BlinkieTheWeirdGirl

favorite toy when you were 10?

Berengaria

Hula hoop. Schools used to have competitions after classes let out. there would be 50 kids with their "latest craze" toy...and I thought I was pretty darn good. Don't remember there being prizes....I think it was all about the honor of everyone knowing you were "The Best".

Ms Carolyn

Favorite authors? Favorite genre?

WIWL

most embarrassing moment?

Berengaria

Favorite authors:Robert Heinlein,Arthur Conan Doyle, Elizabeth Peters.
Favorite genre: Mysteries/Science Fiction


Most embaressing moment: My boyfriend in college...pre-Ben days,was taking a film class and had to make a movie. I was very enthusiastic and a great cheerleader for the project but had nothing actually to do with it. So I was watching him film this thing in an apple orchard one night when the police arrived. All these big college guys were petrified and all turned to look at me. They didn't know what they had done wrong but sent me over to talk to the police on the theory that the police would "go easy" on me. It seems that the young film makers had strung up their lights and commenced shooting withour ever talking to the man who owned the apple orchard. When he saw strange lights in his field, he naturally sent the long arm of the law to investigate. I turned on the charm....explained about the film class, told the officers we were all done and would be leaving immediately and they let us go with the advise that next time we ask permission before using someone else's property!!!

Ms Carolyn

Do you have a favorite joke? Can you repeat it here on an all-ages friendly forum?

Berengaria

Had to "clean it up" just a little.

Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"?

Here's a prime example offered by an English professor from the University of Phoenix:

From a class exercise.

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of my English students:

Rebecca (last name deleted), and Gary (last name deleted).

----------------------------------------------------------------

THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

-----------------------------------------------------------
(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17", he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish article beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her news paper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

---------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands
of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"

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(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of Frigging TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."

----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
A-hole.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Bitch.
--------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
Nimrod.
---------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
****.
---------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
Get stuffed.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Eat dirt.
---------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
F YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!
----------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Go drink some tea - moron.
**********************************************

(TEACHER)
A - I really liked this one. Only group to get an A .

WIWL

WIWL

That is the funniest freakin thing I've heard in a long time!!!

Speaking of, When was your last really good fight? (p.s. Not wi/ Ben or a family member)

Berengaria

If you exclude family members,I'm a pretty peaceable person.

Had an argument with a man who rented the beach condo above my Mother's. He then proceeded to stay elsewhere while letting his 3 teenage sons live there for the week by themselves. They were always noisy but the kicker was how even at 2 AM it sounded like they were dropping bowling balls up there and they were scaring my brother (whose Down's Syndrome made it impossible for him to understand what was happening.) My Mom didn't have a phone in the place (so I couldn't call the police)...I did go up and speak to the boys...who held it down for a little while. The next day their Dad stopped me to tell me that it was his vacation and his sons could do anything up there they wanted to...jerk.

I did report that conversation to the owner of the condo...but it didn't get me anywhere...they were paying a hefty price.


P.S. I've never had a physical fight.

Ms Carolyn

Hysterical story, Berry! Hmm ... wonder if we could turn the "tandem story" idea into something here on the board.

So, what happened to the house that y'all bought together when you were in college?

Berengaria

Ben and I each got our $100's back when we moved out. It was still there providing cheap "student" housing last I knew. I always thought that the last person there might have a property that the University (Rutgers,Camden) would want to buy someday. It was "owned" by the Co-operative we set up.

WIWL

Was there ever "one that you let get away"?

Berengaria

There was actually one. Again...college....I was in a play and this fellow student-actor came up and asked me out. He was actually the handsomest man I had ever seen...over 6 foot tall,blonde hair,blue eyed, great physique. I turned him down. Told him that I could see right from the start that we didn't have anything in common and I would just as soon skip the angst. He asked me what that meant. I told him that I was mostly interested in politics.He went thoughtfully away.
Couple of months go by and he shows up at my house and asks me to go to a political meeting with him. Seems he has sidled up to a group trying to register voters in Camden. He is so charismatic that he is now practically running the place...and he still adores me. I give in and we start dating. He thinks I'm smart and funny...he's never met anyone like me. I take a vacation in Europe and all the time I am gone...I am pining to be with him. Get back,things are great. Couple of months after that he informs me that someone gave him a school bus. It is painted all rainbow colors. He is leaving for California. I never see nor hear from him again.
I cried a puddle of tears and walked around in a funk for a year....or 2. Then the whole co-op idea came up. Life went on. I met and married Ben...and I give thanks today to the one-who-got-away for seeing that we did not have much in common really except for a physical attraction that would not have stood the test of time. I got lucky...the one who mattered didn't get away.

Berengaria

TGIF...and you know what THAT means,Billy Boosters(what? Its a working shipper title! ) . Someone else gets to be in the Hot Seat and the lucky person this week shall be..........Ta Da..........WIWL.






First question up....how did you come up with your posting name?