shock.
“Well at least our companies can’t deny the rumors anymore.”
She said after her shock had died down. Because if she was honest, she was low-key annoyed that she had to lie to her fans, instead of being honest and showing that idols were just humans too. When her phone rang and your name popped up, she picked up with a wide smile.
“What’s up, pabo?”
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polkahotness · 4 years
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SHORTAKI WEEK, DAY 4
FFN // AO3
                               Switch
Adjusting to Freshmen-life at Hillwood High School had proven to be more difficult than either Arnold or Helga had anticipated. As they watched their friends thrive in their new environment, both felt as though they were still struggling to find their place within clubs, classes, and cliques. Each day during the first few weeks was a rush to navigate through the unfamiliar hallways that were filled to the brim with bustling students who had long since learned the various shortcuts and routes to most effectively get to their next hour's class.
Arnold and Helga on the other hand, were still taking the less-direct paths which led them around corners and into one another on a semi-frequent basis. And while this collision was not something that the pair had never accidently done before, on this particular afternoon, it would prove to be an encounter that would forever change their young lives.
SMACK!
Right around the corner of the 500 and 300 wing, Arnold Shortman ran directly into Helga G. Pataki, both of their armfuls of textbooks, notebooks, pens, and other high school essentials scattering around them like confetti from a canon.
"Seriously, footballhead?!" Helga exclaimed as she began collecting her various items that had mingled with Arnold's on the floor of the hallway. "Personally, I would have thought that by now, you'd know how to use your own two feet properly!"
"Sorry, Helga," Arnold grumbled as he too began feverishly gathering his things as quickly as possible. The warning bell had already rang, and both he and Helga were sure to be late if they didn't hurry. "I guess I was just in a rush."
"I'll say," the young blonde responded while glancing up to sneak a glimpse at the boy who had stolen her heart ages ago and still possessed to this day. Her eyes lingered on the boy with the oddly shaped head for a long moment as he picked up his belongings, though her gaze brought heat to his skin causing him to look up and meet eyes with his feisty classmate.
"What?" the boy asked her while pausing momentarily mid-reach for his phone which lay face-down in its black protective case.
"What, what, Arnoldo?" Helga spat back at him while maintaining their eye-contact and reaching to grab her own phone.
"You're staring at me," Arnold noted while finally palming the phone and reaching back to shove it into the pocket of his jeans. Without leaving Helga's eyes, he reached towards the next item on his horizon—his Algebra 2 textbook, which he needed for the class that he was nearly positive he would be late to after his run-in with Helga.
Out of everything she had dropped, Helga's own cellphone was the least of her worries—her focus instead on the notebook that lay just head of where Arnold was squatting before her. Inside the pages of that notebook were some of Helga's deepest thoughts and strongest feelings regarding him and their complicated relationship.
He could never find out what was written on the lines of the papers inside.
Taking the phone she'd grabbed to cram it into the side-pocket of the zip-up sweater she was wearing, she soon snatched the notebook while silently breathing a sigh of relief that Arnold was none-the-wiser as to what lay inside. "Uh, newsflash—it's not me who's doing the staring here, it's you." Her retort merely triggered Arnold to exchange a blank look with the quick-witted blonde before he picked up the last of the items he had dropped.
"Whatever you say, Helga," he recited—a typical ending to a typical conversation with the girl he still harbored feelings for even after all of these years. Oftentimes he would lie awake until the early hours of the morning while staring ahead at the stars that shone brightly above him through his skylight. His mind would endlessly replay moments the two of them had shared since their fifth-grade trip to San Lorenzo and wonder where it was that they went wrong.
Could it have been that they were too young?
Had they simply not been ready?
And more importantly, was there still a chance to remedy what the pair had seemingly lost?
For Arnold, the answers to his questions lay trapped inside the mind of one Helga G. Pataki; the object of both his desires and absolute frustration. He could never seem to wiggle himself back into her thought process, no matter how hard he tried—and he had certainly tried.
As the two parted ways for the next hour that would begin in less than a minute's time, neither realized that the phone in their pockets could hold the key to unlocking the mysteries that either teenager ruminated over time after time. Perhaps it was in their accidental switch that they would find their answers after all.
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DING. DING. DING. DING.
Just as the bell let out its final ring, Helga slid into the seat of her English class. Panting from her jog after her crash with Arnold, Helga tossed the things she'd gathered in haste onto the top of her desk. Glancing her way, Phoebe immediately knew that something was troubling her best friend.
"Is everything alright, Helga?" She asked as their teacher continued talking in the opposite corner of the room to one of their fellow students. "You seem to be… discombobulated today."
"That's the understatement of the year," Helga answered while sorting through the compilation of things she'd gathered in haste just moments ago. "I swear to you, Pheebs, if I run into Arnold one more time, I might kill him. This is the third time in two weeks that he's almost made me late for class."
"Considering how often the two of you run into one another, I think it may be improbable to expect it won't happen again," Phoebe mused with a soft smile. She knew of the mutual feelings that Helga and Arnold shared for one another. She herself had engaged in dating shortly after the infamous trip to San Lorenzo, however for Phoebe and Gerald, their partnership had proven to be successful in all of the ways that their best friends' relationship hadn't.
Despite this, both Phoebe and Gerald never let go of the hope that their friends would one day reconnect in a way that would work out for the better. From their objective points of view, Helga and Arnold were perfect for one another. To them, it seemed that their friends merely lacked the motivation at being truly honest with one another; the real kryptonite that plagued and stood in the way of their seemingly imminent relationship.
"I don't know, Phoebe," Helga finally said as she softly traced the cover of her precious notebook that Arnold had once again almost seen the contents of. "You'd think the way the universe keeps shoving us together, something would have happened by now."
"But something did happen," Phoebe offered, though Helga was less than receptive.
"Yeah. In the fifth grade," she sneered before rolling her eyes and leaning back into the chair of her desk while crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Maybe it's time to give up and face the facts. Arnold and I are just… never going to work. We'll be forced to run into each other for the rest of our lives… our feelings littering the floor in a mess of emotional debris we keep having to pick up and hide away like some kind of… goddamn racoon, or something. A crow, maybe. They collect things, don't they?"
The question confused Phoebe who was accustomed to Helga's nonsensical rants that typically revolved around Arnold only to jut off in another direction entirely by the end. "Y-Yes, they do, but Helga—"
"Honestly, it's fine, I guess," Helga continued as though she hadn't heard a word her friend had said. "So, we collect our feelings like objects. Big deal. If he isn't willing to show me his, then I sure as hell am not willing to show him mine." Seeing that their teacher was still conversing with someone across the way about what appeared to be a previous assignment, Helga snuck her hand into the pocket of her sweater to grab the phone that lay inside.
"That's all there is to it," she said while pulling out the phone and clicking the button on the side to illuminate the screen. "I'll keep my feelings to myself and Arnold—" Helga stopped mid-sentence as she stared down at the screensaver that looked back at her.
"Helga?" Phoebe called her friend's name with a twinge of fear beneath her voice. "Helga, what is it? Is your phone alright after your hallway mishap?"
"I don't know…" she uttered before holding up the phone for Phoebe to see, "because this isn't my phone. It's Arnold's."
Meanwhile, a hallway over, Arnold Shortman had yet to notice that the phone residing safely in his pocket was not that of his own.
Slipping into his seat at the moment the bell chimed it's final chime, he too was glad that he hadn't collected another tardy slip like he had as a direct result of previous run-ins with Helga. It always seemed that the two of them found one another at the intersection of the 500 and 300 wings—Arnold silently wondered why he kept taking that route when he knew their colliding was almost fated to occur.
Perhaps he did it because he wanted them to bump into each other.
Maybe he secretly hoped that one of these times, just once, Helga might not snap at him and instead spill her feelings rather than her notebooks, pens, and papers.
"Hey, Arnold!" Gerald whispered out to his friend from the next row, and Arnold turned his head to direct his gaze towards him. "Did you get my message?"
"Huh?"
Pulling out his own phone and holding it out underneath his desk, he wiggled it back and forth as if the action would further illustrate his question. "Your phone! Did you get my text?" His voice was barely a whisper and more of a calculated soft-shout. It was a good thing their teacher spent the majority of his time playing Sudoku behind his desk rather than paying any attention to the going-ons of his classroom.
