I'm sick as a dog -- people keep calling and laughing out loud when they hear me -- and then they quickly apologize because they're convinced I'm at death's door. I don't feel bad as I sound, which is like a 400 lb trucker who has smoked 4 packs a day for fifty years -- that is when voice can emerge from this tortured larynx of mine. But, I'm not at my best.

Worse, I have until 11 p.m. tonight to finish my final grades. I've got 12 more papers to grade, and 45 grades to actually calculate. And since I didn't do any numeric calculating throughout the year, that means translating those oh so vague check, check-, and check+ into numbers. Groan.

But, in the midst of this craziness, I just had a hysterical moment of laughter that I thought I should share. Some words of wisdom on the American Revolution from a student paper:

"Patrick Hennry (sic) warns that if the British don't refrain their legislation they will be faced with the full furry of the colonies."


While no one out there doubts the importance of the fur trade to the development of the American colonies, I doubt that Patrick Henry was threatening the British either with the specially trained American attack squirrels, or with the naughtier connotations the colonists' "full furry" implies. Somehow, "Give me Liberty or We'll Give you Beavers" lacks the punch of the original.

Bad, bad jokes, I know -- I blame it on the fever.

Real update to follow shortly....