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Today isn't a holiday, but I forgot to mention that yesterday was the Palilia, which besides having a cool name was the festival of Pales, a god of shepherds. It was celebrated by offerings of the saved blood from October's sacrifice of a horse to Mars, and the ashes of the calves sacrificed to Ceres. There were no bloody sacrifices that day.

Shepherds burnt sulphur, rosemary, fir-wood, and incense, and made the smoke pass through the stables to purify them. The flocks themselves were then purified by the smoke too. After that, there was feasting and merriment and drunkenness, as all the best festivals have.

It was also somewhere between the 2,800th and the 3,000th anniversary of the founding of Rome. Happy belated birthday, Rome! I'd say you don't show your age, but... Dude. You're kinda smelly. No offense. I mean, it's not like Venice or anything. Now there is a city that needs a good bath.

While you're at it, I'd get rid of the street vendors. They're kind of annoying. Don't they itch?

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I had a teacher in high school who, when a student fell asleep (and especially if said student snored), would quietly gesture to all of us that we should stand up, without making a noise. He would then gently pull down the projector screen enough that the clock was covered. As the students would try to suppress their giggling, he would lead them into the hall, close the doors and turn off the lights. He would then go next door, borrow their phone, and call his own classroom, letting it ring only once so the student would be woken up.

Upon seeing the classroom empty and not being able to see the clock, the student would assume class was over-- in fact, school was over-- and would freak out before he remembered the teacher mentioning this trick at the beginning of the year. One time the teacher even got the vice principal to go in and "discover" the student there.

Only worked a couple of times, though. And we were usually too busy for it. Thus he resorted to throwing stuff at the boys who did it, and banging the desks of the girls. Yes, double standard, whatever.

I've had teachers who slammed your book down on the desk, who would bark your name out, who would call on you to ask you a question. Some, especially here at college, just ignore it. Some ignore it until after class and then they pull you aside to talk about your sleep habits-- that's the worst, because you don't really want to admit that you're tired because you were staying up late reading a blog written by a cat, or a webcomic about a doctor who is also a ninja. So you have to come up with a lie or just cite the fact that you can't have caffeine, despite the fact that people survived for centuries without caffeine and you don't drink coffee anyway...

If I were a teacher I would keep containers of Red Bull in my desk. I wouldn't drink them-- that stuff could kill small mammals-- but I would have them there. Every time a student fell asleep in class I would slam one down on their desk, loud enough to wake them up. Then, though, thirsty students might pretend to fall asleep...

Also, I might get in trouble for distributing drugs. Maybe I should use Vault instead. Except that's no better... I could just liquefy crack...

Anyone got any good sleeping-in-class stories?

No, I don't know why I was thinking about this...