"No, why?" Arnold responded while fighting with his jeans to take out his cellphone.
"Just check it, man," Gerald instructed before continuing to explain what the message said; alleviating the need to read the text in the first place. "We're meeting at Gerald Field after school today for baseball. You in?"
"Sure. Sounds like fun," he remarked before furrowing his brow. "But why didn't I feel my phone vibrate? You must have texted me right when Helga and I ran into each other."
"Ah man, again?" his friend said with mock surprise. "Mm mm MM. Arnold, I think the universe is trying to tell you something and you'd better start listening. Next time it may do something more drastic than ramming you into each other."
As Arnold finally freed the phone from his pocket and looked down towards the screen, his eyes widened in horror. "Uh… about that…" he muttered as Gerald eyed him curiously.
"What, the universe or baseball?"
"Both," Arnold answered before holding up the phone in his possession. "This isn't my phone."
"Then who's is it?" Gerald soon asked; Arnold clicking the button on the side to light up the screen which revealed a lockscreen with the image of a pink neon heart against a dark backdrop.
"Helga's."
"No…"
"Yes," Arnold insisted with a shake of his head. "Maybe the universe already took it up another notch…"
"Yeah, maybe," Gerald affirmed before shrugging his shoulders. "Or maybe it just doesn't want you to play baseball this afternoon."
"Gerald…"
"What?" He exclaimed as their teacher rose from their desk to finally make their way towards the front of the classroom to begin the hour. Apparently, he'd finished his latest Sudoku puzzle. "So, you gotta exchange phones with Helga. Big whoop. Use it to your advantage."
"Alright class," the teacher addressed the class. "Take out your textbooks and flip to page 2-0-2," he instructed as Gerald and Arnold followed suit; the football-headed boy setting Helga's phone carefully down to rest on his lap.
"What do you mean to my advantage?" Arnold whispered over while pulling out his algebra book and turning the pages to find the appropriate number.
"You know," Gerald muttered back while flipping through his own book. "Maybe we can hack in or something."
"To her phone?!" Arnold said loudly; a few stray eyes glancing in his direction at the minor outburst. Quieting himself, he leaned over to whisper back, "I'm not breaking into Helga's phone, Gerald. That's a breach of privacy. If she ever found out, she'd kill me."
"Yeah. If she found out," he soon responded. "And she won't."
"Oh yeah? How do you figure?"
Gerald shrugged his shoulders while thinking for a moment before saying, "I don't know. I'll talk to Phoebe."
"No. Absolutely not, Gerald," Arnold insisted as silence fell over the classroom at his words. Suddenly feeling a heat surround him at the countless eyes resting on him, their teacher included, a dark-red blush filled in Arnold's cheeks as he realized he'd been caught. "Sorry," he sheepishly told the teacher, who proceeded to begin explaining the latest in their mathematical lesson-plan.
Midway through his explanation, a wad of paper landed on the top of Arnold's desk; his eyes shooting over in the direction from where it came—Gerald. Picking it up and unfurling it, his eyes scanned over the words his friend had scrawled down for him to read.
After class, meet me by my locker. I know a guy.
Frowning at the two sentences staring back at him, Arnold turned to shoot his friend a glare before shaking his head and mouthing the word, 'No.' But even though he had no intentions of breaking into Helga's phone, a part of Arnold couldn't help but wonder what lay behind the screen and inside Helga's mind.
Could the secrets Arnold seeked really be locked away inside the phone precariously perched on his lap? And to what lengths was he willing to go to discover them?
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"Gerald, I really think this is a bad idea," Arnold stated as he walked by his side from their lockers in pursuit of the 'connection' that awaited them.
"Relax, man," Gerald reassured his nervous friend while giving him a slap on the back and using it as a way to continue pushing him forward on their mission. "Fuzzy Slippers knows a guy who knows a guy who's cousins with this girl who knows how to hack into anything. They call her 'The Giant.'"
"The Giant?" he repeated with heavy skepticism. "I'm assuming that means they're tall or something?"
"No clue," the tall-haired boy admitted. "All I know is we're supposed to meet her in the 100 wing by that cluster of lockers nobody uses."
"The 100 wing?" Arnold intoned with obvious bias. "Gerald, nobody uses that hallway except to go into the wrestling room from the side door. Well, and the cafeteria, I guess. And to do shady things…"
"And just what is it you think we are doing? We're breaking into Helga G. Pataki's phone. What's shadier than that?" he emphasized. "Besides, wrestling doesn't start until after school PLUS we've already had lunch… so right now during sixth period with two more hours to go before school's done… Man, it is the perfect meeting spot."
Not wanting to argue about whether or not they should follow through with his insane plan, the flaxen-haired boy moved on to ask a different kind of question just as they rounded the corner that led to the entrance of the 100 wing. "How long do you think it'll take?" he paused as though waiting for Gerald to tell him he understood what he was saying. To be more direct, Arnold reiterated himself. "You know, the hacking-in part."
"Shh!" Gerald shushed. "Keep your voice down, alright? We don't need everybody knowing that we're over here."
"Why not?" Arnold reacted right away. "We're not not allowed to be in this hallway. There's a bathroom down here, we could always say we're going there or something." The pair continued to walk in silence for a moment as the slowly made their way down the infamous wing.
"I just can't be late to last period, again, Gerald," Arnold let out and he dropped his head back in annoyance while he continued to talk. "Mr. Nelson is a stickler for being on time—do you know that he locks the door when the bell rings?"
Perking his head up, Gerald said, "You've gotten yourself locked out of History class?" before letting out a jealous scoff. "Man! I wish I could get myself locked out of that class. History blows and Nelson's tests are impossible to pass."
"I knowthat," he replied blankly before going on to stress, "That's why I don't think this is such a good idea! Who knows how long this is going to take."
"Shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes," A shriek called out; both Arnold and Gerald looking around themselves to find the source of the high-pitched voice. Emerging from behind the grouping of unused lockers, a small girl who barely stood at five-feet-tall approached the friends while pushing up her large glasses which were sliding down her nose. "Of course, that's all depending on the make, model… year."
"Oh, uh…" Arnold stuttered while fishing out the phone from his pocket once more and holding it out for the unassuming girl in front of him. "I don't know. It's just a phone. I think it's like mine… so—"
"Hold up," Gerald interrupted as the girl took Helga's phone from Arnold's hand to begin inspecting it. "You mean to tell me that you're 'The Giant?' The school's best hacker AND Ralphio's seventeen year old cousin?"
"Wait, who's Ralphio?" Arnold questioned, though his inquiry was lost in the girl's answer.
"All that you need to know, Gerald Martin Johanssen," the girl called him by his full name which immediately made him flinch with frightening surprise, "is that I can do exactly what you're looking for and I can do it for a small, minimal, and inconsequential fee."
"If you're looking for money, we don't have any, so—" Arnold began to tell her, though 'The Giant' was quick to dismiss him.
"I'm not interested in money," she stated before looking between the both of them. "I'm far more interested in secrets."
"Secrets?" the teenage boys repeated in unison as 'The Giant' nodded her head while gently tapping the back of Helga's phone against her hand.
"There's nothing more elusive than a good secret," she explained with a mischievous smirk. "And, as a hacker, secrets are a large part of my work. So. What secret do you have for me? One secret for one code, that's the rules."
Gerald and Arnold exchanged a look for a moment before the blonde softly muttered, "Gerald… I don't know if this is worth it."
"C'mon, man! Don't you want to know about the inner workings of Helga's mind?" He whispered back as though the girl ahead of them wasn't actively listening to their every word. "What happened to the bold kid running through the jungle to save his parents or fighting the man to save the neighborhood? Huh? Where's that guy, right now?"
"It just seems… wrong," Arnold replied while reaching up to rub at the back of his neck and stealing a glance at 'The Giant' who looked on in curiosity. "I don't think I should break into Helga's private property."
"Arnold," Gerald stated blankly. "You and I both know that she's probably doing this exact thing to your phone right this minute. I'll bet you twenty bucks that she's standing in the hallway, talking to Phoebe and trying to guess your passcode so she can look at whatever secrets you've got hiding in there."
