Rules of Life

You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called life. Each day in this school, you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately "works." A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. Then you can go on to the next lesson. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned. "There" is no better than "here." When your "there" has become a "here," you will simply obtain another "there" that again, looks better than "here." Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need; what you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours. The answers lie inside you. The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust. You will forget all this. You can choose to remember anytime you want, but YOU must choose it of your own free will. Author Unknown

The World According to Student Bloopers
One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following "history" of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eighth grade through college level. Read carefully, and you will learn alot. ---Richard Lederer (St. Paul's School)
	The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
	The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
	Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He faught with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
	Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history. The greeks invented 3 kinds of columns---corinthian, Doric and ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Hoomer also wrote the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.
	In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbours were doing. When they faught the Parisians, the greeks were outnumbered because the Parisians had more men.
	Eventually the Ramons conquered the Greeks. History called people Romans because they never stayed in one place very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrany who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
	Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the battle of hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
	In Midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
	The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.
	The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
	The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the king by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miquel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey hote." The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife dies and he wrote "Paradise regained."
	During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe. Later the pilgrims crossed the ocean, and that was called the Pilgrim's Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by indians, who came down the hill rolling their was hoops before them. The indian squabs carried porposies on their back. Many of the indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal for them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
	One of the causes of the revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. During the war, Red Coates and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.
	Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration Of Independence. Franklin had gone to Bostin carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in [sic: missing words] George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of our country. Then the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
	Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was president, he wore only a tall silk hat. he said "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysberg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysberg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the clue clux clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a sopposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
	Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy." Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.
	Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
	France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. he wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children.
	The sun never set on the British Empire because the british Empire is in the east and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
	The ninteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steam boat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormic raper, which did the work of 100 men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailist who wrote the "Organ of the Species." Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.
	The First World war, caused by the assignation of Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of humanhistory.

Scientific Facts— According to Some Eleven-Year-Olds

"Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water." "When you breathe, you inspire. When you do not breathe, you expire." "H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water." "Blood flows down one leg and up the other." "The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader." "Artificial insemination is when the farmer does it to the cow instead of the bull." "Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas." "The body consists of three parts— the brainium, the borax, and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five: a, e, i, o, and u." "Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away." "Planet: A body of earth surrounded by sky." "Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot." "Vacuum: A large, empty space where the pope lives." "Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative." "For fainting: Rub the person's chest or, if a lady, rub her arm above the hand instead. Or put the head between the knees of the nearest medical doctor." "For dog bite: Put the dog away for several days. If he has not recovered, then kill it." "To prevent contraception: Wear a condominium." "For headcold: Use an agonizer to spray the nose until it drops in your throat." "To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the cow." "The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects." "The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana." "The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the outsides have been taken off. The purpose of the skeleton is something to hitch meat to." "The tides are a fight between the Earth and Moon. All water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight." "A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is." "Equator: A managerie lion running around the Earth through Africa."

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