The List

Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts

Thursday, March 1, 2012

#825 When you need to erase something but the eraser of your pencil is already worn out

Instead of the delightful sound and feeling of an eraser snubbing out your unwanted marks, you are greeted with the screeching vibrations of metal or plastic against paper. You'll also be able to look forward to some nice streaky marks on your paper when you intended just the opposite to be there, absolutely nothing. Where's the Magic Rub when you need it?

It's just slightly annoying.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

#849 Typing a capital i followed by a lower case L

It doesn't come up that often, but when it does, it's a bit hard to distinguish between letters. It comes up most in texts when people forget to use apostrophes or phones don't automatically insert them.

"Ill be right back." See the problem?

It's just slightly annoying.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

#880 Peer reviews

There's so many potential peers to
review with, how exciting.
Teachers love to force cooperation in the classroom. It's not so bad sometimes, but it's almost always bad when the forced cooperation is peer reviews. Peer reviews usually consist of you reading a paper on something you don't care about whatsoever and offering superficial feedback to your "peer" who wrote it. This feedback usually consists of generic phrases like "good intro," "strong writing," "I liked the third paragraph," or "neato, good job."

I've heard the "we're preparing you for the real world, when you'll have to work with people you don't know" reasoning behind assigning peers to review each others papers, but let's be real here. Assigning group work, ehh, that kind of makes sense at least. Making a "peer" read a paper that they couldn't care less about, not exactly productive.

It's just slightly annoying.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

#890 Note cards that don't have lines on either side

How are we supposed to write in a straight line if there are no lines to guide us? Where is the point of reference on these cards?

I feel like I may or may not be in limbo (Inception reference, work with me here) when writing on these lineless note cards. It's dangerous when anything goes.

It's just slightly annoying.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

#902 Forgetting a pencil with a full day of classes ahead of you

Your forgetfulness will make you "that kid" that has to ask someone to borrow a pencil every single class for the rest of the day. It's not that big of a deal really, but there's just something about knowing you have to depend on others all day that's slightly annoying. For no apparent reason, there's also something slightly annoying about someone asking you to borrow one of your pencils. As you ask to borrow a pencil, you know the exact feeling that pencil lender is feeling, which makes it even worse for you. Making things even more worse, 9 times out 10, the pencil that they lend you probably won't have an eraser. Good luck with that.

You don't want to find yourself on either ends of this predicament. You should avoid this annoyance altogether. Don't forget to remember, you pencil borrower.

It's just slightly annoying.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

#913 Writing cover letters


Some people argue that cover letters are a necessary evil.

That's a questionable description for a cover letter. It's definitely less necessary than evil. There's no way any hiring manager likes to read the hundreds of cover letters they receive. So, hiring managers, why require them?

I wonder if there's a correlation between the amount of employers that want cover letters with your resume and unemployment rates.

It's just slightly annoying.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

#986 When your pen runs out of ink mid-sentence

If you're writing something in pen, you're almost always doing something productive. Pen = hard work. Anyone that knows anything knows that. We should be rewarded for our hard work. Sometimes, however, we are met with not reward, but with annoyance. This annoyance comes with the familiar feeling of disappointment when your pen runs out of ink mid-sentence. But wait! Don't get slightly annoyed yet. Be sure to try out one or more of these recognizable pen revival options before getting out of your hard-work chair.

1. The Shake. This is the easiest of the options. You simply turn your pen into a mini shakeweight. Ignoring all sexual connotations, you should just shake that thing until you get the useful liquid to the tip. This move should usually be done two to four times, for less than five seconds at a time. After performing The Shake, you should try out your pen on the paper again. If this move yields no results, consider moving on to option 2.

2. The Lick. This option requires a bit more involvement, but still only requires basic motor functions. The rookies will go right ahead and lick the tip of the pen, but us pros know that you always start with lubricating the fingers, and playing with the tip (of the pen). Go ahead, lick your index finger and thumb, put the tip in between your fingers and lubricate the tip. After lubrication and stimulation, you should attempt to write on the piece of paper yet again. Still no luck? The battle isn't over yet.

3. The Paper Switch. It's totally not the pen, it must be the paper. Try your pen out on a different piece of paper or in the margins of your current piece of paper. When you realize the absurdity behind that logic, move onto to the next actual logical option. Quick side note: sometimes, to be slightly annoying, your pen will decide to work in the margins of your paper, but not where you need it to. In either case, your problem is not solved.

4. The Surface Switch. Ah, this is actually logical. Sometimes a pen's tip just legitimately will not respond well on a certain surface. WARNING: Finding a different surface to put your paper on may require getting out of your seat.

5. Discard pen. Sorry buddy, your pen is dead. Do not throw your worthy pen out though. Once you have written off a pen (how do you like that pun?) as dead, you should know that it will work very easily for someone else, or later that day when you no longer need it.

Because of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, these revival techniques are ingrained into our minds during birth. How else do you think that you read all of those options and already knew exactly what they were?

At least with the trustworthiness of a computer, we know that we will never run out of "digital ink" in the midd

It's just slightly annoying.