He thought this over while trying to imagine what Gerald had so precisely described for him.
"And you know what?" he went on to say, Arnold's eyes shooting back over to his friend as he continued. "With how smart Helga is… I would also bet that she doesn't even need a secrets-dealing hacker to do it either."
As Arnold considered Gerald's point, across the school and downstairs in the 600 wing Helga was staring down at the locked screen of the phone she'd mistakenly grabbed nearly an hour ago. "Stupid football-head losing his phone…" she muttered before huffing out a deep breath and dropping her arm while still holding the cellphone tightly in her grip. With exasperation, she rested her head against the metal of the lockers she leaned against while waiting for Phoebe to finish grabbing her books for their next class.
"I'm going to need a hacker if I ever want to get into Arnold's phone."
"Helga!" Phoebe scolded before shutting her locker with the appropriate book she needed in her grasp. "You can't break into Arnold's phone. It's his personal property."
"So what?"
Phoebe frowned while knitting her brows together in an expression of great concern towards Helga's judgement. "It would violate his privacy."
Helga remained in control of her tone as she brushed off the objection. "He's not going to find out. This is Arnold we're talking about, here. The kid barely knew I existed up until that nonsense on the roof of the FTi building."
"I'm not so sure that I would agree with that, Helga, but to break into Arnold's phone is another issue of which I wholeheartedly disapprove." She shook her head more to herself than to Helga before softly squeaking out, "What about his trust?"
"What about his trust?" Helga repeated while emphasizing a different part of the sentence entirely which gave it a distinctly sour aftertaste.
With a tired sigh, Phoebe said plainly, "Mutual trust is something that, once broken, is nearly impossible to repair. Suppose that Arnold didn't find out right away. Helga, I know you are smart enough to realize that Arnold would discover it eventually. It could hinder your relationship should you already be engaged in one, or… think of the damage an exposed secret of that magnitude could have on a potential relationship between the two of you. Is that something you're willing to sacrifice so you can snoop through his phone and perhaps find nothing of significance?"
Groaning at Phoebe's opinion on the matter, Helga shot her a hopeful, yet irritated look. "You could get me in though," she stated rather than asked. At Phoebe's lack of response, Helga went on. "Arnold's phone. Hypothetically speaking… you could hack into it. Am I right?"
Chewing over Helga's assumption, she decided to hint rather than answer. "Possibly."
"And you really won't help me out with this?" Helga begged yet again, an ace hiding up her sleeve as she spoke. "You'd really make me sit in the library and skip my next class, OUR next class that WE SHARE together? Hmm?"
Trying to walk away from Helga as she grew more and more persistent, Phoebe couldn't escape her longer strides that allowed her to catch up with ease. Just within reach, Helga called out as they walked, "You want me to have to watch some long parade of videos which frustrate me SO BADLY that I end up going back to you and EXPLODING like some kind of wild ape?"
"Helga, please," Phoebe ordered from over her shoulder. She was angry at how right Helga was. Maybe it would be the smart thing to skip what was implied and simply unlock the phone. At least by doing that, Helga would leave her alone with all of this nonsense.
As she thought this over with each step she took, Phoebe continued to listen while Helga kept painting the grim tale of her eventual compliance. "Picture it. There you are. You're right there in the middle of the hallway while I'm bugging you even worse than I am now. And what do you do, Phoebe?" Helga moved from talking to one side in lieu of the other. "What can you do when I'm just jib-jabbin' away like a bird on your shoulder squawking and pecking at you as I chirp, 'Help me, Phoebe! Help me! Open the phone and help me!'"
Stopping mid-stride, Phoebe pivoted around to face Helga with an angry albeit bored expression dusted over her features.
As if silently telling her to continue, Helga took the imaginary cue and began speaking to the dark-haired girl with a mock sympathy so sweet, it could cause cavities. "I'll tell you what you do, Pheebs. You, being the kind-hearted, good, and true-blue friend that you are… you give in. And I'm sorry, but you know you will, I'm not wrong, am I?"
Phoebe knew she was right. Phoebe also knew that it didn't matter. Helga would find a way regardless of her assistance or not. Helga herself went on to express her exact thoughts, but with her own words. "The only person I know better than me… is you."
Catching the glare that was sent her way, Helga soon held her hands up in defense. "It's not a bad thing, I mean, criminy! I'm pretty predictable too, we both know that."
"I guess so…" Phoebe quietly agreed, and Helga swooped in to play her final card—the ace she'd been saving for this very moment.
"Look. Phoebe," the teen began before giving her friend an exaggerated shrug. "I'm just trying to give you a shortcut here-a one-way ticket to jump you and I to the end of this headache."
"But Helga—" she tried to stand her ground, the foundation feeling flimsy beneath her weight as she began to faulter under Helga's towering presence.
"Please, Pheebs? I'm so, so close here and if you do it now, you'll save us both a stupid-long process," She paused for dramatic effect while holding out her one hand as though using it to weigh the choices she was presenting, "OR, we can give it a go and do this pointless dance which, worst case scenario, you still don't help me and I just go reach out to the depths of the 100 wing and hire someone to do it for me."
Phoebe eyed the pleading young woman who stood before her. She didn't want to give in to Helga's cries for help, but she knew in her heart of hearts that by refusing to help, she was merely prolonging the inevitable. What were the ethical ramifications of denying her friend and forcing her to find another way? Could the method that Helga ultimately finds lead to something far worse than imagined? Worse yet than any threat the consequences of Phoebe helping right away may pose to the universe?
The scowl on Phoebe's delicate face hardened as she prepared to hold her stance. "Helga, I'm sorry, but I must refuse to parti—"
"Wait, hang on a sec, Pheebs," Helga stopped her from finishing as she held out Arnold's phone to look down at the bright screen. "Arnold just got a text message," she reported flatly, and Phoebe arched her brow.
Without thinking, she blurted out, "From who?"
Flipping the phone so the screen could face her four-eyed friend, Helga replied, "From me."
----------------------
"I can't believe you told her about the dress-up thing," Arnold noted with a small smirk. "Honestly, I'd forgotten about it."
"As you rightfully should have," Gerald countered with a lone shake of his head. "I mean, we looked fabulous—"
"Right?!" the blonde agreed with excitement before toning down his demeanor. "But, you know… not everybody needs to know about it."
"I just hope that those pictures never see the light of day… ever." The two shuddered at the thought, though Arnold maintained his for a few seconds longer. Turning to look his way with worry, Gerald crossed his arms over his chest before saying, "You don't happen to have copies of those pictures on your phone, now do you, Arnold?"
Swallowing hard, he merely grimaced while managing, "Well…"
"Arnold!" Gerald shouted while throwing his arms up into the air. "Come on, man! That was like… our secret! We don't need to advertise that little experiment."
"It wasn't that bad," Arnold insisted.
"We put on make-up."
"And it looked good,"
"I know that, okay?" Gerald stage-whispered back to his unphased partner-in-crime. "Don't you think I know we looked great? It was disturbing."
"Eh," he sounded while tilting his head back and forth to weigh out his answer before speaking. "I thought it was interesting. Kind of cool, actually. You really didn't think it was fun?"
"Sure, but I'm not admitting that!"
"You might have to, now," Arnold teased while receiving the other end of an intense glare. "Why be ashamed when we looked so good?"
"Because it was last month that we did that," Gerald explained while using his hands to wildly gesture about himself. "Maybe if we were six it would be cute but we're almost sixteen now and—"
"And we put on dresses that we found in the crawlspace at the boarding house," Arnold continued to say as Gerald desperately tried to hush him without success, "and then Grandma gave us her make-up which we then used to—"
"Arnold…"
"—make ourselves, as you even described with your own words—"
"C'mon!"
"—as 'fabulous.' We were fabulous and we were wearing dresses with make-up on. What's the worst that could happen?" He patiently waited for an answer that never came. After a moment, he gave Gerald an answer of his own. "The worst that happens is Helga finds them, or 'The Giant' leaks them and then everyone can be jealous at how good we looked. I'm not ashamed."
Slowly shaking his head back and forth, Gerald watched Arnold while humming his usual song. "Mm mm MM. Arnold, I've said it once, and I'll say it again—"
"I'm a bold kid?" Arnold offered, though it wasn't what had been on his counterpart's mind.
