So one quirk of working at the office is that I've been given a terminal in an all-purpose room on the first floor, which is mostly empty, and full of reams and reams of copy/printer paper, and the occasional semi-private interview, yesterday morning's sideshow being an administration of an IQ test, with all of the classic questions like, "Why do people brush their teeth?" "What should you do if you find a wallet?" "Why should you eat fruits and vegetables?" as well as run-of-the-mill, pick this out, please, but as fast as you can, sort of things.

All of this is amusing enough, except of course it can't quite capture the worldweary, yawning, authoritative, "I'm going to tell your parents" attitude. All of this was of course very student-centered, as what can be more student-centered than aptitude testing for exactly what ways you are skilled at killing people, or being killed--and the little kid, was the first blond-haired NYC public school kid I've ever seen in real life, who was a little wisp who kept trying to peek over the testing manual to see what the answers were, as well as disappearing at one point underneath the desk, which I don't think was a response to a question.