The Latest 419 Scam

(Not sure where this originated.)

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfull,
Minister of Treasury Paulson

Rant Update

My husband says that tilapia has gone from about $5.00 for 2 lbs to $3.84 a pound.

WTF: Now I'm pissed!

Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do with school, but I'm going to rant anyway. WTF happened to the price of meat!?! I don't mean the price hike from gas, etc. I'm talking about a different kind of problem. Many years ago, in a world before fajitas, skirt steak/flank steak/whatever was really freaking cheap. Then behold - the mighty fajita reached public consciousness and the price went up.

Last week on Good Morning America, they held a segment about how to save money in the kitchen. And they mentioned two of my favorite items: Tilapia and Chuck Roast. I have been eating tilapia since c. 1995, before it hit big. And my husband and I love to cook chuck roasts in our crock pot. Well, within a few days of that GMA segment, prices sky-rocketed. I don't have the exact price for tilapia, but I did note the price of chuck at our local grocery. Chuck used to be $2.29-$2.49 per pound. The new price of chuck? $4.19 per pound. What the fuck.

Lecture Writing

I subbed for a professor last week. It was a topic I know but hadn't written a lecture on before. I had really forgotten how long it takes to write up a lecture, especially if you add PowerPoint to it. I think the lecture went okay. It was a smaller class than I'm used to, and in a smaller classroom too. There will be a test question from my lecture, so hopefully most of the class was actually there. Most of the students seemed to pay attention, and a few asked questions, but I did notice the usual sleeper in the back. A friend of mine mentioned that he'd kind of gone off on his class last semester when a lot of people weren't paying attention. He rather loudly explained how many hours it takes to prepare each lecture and how the least they could do is pay attention.

I don't think most students realize how much time it takes to prepare for a class. Especially as a teaching assistant, I work my ass off. I'm taking classes and teaching classes and it's a lot of work. I agree with my friend that at least the students could pay attention. In an interesting side note, I read an AAUP article that mentioned a study showing that there was higher student attrition when freshmen classes were taught by part-time adjuncts professors. But it was "normal" when full-time professors OR graduate students taught the class.