"Nah, we established that a while ago," He said before handing over Helga's phone which he'd been holding since 'The Giant' had returned it to us opened and free from a passcode. "What I was going to say was that this is your dad's fault." Waving a hand over where Arnold stood, he continued while contorting his mouth into a twisted sneer. "All of this? I blame Miles. Dude has no shame and neither do you."
Taking the unlocked phone and easily swiping his way to the 'messages' menu, Arnold let out a single laugh. "I may have no shame about wearing a dress, but I have plenty of other kinds of shame, and those are thanks to myself."
Opening his mouth to argue, Gerald stopped when he saw his friend's fingers begin tapping away on the screen. "What are… what are you doing?"
"I'm texting Helga," he responded, then paused to look up and out thoughtfully while musing to himself, "Well, I guess I'm texting me, but, you know…" Arnold's voice trailed off as his attention returned to the message he had been feverishly typing.
"Why?" Gerald asked. "I thought we were going to explore the inner workings of Helga G. Pataki's mind!"
"Maybe that's what you would do," Arnold retorted before hitting the send button and lowering the phone altogether. "I told myself that the only way I would go through with this was that when the phone was unlocked, I would text Helga so we could arrange a switch. That's all."
"Okay, so what did you text her?"
Helga:
I know you have my phone, Helga. And I know you're probably reading this right now. Guess I'll find out in a minute when the 'read' receipt comes back.
"Would you look at that," Helga remarked, "he just has me labeled by my first name in here. The only other contact like that is Gerald's. And his parents, I guess."
"You already looked through his contacts?" Phoebe asked while looking over at the screen she'd helped to unlock.
"Doi," was all she said before beginning her own message to send back to the name she recognized as her own. All the while, she imagined Arnold receiving her text and smiling that dopey grin at the words she'd carefully typed.
Footballhead:
Took you long enough to get into my phone. Geez, Arnoldo. I take it your giant-head didn't come with an equally giant-in-size and freakishly-shaped brain, now did it?
"That Helga," Gerald commented while looking over Arnold's shoulder as he began wording his reply. "Always the clever one, isn't she."
"Always," Arnold affirmed before tapping send once again; the two-minute warning bell resounding through the 100 wing that the two still lingered in.
Helga:
No such luck, I'm afraid. But how do I know that you unlocked MY phone before I unlocked yours? After all, it was ME who texted YOU.
DING. DING. DING. DING.
"Two minutes," Helga noted while looking up to the air above her as if the noise had come out of the atmosphere rather than the speakers in the hallway. "We don't have to switch back yet…"
"Why wouldn't you want to get your phone back? I thought you didn't want Arnold looking through your things."
Helga's fingers danced across the keyboard of the screen as her body instinctively began walking towards the destination of her next class. "Because, Pheebs, he's already in," she clarified before hitting 'send' and sliding the phone safely into the pocket of her sweatshirt. "Now, we're just playing a little game."
"And where does that game end?" Phoebe probed as they took off down the hallway towards the end of the wing where the science rooms were located.
"I'm not sure yet," she responded just as they passed the threshold of their biology classroom. "Probably in us switching our phones back and going our merry way. Maybe."
"Maybe?"
Footballhead:
You may have texted me first, Hair Boy, but that doesn't mean I didn't have PLENTY of time to peruse your contact list, messages, emails, and of course, your many, MANY pictures.
Both Gerald and Arnold widened their eyes at the message that stared back at them from the bright light of Helga's phone.
"So, that's it," Gerald stated in defeat. "We're officially screwed."
"She's bluffing," Arnold immediately announced before zealously concocting his next message. "If she got into my phone, she got into it because of Phoebe, right?"
"Probably, yeah. Why?"
"If she got in because of her," he theorized, "then that means she's with Phoebe."
"So?"
"So," Arnold reiterated, "there is no way that she would let Helga go through my all of my stuff while she's still around." Clicking 'send' with a light tap of his fingertip, he added, "I think I can keep her distracted through the next couple hours until school is over."
"Why wait until school's done?" his childhood companion wondered. "You two can switch phones back after this period is over, no harm, no fowl! Why wouldn't you do it right away?"
"Because," his words were slick with amusement at the question, "I'm kind of enjoying this."
"Enjoying it? What are you, crazy, Arnold?!" Gerald practically shouted as they started on their way to the period that they may be late to after all, though Arnold hardly seemed to care anymore, despite the constant warning from his friend. "You're playing with fire, man!"
"Not fire, Gerald… only Helga."
"Which is worse," he argued; Arnold instantaneously disagreeing.
"It's all going to be fine, Gerald, I promise," he tried to reassure with a confident upturn of his lips and a light pat on the back. "Trust me."
And so began the exchange of a century.
----------------------
Helga:
I don't have anything to hide, Helga. If you want to go hunting through my phone for some kind of blackmail-material, you won't find anything.
She stared at the words of Arnold's latest message that shone from under the table she sat at in the back corner of her biology class.
Footballhead:
Who's to say that I haven't already FOUND all of your dirty little secrets and am currently planning to expose you for the weird, football-faced dingus that you are?
Arnold suppressed a laugh before replying while typing with one hand at his side and out of his teacher's sight.
Helga:
I have nothing to be ashamed of that you can find on that phone, Helga. The things I'm ashamed of are words that were never said and feelings I never acted on.
Mouth agape, Helga fought the urge to let out a loud gasp in reaction to the words Arnold had so boldly sent across the airwaves.
Footballhead:
And what words and feelings might those be, exactly?
A half-smile curled up at the corner of Arnold's mouth. This was his chance to use an inconvenience as a blessing—a way to reach out to Helga by using the only means that she seemed to understand: written word.
Helga:
You know.
"Two words?" Helga muttered to herself as she finally was able to read the message that she'd had to ignore for nearly thirty minutes to do some lame science experiment. The bell would ring any minute and she would be free to roam the halls with Arnold's phone still in tow.
Footballhead:
Why no, genius, I DON'T know. Why don't you and your dumb head enlighten me?
Walking slowly out of his class at the bell's chime, Arnold seized his moment in the back and forth he'd been enjoying—a back and forth that he knew Helga was enjoying, too.
Helga:
I guess I could do that. Only on one condition, though.
Footballhead:
Name your price.
Helga watched the bubble on the message screen appear and disappear rapidly as Arnold worked out the perfect reply. Her hands sweating, Arnold's phone became slippery no matter how tightly she held onto it, and she waited with bated breath until his message at last appeared on the screen.
Helga:
Slausen's. Today, after school. You can even order whatever you want.
It was Arnold's turn to wait anxiously as Helga typed her reply, though she didn't make him wait quite as long for a response.
Footballhead:
And what is it that YOU happen to be getting out of this little, late-afternoon ice cream social? Besides your phone, that is.
Trying to hide his growing smile, Arnold knew exactly what it was he wanted to say next.
Helga:
I get the chance at trapping you in an honest conversation with the bait of free food. You get to eat, and I get to tell you how I feel and HAVE felt since that Summer of 6th grade when we grew apart.
Chewing on her lip, Helga debated her next choice of words before sending one more question that she knew she wouldn't be getting an answer for. At least not by way of text.
Even so, she knew that she had to try.
Footballhead:
Just how was it that we grew apart? Why DID you stop talking to me? Did I scare you off?
Sighing at the words he knew Helga had struggled to successfully send, Arnold decided to give her just enough information that it would only make her want more.
Helga:
Absolutely not. It was ME who scared MYSELF off. I chickened out.
Intrigued by his vague explanation, Helga wasted no time in answering.
Footballhead:
Why?
The one word that Helga had sent brought butterflies along with it. They gathered inside of Arnold's stomach to flurry and flutter in circles as he sent her what he hoped would be an invite she would finally accept.
Helga:
Meet me at Slausen's after school and I'll tell you.
Before she could tell him that she was interested in his proposition, another message popped up on the screen.
Helga:
And make sure you bring my phone. As fun as this has been, we should probably switch back before we go home for the night. What do you say?
The 'typing' bubble didn't have to float for long before Arnold received Helga's reply; the message once again containing only one word.
Footballhead:
Deal.
