Being a teenager, I spend a lot of time doing homework. Okay, that was an understatement. Being a (pause read a chapter of Shakespeare) teenager, I (pause, write about that chapter of Shakespeare) spend a lot (pause, do the vocab for that chapter of Shakespeare) time doing home-(pause, go back in time and kill Shakespeare)-work. That’s only natural, though, right? Babies cry, eat, and sleep; then Toddlers whine, eat, and sleep; then Children throw tantrums, eat, and sleep; and then Teenagers complain (about homework), eat, and do homework.
We get lots of homework-I’ve made that clear. What you might not understand, though, is the number of different types of homework assignments teenagers are given. Homework can be anything from writing a paper about mercantilism to using the quadratic formula to ransacking the fridge (if you are good at manipulating directions like I am). Some homework can be completed on the computer. This is the good kind, because a computer helps speed up the rate at which a teenager can find something entertaining to do instead of homework.
The homework that cannot be completed on the computer, though, is horrible. This requires a pencil and forces one to think instead of letting one’s pet hop around on the computer keyboard for twenty minutes to complete the assignment (unless you have a fish, which is great; when placed on a computer keyboard, fish flop around twice as much as any pet, and can cut your homework time in half).
The worst sub-category of the written homework is the type with the question and a pre-defined space for you to answer it. It makes you look bad if you do not fill up the lines, but often the amount of black lines delegated to the question makes no sense. For example, a question like “How are proteins made?” might have two lines under it, while something like ”Was Watson and Crick’s laboratory painted puce or muddy green?” would have lines filling the rest of the page.
While a few solutions might include threatening/bribing the all-powerful guy who decides (using dice and the stock market, along with a complex algorithm) exactly how many lines to give each question, the only other solution I have found is to restate the question numerous times. So the above example would be something like: Watson and Crick’s laboratory, or Crick and Watson’s laboratory, was painted muddy green, that is, to say that it was the color of muddy green, and that the color had been applied by paint, to the walls of Watson and Crick’s, or Crick and Watson’s, laboratory.