Ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed an honor to welcome today’s speaker, whose lifework embodies the very principles we try to pass on to each graduate crossing the stage here at Wexley-Hargrave University. As a distinguished Professor of Sociolinguistics, she specializes in idioms of North African-Balkan pidgin and cross-border political linguistics. Please join me in welcoming our 2025 commencement speaker,…
-
-
Where’s ChatGPT’s Sense of Humor? AI's Unfunny Reality
If you’re as old as I am (which is pretty dang old) you might remember a simple book of games called Madlibs. The object was simple: the “writer” would taunt the players into blindly supplying nouns, adjectives, names of famous people, etc. with no idea how they were going to be used. The writer would plug them into blanks in…
-
A Son’s Letter from School Including Endnotes
Dear Mom and Dad, I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and happiness. I’ve been at MIT for a few weeks now, and boy, do I have a lot to tell you. First of all, the workload is insane! I spend around 30 hours a week just on problem sets[1]. Can you believe it? And that’s…
-
Kindergarten: An Adventure Like No Other A preschool valedictorian addresses the challenges of disillusion, failure and broccoli
Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed faculty, proud parents, and my fellow kindergarten graduates. Today is a day of celebration, a day of joy, and a day of reflection. As I stand before you here at The Snickerdoodle Scholars’ Sanctuary, I can’t help but think back to the great times we’ve had at this school. From the moment we first stepped foot into…
-
New Frontiers in Homeschooling Going to school can be tough... even if you never leave home
Like most other parents, my mom and dad agonized over my schooling options during the recent pandemic. After all, their choices were so limited. Short of sending me to the job site with my dad, they were reduced to two choices: break down and buy me a laptop or home school me. They chose the latter. “We were concerned,” said…