9 notes · View notes
captainclickycat · 4 years
Text
Oneshot Rec list
I’m bored, let’s do some extravagantly-detailed consenting bicycle repairmen oneshot recs
(For the record this turned out fairly sfw for the most part, and I don’t think any of these feature explicit sex scenes. Possibly at some point I’ll do smut recs too, who knows.) 
Quiet Reflection by shinyopals
“ ‘This is- put me down,’ Crowley demands, more forcefully this time. He attempts to roll out of Aziraphale’s arms, and the grip on him only tightens. Aziraphale is like iron, except with an extremely cuddly outer layer that smells like a sea breeze and expensive cologne. One of his arms is under Crowley’s leg and gripping his thigh. The other is around Crowley’s back, holding him close enough to- well. Close.
The phrase “bridal style” flutters through Crowley’s mind and he attempts to clamp down on it furiously.
After the Apocalypse, Crowley senses Demons coming, and manages to hide himself and Aziraphale inside a nearby church for safety. He probably should have thought this through. ”
The classic “oh no, circumstances have forced us into close physical proximity and our unspoken desire for each other is making this very awkward” trope. And it’s done absolutely beautifully. 
There’s some fun repartee and lighthearted ribbing, but the genuine love and protectiveness behind their bantering is always very, very apparent. Also features Crowley cheerfully burning his mouth with communion wafers... sorry, ‘spicy Jesus crackers’.
Favourite line: “It’s like being punched in the mouth by a box of wine.”
A city wall and a trampoline by kafkian
“In their cottage in the South Downs, when Crowley eventually succeeds in getting Aziraphale to use a laptop, it takes Aziraphale literal hours to get past the default Windows screensavers of picturesque locations because 'oh, look, isn't it lovely, Crowley!'
-
5 times Crowley knows he’s in love with Aziraphale + 1 time he knows the reverse.”
For the most part this deals with them ambling about doing sweetly ordinary things in the aftermath of the failed apocalypse, with poetic emphasis on Crowley’s lovesickness (and the occasional nod towards the more unpleasant emotional impact the whole thing has had on them.) 
Really, incredibly well-written; the descriptive imagery is gorgeous and it manages to be funny at turns too. 
Favourite line:  Aziraphale very much liked to be made a fuss of right up until the fuss was directly plonked in front of his face, at which point he began to blushingly protest that someone else must have ordered this, it definitely wasn’t him.
Birds of a Feather by idiopathicsmile 
“Isn’t this nice?” says Aziraphale with badly feigned casualness the next time Crowley stops by for a late night drink.
Crowley is all set to reply, words lined up in his mouth waiting to go, when Aziraphale adds,
“I mean, all of the books and furniture and bottles of wine and things?”
Aziraphale nests. Crowley relearns some crucial facts about angelic courtship rituals.
Always nice to come across a fic that really pulls off the whole “they’re not human” thing.
So angels nest, and naturally in this case “nesting” takes the form of very meticulous dedication to home decor, and there’s something very satisfying about how that’s all described. (For me it possibly tapped into a personal fantasy about being able to decorate my own living space, so there we go.) There is a ton of frustrating/heartbreaking miscommunication due to the fact that Crowley is unfamiliar with angelic rituals. Eventually things are resolved, to everyone’s relief. Has a certain poetic recency-romance feel to it in parts. You can hear their voices very easily in this. 
Favourite line:  “Don’t say bird sex,” Aziraphale chants, “don’t say bird sex, don’t say bird sex—”
• Build our Kingdom by Mackem 
“Ready for lunch?” Crowley drops to his knees to start unbuckling the straps on the basket as though this is something they do all the time; as though he hasn’t just effortlessly catapulted Aziraphale back in time almost fifty years.
“You remembered,” Aziraphale breathes as wonder courses through him. He mentioned something once during an awkward moment, half a century ago, and now here kneels a demon atop a picnic blanket.
“Hmm?” Crowley barely shoots him a sidelong glance as he concentrates on opening the basket.
Aziraphale’s eyes do not move from him. “You remembered,” he repeats, no less stunned. “Crowley, you really didn’t have to.”
Crowley’s hands still. Eventually, his eyes still on the basket, he murmurs, “Well, we did The Ritz, didn’t we?”
Aziraphale re-acquaints himself with his bookshop in the aftermath (there’s some lovely reflective description there, and they do the picnic. And by extension, this features one of my major weaknesses in fics: extravagantly detailed, reverent descriptions of food. 
Favourite line:  He ends up eating a slice of apple pie with Crowley’s head in his lap. His fingers slide through soft, copper strands as they lie in companionable silence, the future stretching out ahead of them just as tangibly as the beautiful countryside.
• Falling Rain by Aria
“Once upon a time, an angel and a demon hitched a ride on the Ark.”
Specifically Book!Omens, this one. 
In which Crowley, fearing that the holy flood will melt him, sneaks aboard in the guise of a third snake, while Aziraphale gets a free ride by virtue of being an angel. A certain companionship forms between them over time. 
The gradual development of their fondness for each other is very sweet in this. Bit of a subtle undercurrent of the idea that neither of them is really used to being on the receiving end of kindness. Also features Snake!Crowley having slapstick mishaps trying to steal a bottle of wine. 
Favourite line: That did hurt a bit, but not in a particularly holy way. There was just some sort of horrible ache in Crowley's chest, and as long as he ignored it and buried his face in Aziraphale's shoulder, everything was all right for a little while.
• Misuse of Miracles by sburbanite
“Gabriel gets receipts for all the miracles Aziraphale has been performing since the Apocalypse that wasn't...none of which are safe for work.”
Bit of an unusual case, this one, in that C&A don’t actually make an appearance as such, but they certainly make an impression. Very funny and highlights what a horrible workplace Heaven continues to be. The angels need to unionise, even if they would be terrible at it. Also check out the auther’s multi-chapter works, they’re really good. 
favourite line: Option two was to pretend Aziraphale had never existed in the first place and purge all thoughts of him from his mind forever. Gabriel naturally chose option two.
• Brief Omens by Justkeeptrekkin 
F/F Brief Encounter AU. This was another of those authors where obviously one had to make the list, it was just a matter of working out which one. Her work’s always lovely, personally I tend to go for the multi-chapter ones but the oneshots are consistently great too. 
Anyway, should preface this by pointing out that I haven’t actually seen Brief Encounter, so am in no position to talk about how it holds up as an AU or how much it drew on the film for inspiration. It’s just a really nice, very emotionally affecting bit of work. Aziraphale’s indecision about getting on the train vs going back to find Crowley was painful, and there’s always this pervasive feeling that it could end up being left on this unresolved note. Fanart is great too. 
Favourite line:  Aziraphale stands up abruptly, tea sloshing over the edge of the mug and into the saucer. She is going to catch up with Crowley- she can find her in Ditchling town somewhere, she could ask around and-
The difficulty with disposable demons by attheborder
“—I’ve been told it’s a liability issue, see, they just don’t want to be held responsible for anything you might be getting up to in your new capacity as a freelance traitor, so they sent me up here with this for you to sign which absolves them of all fault for your actions, on Earth and elsewhere, in perpetuity in all dominions earthly and spiritual, it’s all in there, if you want to read it…”
Crowley hesitated for just a moment before spitting, “Alright, give that here,” and snatching the paperwork out of Eric’s hands.
***
An unexpected visit from Hell's messenger boy sends Crowley & Aziraphale's date night down a chaotic path.
This is another one when I sort of want to endorse the author in general rather than any specific fic. (For the record, it was a toss-up between this and What a way to make a living, which deals with the very plausible idea that they would be out of sorts having cut ties with their head offices - or to put it another way, lost their jobs. Also I identified with Crowley’s ADHD brain far too much.)
But this one won out in the end because it was so funny, and also has a small amount of angsty miscommunication midway through. Another one with a general feel of “Heaven and Hell both have their equivalent of low-wage employees who deserve better than this crappy job”. Disposable demons are a perfect combination of irritating and weirdly endearing, as well as being consistently hilarious. Read the thing. 
Favourite line: Crowley went into his bedroom and screamed into his pillow. When he came back out a bit later, slightly calmed down and ready to negotiate some kind of deal, there were five Erics roaming around his flat, and he lost his shit all over again.
