conlanging during class (Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata)

On Wednesday, December 12, 2001, at 11:25 , David Starner wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 12, 2001 at 07:35:55PM +0100, Rune Haugseng wrote:
[yhl]
>>> (Of course, sometimes long dry lectures provide a perfect opportunity to
>>> surreptitiously work on a conlang.)
>>
>> Really? I'm far too afraid someone'll notice what I'm doing to do
>> stuff like that in class.
>
> Between the large classes and the teachers who teach to the board,
> college gives plenty of oppertunity to conlang in class. Of course, I
> never had a problem doing stuff like that in high school, either, so
> . . .
<nod>  It really depends on the "withitness" of the teacher.  Frankly, in
a majority of even high school classes, the teacher will check to see that
your pencil/pen is moving at appropriate moments and that you're looking
up at the board or him/her, or at least not looking somewhere "irrelevant.
"  Of course, I'm anal so when I teach, I go around and look at *what* the
students are writing.  (Fortunately for those who like to write notes in
pink gel-pen I just ask them to put the notes away and get to work...<G>)

In any case, I've gotten away with murder in classes: doodling conscripts
or puzzling out vocabulary items, sketches of dragons and pegasi, working
on fantasy novels...the works.

On the plus side, sometimes something going on in class triggers
conlang-productivity.  Or other kinds of productivity.  If not necessarily
the kind of productivity they're looking for.  <rueful g>

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters
will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.  Now, thanks to
the Internet, we know this is not true.--Robert Wilensk

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