Monthly Archives: January 2012

WORD OF THE DAY: cheat

Today’s word is inspired by a cheating incident we encountered today at work. A number of students were assigned an essay on a health-related topic, and most of them pillaged other writers’ work rather than writing down any thoughts of their own. This is a case of straight-forward plagiarism.

In my day, students knew how to cheat properly, which is to say they knew how to get away with it and minimize their chances of getting caught. These students’ efforts at plagiarism were pitiful and amateurish. They just copied and pasted directly from various websites without bothering to paraphrase anything, which is just plain stupid. They were practically begging to get caught.

Not only that, they also cheated off each other. One student actually copied and pasted another student’s copied and pasted off the internet essay. I think we need a new word or phrase to describe this phenomenon, like supercheating or supreme cheating.

Any ideas?

THE SAME EARTH

Our hands have dug in the same earth,
Blackened nails reveal the search,
For answers hidden deep within the soil,
Other lives have come and gone,
Just the surface walked upon,
But never reached the depths at which we toil,
We are in each other’s blood,
Shared sweat and climbed through mud,
Ever wondering what each of us is worth,
We share a mirrored fractured soul,
Neither one of us is whole,
We only know,
We dig in the same earth.

To the Test Cheaters

It used to be that honesty,
And hard work were rewarded.
The cheaters and the liars,
And the charletons were thwarted.
But now it’s all about success.
Honor and integrity, less and less.
Now ambition and a little greed,
Will take you very far, indeed.
The sad fact is the test cheaters,
Become the most successful leaders.
Still, no matter how far you go,
And no matter what you do.
Just know that there’s a special place,
In hell, reserved for you.

IDENTITY

 

We are born with no identity,
Except that bestowed on us by others.
We are somebody’s daughters,
Somebody’s sisters,
Somebody’s sons or brothers.
Somebody’s firstborn, or best hope,
Somebody’s own dream unfulfilled,
Somebody’s religion perhaps, or class,
Someone else’s strong wishes willed.
We grow into these things for a while,
These identity mantles we wear,
They help us define who we are,
Till they get far too heavy to bear.
Then we cast them off, often with struggle,
Throw them to the proverbial floor,
Deny that all these things define us,
For we know deep inside we are more.
So off we head on our own pathways,
On our journeys to find our true self,
To find who we are on our own,
When our history is left on the shelf.
But through troubles and time we discover,
Though we may stand on a distant shore,
We are indeed all those things that defined us,
But we also are more,
So much more.

SQUEEZING THE RUBBER BALL

Very shortly I’ll be off,
To give some blood again,
They’ll ask some questions,
Do some tests,
Stick a needle in my vein,
Then pump and pump,
And pump and pump,
The crimson red shall flow,
I relax and squeeze a rubber ball,
Happy to let it go,
I’ll get a sandwich, juice and gift,
And then be on my way,
In about three months’ time,
I’ll come back another day,
And now they do a new thing,
That had me quite amused,
They send donors out an sms,
When their blood’s been used!