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airariaira · 4 years
Text
Quatrième - 04/03/2020
Alright, strap yourselves in lads, because I left the writing of this about a week later than I usually do so this post will probably be a bit of a long one. First of all I’d like to say again that yes, I feel that my French is improving quite a lot with each day here - even if I’m not perfect, but confidence is growing and I’m definitely more confident in saying the things I say often.
Now, let’s go back to the 13th of February. My journal entry from that day seems a bit of a negative one, because I was writing about my conflicting feelings that sometimes pop up - whether I should allow my classmates to approach me first and thus seem like the quiet and awkward exchange student, or whether I should approach them first and feel like I’m pushing myself on them. It feels a little overwhelming sometimes to be surrounded by so many cool French people when my language skills often can’t keep up (and perhaps a bit the same with my social skills too 😂). Sometimes it feels like I’m wasting the opportunity right in front of me when I don’t have the confidence to strike up a conversation. As mentioned by Alex in his blog, I know I shouldn’t keep myself at a distance from my peers, but it’s so hard not to fall into the trap of doing that when 1. I’m leaving in only a month (oh my goodness, it’s so soon 😱), and 2. the past two weeks have been holidays and I haven’t seen any of them at all (reasoning for that is distance, being busy, and/or the fact that the week following the holidays - this week - is their BAC blanc exams, which is prelim exams for all you NZ ppl).
The 14th was a better day. Of course it being Valentine’s Day, the Cœur de Troyes is a major attraction on that day. I should have wandered by it to see it all dressed up. That morning I was late to school (great first time French school experience...) I was close to catching the bus, but just not close enough.. How frustrating it was to watch that bus leave without me right before my eyes. I caught the next bus, but it turns out that my bus card had run out that day. However, the bus had already left so I took that ride without a working bus card (oh heck, is that police sirens I hear?) So all in all, that was a day of many bus hardships. Because of all that, I walked home and it was actually really lovely to take the chance to admire the city again. Sometimes I find myself getting a bit comfortable and I have to remind myself that omg I really am  a c t u a l l y  in France right now! 
On Saturday the 15th I went to the market with Marie. The market here is so cool. Lots of bustling people buying all the things they need for the week, there’s live chickens, cheese of course, clothes, a whole lot of other random stuff... The market is a pretty big thing in French culture so I enjoy going and seeing it. That afternoon we drove to pick up Antoine from a friend’s house, who lives a few towns over. It was a really nice day, so the sun hit the rolling countryside really nicely that day. We also drove through some small towns I hadn’t seen yet, and they were very cute. I’ll never stop being impressed by all the beautiful old buildings in France. That evening I made a silly language mistake and mixed up the words for packing bags and doing the dishes, so now whenever I hear one I think of the other. 😅
Sunday 16th had us travelling down to Marseilles for out 5-day holiday. It was a 7 hour drive, but we took the whole day because we stopped off at Marie’s sister’s place for lunch. She and her partner live close to where Alex is placed, so I took this truly wonderful quality photo to demonstrate to him whereabouts I was:
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For lunch we had raclette, the weather was very nice, and so was the company. Marie’s sister’s husband’s children were there too. Last minute, it was decided his daughter Ambre would come along on the holiday with us which was nice. So we switched to a bigger car and set off again. When we reached Marseilles it was almost pretty much dark, but I could still see the countryside - different but really nice. The city is an eclectic mix of old and new, and there’s even a Hollywood style sign (like in Wellington!) here’s another definitely really great quality photo...
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Some of the highlights from our trip to Marseilles:
Visited the museum (called Mucem)
Place des Pistoles
The Cathedral
The Notre-Dame of Marseilles
Picnic on the beach
Visit to Cassis
It’s very easy to get around Marseilles, because there’s a card called “le ticket” which you can access not only the Metro with, but also the busses, which is very useful. The Metro system is also a lot more simple than the one in Paris, because it only has two lines. The city is also quite pretty because it’s this nice mixture of old buildings, street art, flowers and plants overflowing from balconies, sculptures, and sunshine of course. People’s accents in the south are also a bit different to in the places further north, so that was interesting for me to experience too. The first day (Monday) was a bit rainy, so we decided to visit Mucem, which was nice. The museum was incredible. The two exhibits I liked the most were one on voyages and travel, which had a mixture of different art pieces that I really adored. One of them was this light globe, which seemed cool... Until we noticed that the rug in the foreground had left out New Zealand! Typical 😂
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The other exhibit I really liked was one on the life and work of the famous and very celebrated French author/poet named Giono. He was a part of the world wars, so a lot of his work is descried as being often very haunting. I hope to be able to read some of it sometime. I wish I could have stayed in the museum for longer and committed the exhibits to memory. After seeing the exhibits, we headed outside onto the roof, where there’s a pretty herb garden and a gorgeous view all around you of the city and the sea.
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The following days, the weather was a heck of a lot better, with the sun out and about I almost forgot it was winter at some points! On Tuesday we visited a pretty old part of town, and walked along the Place Des Pistoles, which is an area of streets dedicated to street art. it was very pretty, and I guess you could say it felt ... right up my alley 😏
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After that, we went to the Catheral which was nice - it was very very big inside, and the weather at that point was very very windy outside.
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Following that, we continued with the church thing and went to visit the very high-up Notre-Dame of Marseille. Because it’s so high up we were able to take a bus thank goodness, and there was also a gorgeous view of the city below us. 
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The inside was incredibly extravagant and shiny...
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On Wednesday we went for a picnic lunch on the beach. We definitely earned it, as we had many bus mishaps on the way there! It was a very sunny day, but the wind was very strong on the beach. We also amassed a small army of seagulls, pigeons, sparrows, and other miscellaneous birds while we were eating. This is the view back from the shore:
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There was also this dude here across the road from the beach:
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Thursday was a wonderful day. It was also the half way point of my exchange, whaaaat!? We drove out to the pretty nearby village of Cassis. It was even warmer there - so warm I didn’t even need to wear a jacket! We went on a short walk first, and got some nice views of the cliff-faces, water, and boats below:
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(Cassis has always been a boating/fishing area. I can see why, with how beautifuul the water and the weather is!)
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^ Ambre, Lola and I
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Halfway through the walk, we stopped on some warm rocks for a rest and some lunch. It was really nice in the sun.
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Lola, myself, Lola, and Olivier.
Clearly I missed the peace sign memo AND the cup holding memo!
After that, we wandered around the town a litte bit. It is truly a beautiful place - I couldn’t really believe I was seeing it all with my very own eyes.
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There were also a few groups of people very intensely playing games of Petanque. I think Dad and Lisa would have appeciated that. We then had icecream while looking over all the boats. It feels very odd writing about the nice weather there when currently as I am writing it is 6pm and suddenly very rainy! That evening, we had dinner at a friend of Marie’s. It was very nice, and their family was lovely and welcoming. I did gett a little overwhelmed at one point because there was a lot of rapid French being spoken by a lot of different people all at once and it was difficult for my tired self to keep up after a big day. However it was still enjoyable. Us younger ones got along pretty well. It’s a little weird, meeting all these nice people here while I’m exchange and realising that I may very well never see some of them again... On Friday the 21st we drove back home, stopping off to drop off Ambre and to have some lunch there too. 
That weekend was quiet. On Sunday Marie’s mother joined us for lunch. We then went to the house in Geraudot for a short while, then went for a walk along a different, bigger, lake nearby. I would love to see it in the summer, when all the restaurants and things were open, people camping just across the road, the golden sand in the sun... Here’s a picture from the ride home to demonstrate why the landscape here sometimes gives me (coming from Blenheim surrounded by hills) shellshock. Tell me, am I living in that Window’s screensaver we all know and love?
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On Monday evening I went to watch my first sports game ever - a French football game (sorry Kiwi rugby diehards). The Troyes football team is called Estac. The game felt a little slow at times, but other times I found myself getting pretty into it! A good experience in general.
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On Wednesday evening, three friends of Lola’s came for an early overnight celebration for Lola’s birthday. We played a game called “Ta Mere En Slip”, which is a little like “Heads Up”, but with a person and an action to guess. Here’s a photo from that:
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Thursday 27 February - Paris no. 2
On Thursdays, usually Marie works in Paris, taking an early train there and an evening train back. We decided that it could be a cool idea for me to travel over with her and spend the day by myself. It was an... interesting day, to say the least.
