[2003.09.27 1617h]

   [vgame] halo: combat evolved [microsoft xbox]

the other day, i found an old binder of some of my work from high school.
as i was skimming it, one short assignment caught my eye.  the assignment
is entitled "three interesting questions", and is dated 1994.08.29.  the
questions are reproduced below.

   1.  did you ever stick a pencil in your ear or up your nose, and if you 
       haven't, do you think you will ever want to?

   2.  did you ever get bubble gum in your nose hair, and if you have, was
       it an enjoyable experience?

   3.  what type of question annoys you the most?

my assumption is that i was told to come up with three interesting
questions, presumably for some form of peer interview, seeing that the
assignment was given around the start of the academic year.  if this was
indeed the case, then the peers i interviewed probably thought i was
pretty weird, with good reason, i suppose.

if i didn't know myself better, i would think that i had some sort of
infatuation with the nose at the time.  but, being myself, i don't think
that is the case.

just for fun, i think i'm going to answer my own questions.

i have actually stuck a pencil up my nose.  in fact, i believe i've stuck
two pencils up my nose before, although, i believe, in different nostrils.
i believe i've also stuck two pencils in my ears before, one in each ear.

i can't remember if i had the pencils in my nose at the same time as i had
the pencils in my ears, although the people who were observing me at the
time may remember.  for years, one of my english teachers remembered me as
the guy who once stuck pencils up his nose, so maybe i should ask her.

i don't recall ever getting bubble gum in my nose hair.  i have gotten
bubble gum in my hair, and usually, it is not an enjoyable experience.
however, perhaps strangely, i usually find plucking nose hair more
enjoyable than not, so i think that if i ever accidentally got bubble gum
in my nose hair, it would be a humorous and perhaps enjoyable experience.

the type of question that annoys me the most are standardized test
questions that are ambiguous.  although these questions usually deal with
some form of reading comprehension, i have encountered a few math
questions in standardized tests that i found ambiguous.

most notably, at the end of the math section in the computerized gre, the
graduate record examination, if one has been doing well, the computer will
pose some of the most difficult math questions it has.  however, i usually
don't find these questions difficult because i lack the knowledge to solve
them, but because they are missing some information that would normally
allow the question to have a unique answer.

thankfully, the questions are multiple choice, and usually, only one of
the answers is plausibly correct.  i gather that most people who do well
on the math section probably come to the same conclusion and pick the same
answers on the ambiguous questions, and as a result, the people who decide
which questions to use in the standardized tests are not alerted to the
ambiguity.