Showing posts with label cheating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheating. Show all posts

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Confession: I Cheated!

I love Scrabble.  I don't love it because I am good at it, I love it because I love words.  There is just the right combination of letters to fit on the board, I just have to unlock it.  When I find the perfect word, it is satisfying.
   
I can play Scrabble with people I know, strangers, or my phone, on my phone.  There is another game much like Scrabble but bonuses are in different spaces, so it is NOT Scrabble (for legal reasons, I'm sure).  I tried this popular game.  It is fun, just like Scrabble because it is Scrabble.
   
My friend told me that you can download an application for your phone that will enable to you CHEAT, at Words With Friends.  Huh?  I didn't believe it, and I just kept playing.  Curiosity got the best of me though, and I did look to see if there was a cheat application.  Guess what?  There is!  You run the word game and the cheat and it reads the board and tells you the best word to play, and where.
   
As soon as I saw this, I took the silly game off my phone.  I want to play, but not if I know anyone can "not play" by cheating.
   
Up until this point, this has been laying groundwork for my defense.  It turns out that for most of my schooling: jr. high, high school and especially at the university, I have been a huge cheater.   I say, "it turns out", because I didn't know I was doing it.  For the most part, I am against cheating.

This was my study plan:  Listent to the teacher, pretend to/actually write stuff down that they say, skim the text book for the jargon the professor said was going to be on the test and write that stuff down.  I would then make up an acronym/codes of all the concepts.  For example, capitol cities of South America: Brasilia, Buena Ares, Bogota, Quito, Lima, Santiago.  BR, BA, BO, QI, LI, SA.
   
You can kind of sing that, and it is easier to remember that the whole thing.  Here is where it get's sketchy, literally.  I would then write the code on my hand.  During the test I didn't usually need to look at it, but I could if I needed to.
   
My fourth and final year at Norther Arizona University, my husband asked what I was writing on my hand, and I told him just what I told you.  He looked puzzled, then laughed, and told me that I was cheating.   It had never occurred to me in 16 years of schooling, that I was cheating.  I had done all the work to remember?  Right?  Was this why the university was so easy for me?  Maybe.  I graduated with straight "A's".
This is me cheating.
The sign in the dressing room said,
"No Photography".
I took it anyway.  What a crazy retro dress!!
I didn't know I was cheating, yet it still counts as cheating.  I can't stand people taking shortcuts to win, but I am just a big cheater too.  Which is why I was so frustrated with Words With Friends.  Friends don't let friends cheat.  It took a friend (with benefits) to point that out to me.  Thanks Silas.

P.S. I do occasionally use a dictionary for Scrabble, if I'm stuck.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Smoochin' Santa

Christmas provides people who love music, hours of festive listening and music making.  It also provides us agonizing listening experiences in long grocery lines.  For every inspiring, sensational Christmas song that echos through concert halls across the world this season, there are also those unfortunate tunes that litter the easy-listening radio tracks.


It is one of the latter tunes that was confusing to me as a young person, and by young, I mean until I was 33, which was last year.  


There is something virtuous and enchanting about Christmas (besides the commercialism, and pregnant-virgin-teen), so I was righteously upset by "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". Did someone in the 1950's think that it was okay to spin the story of Santa: twinkly eyed, bowl full of jelly, tarnished with soot?  


How could it be that Santa would be cheating on Mrs. Claus with the singer's mother?  The thought frightened and shocked me!  Would Santa really come to a kid's house, with toys and Christmas cheer, while the reindeer waited on the roof-top, prancing and pawning their hoofs, and kiss someone else's wife?  Besides the song just being bad, to me, it was unethical, and messes up Christmas.


I've come to my senses, the song is still terrible, but in a moment of clarity last year, I figured out why this song is even allowed to be a Christmas song.   Mommy is kissing Santa, because Santa is really the dad, dressed up as Santa!  AH-HA!!!  I have been known for thinking outside the box, but I missed the point of this song for three decades.


There is still so many things wrong with it, the main one being, that if you are a smart kid, or smarter than me, you could tell there is no such thing as Santa just from this song, but I've come to realize that it is not unethical.  I still think it should be banned for the sake of believing, smart, children everywhere.