We had an early start, took the train, and then recharged my Metro card once we got there. All good, mostly, except until the card didnt work, which was a little awkward and confusing 🙄 After getting through that, Marie and I parted ways; she on her way to a meeting at work, and I on a metro to the Louvre. I had some trouble with the many confusing lines once I got there, and another tourist even asked me if she was in the riht line, to which I replied that I was sorry I was also rather confused! I hope she found her way in the end, because we were both very much in the wrong line but for different reasons. I found the correct line for me, and then I was in the Louvre! I ended up spending upward of three hours here, there was so much to see. Beautiful paintings that are so nice to appreciate in person, Greek and Roman sculpture (my inner classics nerd was wilding, it was great to see these things that I’d studied up close), some gorgeous neoclassical and otherwise French sculpture, beautiful extravagant objects from past French royalty, even Eastern and Egyptian antiquities. There was just so much and of course it was impossible to see it all (though naturally I tried - my sore feet did not thank me later). That moment of awe you feel when you see something that you truly ove is near indescribable. Here’s some photos of some of my favourite things that I saw:
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A bust of Alexander the Great
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Some very  impressive, large paintings
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The very very extravagant ceiling in one of the gallery rooms
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A view of the pyramid, the little doll people, and the not-so-great weather outside from the beautiful objects area with all the past belongings of French monarchs
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A nice piece from the French sculpture area
I got pretty lucky with my trip to the Louvre for a few reasons. One was that my ticket was for the morning at opening time, so I managed to get in before the worst of the crowds. Pretty awesome being able to wander around without being hindered too badly by lots of other people also trying to get as close as they possibly can to every piece. The other reason I got lucky was because the Louvre is now closed. It closed on Saturday the 29th of February, and remains closed now, it being unclear when it may open again. This was following an announcement of a nation-wide ban of gatherings of more than 5000 people in a confined space. The Louvre, of course, falls under this category.
Anyway, after that very long musemum trip, I was happily full with appreciation for art nd culture, however I was also very hungry and thirsty (no drink bottles allowed in the museum haha). So I went outside and got myself a bite to eat from a bakery stall outside, which I had overlooking the pretty garden outside (yes it was raining a bit and the bench was a little damp too, so yes I sacrificed my rain jacket to sit on). The interaction I had with the person at the bakery stall felt like the most natural interaction all in French I had had with a customer service person so far. I think that was the proudest I’d ever been of myself simply for ordering a sandwich! 😂 It was nice to just sit down with my food and admire my surroundings and people watch for a while. I could even see the Eiffel tower fro my spot, which was nice. I then wandered all the way through the garden, admiring the flowers and fountains and sculptures and the many many empty benches. I’d love to see how it looks in the sun - I bet those benches will be pretty well occupied in the springtime. After that I went on a mission for toilets and discovered the truly wonderful and fantastic thing that is Paris’ tendency for toilets that cost money to use. After that delightful exprience I headed to see the Obelisk. I may have been walking against the wind and rain, but the area was still pretty. 
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I then walked all the way down the Champs- Élysées (my poor feet), until I reached the Arc de Triomphe. It was by then only the early afternoon and I realised I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. I had options, of course, but the travel to them on the metro or busses or otherwise seemed confusing and I had the added issue of not having any data or wifi to use google maps with. (Next time I am definitely getting some data - that would have solved a whole lot of problems 🙄). Long story short, one thing led to another and I ended up stressy ugly-crying with a burger I didn’t want in a McDonalds just so I could use the wifi to try and make sense of the metro system, while messaging Marie. Then to top it all off, my bathroom grievances continued because, naturally, the bathroom in that restaurant was another one that costed, and I had spent the last of my change on that burger. Dang. Anyways, I decided to go down to the metro to try and find my way to the Montmartre church. However, my metro card problems continued, my confusion of the metro system continued, and I ended up on the phone to Marie who said she would come meet me. I felt very bad that she left work for me, she said it was all okay, but naturally I still felt bad. She found me eventually, a littel tearstained and very embarrassed, and we headed on the metro to Montmartre together. She tried to explain the metro system to me a bit more, which was good and I feel like I’ve got a liiiittle bit of a better handle on it now.
On the steep walk up to Montmartre there were lots and lots of tourist shops, and then a lot a lot of stairs, with some street art on the walls which was pretty cool. The church was very pretty. We didn’t go inside, but the outside was very nice. All the surrounding fences were cooovered in lovers’ padlocks
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The viewn was also very nice. Paries views (and I think French views in genral?) are always interesting. A mix of that classic Parisian architecture, you know the one -modern buildings, well-known monuments, building cranes, oooold old buildings and monuments, and sometimes the odd bit of big street art on the high-up walla. It’s never the same view you expect to see. 
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After that nice wee trip we went to grab a coffee and stop off at the cafe’s toilets before we headed home. However, toilet grievance number 3 hit us suddenly because the toilets were out of order. After that we decided to head to the train station and leave a littel earlier than originally planned. I was so tired after a big day I couldn’t help but fall asleep on the train 😂 Once we were back home I recounted my metro meltdown and we all decided that perhaps public transport (missing train stops, being confused by the metro and bus syetems...) is simply not my strong point, lol. Anyways, despite the stressy moments of that day, all in all it was a good experience, and the good moments were really enjoyable. I’m not going to letit deter me, and I hope in the future I’ll have more chances to explore the city and improve my knowledge of how to get around.
Saturday the 29th was a good day. We had gratin dauphinois for lunch, which was cool because it reminded me of my Nanna because it was one of her specialties, and it reminded me of the one time I made it for a culture project for French class. That afternoon, Marie and I headed back to the museum with the section on bonneterie, because there’s a new exposition there at the moment. It’s on the brand of socks called Doré Doré, celebratng it’s 200 year anniversary (weird that a sock brand in France is older than the entire government in New Zealand), and the factories have been based in Troyes since the beginning. It was cute, and a littel funny with all the little socks and things. There were lots of these big sock wall decorations outside the exhibit:
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Sunday was the last day of the holidays. In the morning Marie, Lola and I went to the bakery to pick up Lola’s birthday cake. Her birthday isn’t until the 7th, but on Sunday afternoon there was some family coming to celebrate. It’s funny when we go into any store, every time the cashier assumes I’m a separate customer, so I’m now well practiced at saying oh no thank you we are all together. For lunch, Marie’s mother, brother, his partner, and their young son Jack-Jack came around. There was nice conversation, nice food, and then a game of ‘Ta Mere En Slip’. They’re all very nice, and it feels easier now than every for me to speak French with groups of people. It’s still hard sometimes, but it’s much better! 
Yesterday was interesting. It was sort of the first day back at school. I got up early, Marie took Lola and I to school as usual... However I had neglected to check what the case was with the BAC blanc exams this week. Turns out that no, there is no classes at all, and it is in fact just tests all throughout the week. So that was an interesting time for me, turning up there and my classmates finding it funny I was there at all. So I just headed back home after spending a little while in the school library, and sike! I have, in some ways, another week of holidays... I’m thinking I might do some more exploring, go back to the museum, I could go to the movies and try watching something in French again, I could write some postcards or things home... Today I’ve just been writing this blog entry this morning, I’ve gone out to eat pizza for lunch with Marie, but the weather today is lovely (much better than the rain last night), so I might go do something. I am in absolute disbelief that I have less than 4 weeks left on exchange. Where did the time go? I swear I must comment on how fast the time is going by at least a few times a day at this point. But wow, it really is going fast.
Until next time!
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growthvue · 6 years
Text
Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom
Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter
Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.
So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.
I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:
A Robotic Interruption
A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.
So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.
One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”
The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.
Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.
The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.
Building a Building on Someone
When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.
This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.
Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space
In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.
My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,
“No, not that seat….”
Too late!
Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.
There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.
Google Chrome Hacks
Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.
So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,
“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”
The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!
Autotext Pranks
Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.
Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.
So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!
Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.
Fighting Modern Procrastination
Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.
I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.
Naming Things
So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.
The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,
“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”
We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.
Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song
One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.
One group refused to even try.
Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)
So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.
When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.
They became my best programmers!
Double mouse trick
Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.
The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.
Find a Way to Laugh
Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!
Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.
As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.
Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?
Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.
Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.
This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.
The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom published first on https://getnewdlbusiness.tumblr.com/
0 notes
strivesy · 6 years
Text
Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom
Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter
Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.
So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.
I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:
A Robotic Interruption
A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.
So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.
One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”
The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.
Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.
The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.
Building a Building on Someone
When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.
This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.
Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space
In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.
My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,
“No, not that seat….”
Too late!
Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.
There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.
Google Chrome Hacks
Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.
So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,
“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”
The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!
Autotext Pranks
Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.
Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.
So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!
Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.
Fighting Modern Procrastination
Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.
I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.
Naming Things
So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.
The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,
“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”
We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.
Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song
One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.
One group refused to even try.
Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)
So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.
When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.
They became my best programmers!
Double mouse trick
Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.
The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.
Find a Way to Laugh
Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!
Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.
As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.
Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?
Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.
Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.
This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.
The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom published first on https://medium.com/@seminarsacademy
0 notes
athena29stone · 6 years
Text
Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom
Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter
Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.
So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.
I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:
A Robotic Interruption
A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.
So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.
One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”
The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.
Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.
The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.
Building a Building on Someone
When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.
This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.
Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space
In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.
My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,
“No, not that seat….”
Too late!
Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.
There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.
Google Chrome Hacks
Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.
So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,
“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”
The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!
Autotext Pranks
Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.
Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.
So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!
Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.
Fighting Modern Procrastination
Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.
I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.
Naming Things
So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.
The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,
“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”
We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.
Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song
One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.
One group refused to even try.
Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)
So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.
When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.
They became my best programmers!
Double mouse trick
Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.
The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.
Find a Way to Laugh
Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!
Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.
As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.
Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?
Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.
Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.
This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.
The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
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Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom
Day 36 of 80 Days of Excellence
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter
Part of loving life is learning to laugh. The harder life is for you right now, the more you need to laugh. And I’m not just talking about watching a comedy but finding funny moments.
So, today, think about the funny things of life. Here are a few that I’d like to share with you. And I hope you won’t judge. Something funny to me may not be funny to you.
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I think part of being a teacher is not to take things too seriously. Here are a few you might find as amusing as I did:
A Robotic Interruption
A student borrowed a friend’s phone and Facetimed with it. Then she put it on the Wonderbot (a little robot you can drive around). Then, she drove it around the school visiting classrooms.
So, basically, you had a little blue robot with 3 wheels. IN the front, you had a tray with a phone and her face was on the robot talking to people. Back in my room, the students were driving and looking at the other phone which they had hooked to my Monster TV to see the people they were talking to throughout the school.
One teacher misunderstood what was happening. She came outside her room and the little blue robot turned to her and said, “hi, are you having a good day?”
The teacher grabbed the robot and started fussing at it. She closed her door as she fussed at the person on the robot. What she didn’t know is that her face was really large on my big screen in my room where the students were “driving” and facetiming. The students started calling me for help.
Even worse, when it lost connection, the Robot itself started saying “help help.” The further away it got, the louder and more frantically it yelled.
The teacher got very unhappy and I had to apologize on behalf of my robot. She put it in detention and wouldn’t give the robot back until the end of school. I still think it is funny but do tell this story (without naming names) to share with my students the importance of being responsible when driving robots around the school and how we are not to interrupt other people’s classes.
Building a Building on Someone
When my students built in Open Sim, a tool similar to Second Life, two students built a building around their friend and wouldn’t teleport him out. He didn’t find it funny and I had to get involved.
This shows kids will do not so nice things in any environment. It wasn’t an over the line case of bullying but there have been cases of bullying in virtual environments.
Throwing a BBC Reporter into Outer Space
In the early days of Open Sim, my students had helped build a virtual world to explain digital citizenship. It had all kinds of objects teaching about how to be responsible online. A BBC reporter wanted to come in the world and see what they had done. So, we set up Skype so we could talk and helped him set up his avatar.
My students had built an underground aquarium but I hadn’t toured it yet. The BBC reporter went through the world and the kids said they wanted to take him to the aquarium. They asked him to come sit down on a bench, but as he was sitting, my student got out the words,
“No, not that seat….”
Too late!
Well, the reporter had picked an ejection seat that a child had installed as a joke. He was thrown into outer space. We had to help him and teleport him back in so we could continue the tour.
There aren’t many who can say their kids launched a BBC reporter into outer space.
Google Chrome Hacks
Probably the worst things happen when students forget to log out. Every student has their own ID, so this slows down the next student who comes into class if the previous student hasn’t logged out. Plus it is a security risk and I want students to learn to log out.
So, they’ll often change each other’s screensavers, flip the screen sideways or do other hacks. A recent hack that made me smile was when an annual-staff student sat down and said,
“No matter what I search, everything turns into Nicholas Cage.”
The previous prankster had installed nCage, a Google Chrome extension. Then, they logged out. When the annual-staff student had logged on the next day, this extension took over and turned every image on every web page into a random picture of Nicolas Cage!
Autotext Pranks
Another popular prank if a student doesn’t log out is to go into the autotext in a person’s Microsoft Word and to set it to change words automatically.
Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is a person had the word “the” turn into the word “idiot” over and over. I believe they found the prank online.
So, every time the person typed the word “the” it would autocorrect into the word “idiot.” Another one changed the person’s name into “learn to log off.” That was perhaps the best reminder!
Either way, we had to learn how to fix autotext those days but I did have to smile.
Fighting Modern Procrastination
Another funny one is the “just do it” Shia Lebeouf motivational app extension that gives a little motivational speech from Shia Lebeouf. In this extension, someone cut out the greenscreen so Shia appears in front of whatever task they’re having to do at that moment.
I had some procrastinators install it. When they would procrastinate, they would play the speech before I could get to them and encourage them to “just do it.” We all thought it was funny but I only let them play it once and then they had to get started. (Otherwise it was just annoying.) Here’s the screen and you can see how funny it might be on a sleepy Monday morning.
Naming Things
So, when I got my Infocus Lightcast Board, I was setting it up. As I did, some students named it John Cena. I left it on the board. If they want to cast their iPhone or Computer screen to the board, they look for “John Cena” to send it.
The other named item in my room is Bob Marley. Many years ago, before my first 3D printer was working properly, it would smoke and jam. A student said,
“Let’s name him Bob Marley because he be jammin’ and he smokes.”
We still call our 3D printer Bob Marley to this day although he never jams or smokes anymore.
Encouraging Kids to Code With a Well-Placed Fight Song
One of the earliest things that happened was my own joke on a student. We had just started with Lego Mindstorms and the kids were programming.
One group refused to even try.
Well, in the group two of the three students who wanted to go to the University of Georgia. If you know anything about colleges in Georgia — Georgia Tech (my alma mater) and the University of Georgia do not like each other very much. (understatement)
So, after another day of them refusing to program in a meaningful way, I took the robot and programmed it to sing “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” after class.
When they came in the next day and started operating it, they were furious and wanted me to take it off. I told them the only way to remove it was to program it out of the robot and to program in what they wanted.
They became my best programmers!
Double mouse trick
Plugging in a second mouse can let you do many things as a prank. I’ve had students wait half a class period before randomly moving the mouse on the screen.
The person with the second mouse will move the mouse every so often and make the person think their computer has a hacker on it.
Find a Way to Laugh
Now, I can go on and on. Pretty much every single week there are several things that are “gutt busters” and me and my students laugh hilariously. We have to live life this way. We need the laughter and the levity!
Sometimes it is pranks but most often, the things we laugh at are just funny moments in time when something hilarious happens and it strikes us as funny.
As we talk about excellence, let’s remember not to take ourselves too seriously. The easiest and perhaps best person to laugh at is yourself.
Are you finding times to laugh? Are you looking for little moments when something is funny? If I asked you about something hilarious that happened recently, could you tell me at least one thing?
Some of the most awesome people tend to be very funny people, not necessarily because they can tell jokes but because they just look for funny things and find them.
Have a laugh this week. You’ll be glad you did and so will the people around you.
This post is day 36 of 80 days of excellence. I’ve created an email list below for those of you want to be emailed the full posts written as part of this series.
The post Find a Way to Laugh: Funny Mishaps and Misunderstandings in My Classroom appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
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