The Creative Classroom by Mitchell Lopate, M.A.T. = Academic humanities advising-mentoring, tutoring, writing support: 30-plus years college & university and middle-elementary education in-class/online with a masters in education and a B.A. in psychology. (PS: it's fun.) Cross-curriculum humanities concepts, career counseling, MBA instruction, composition and research methods, and values, ethics, and writing. “Learn by example, succeed by effort." mitchLOP8@yahoo.com / 840-216-1014
Friday, November 7, 2025
Eye see you, says the cornea
The cornea is the only part of the human body with no blood supply. Unlike other tissues, it remains crystal clear by absorbing oxygen directly from the air rather than relying on blood circulation.
Thursday, November 6, 2025
English language is....
The Chaos by by Gerald Nolst Trenité
Dearest
creature in Creation,
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse
and worse.
It will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear.
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it?
Just compare heart, beard and
heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain,
(Mind the latter, how it's written!)
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say—said, pay—paid,
laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and
streak,
Previous, precious; fuchsia, via;
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven; how and low;
Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe,
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid; measles, topsails, aisles;
Exiles, similes, reviles;
Wholly, holly; signal, signing;
Thames; examining, combining;
Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From "desire": desirable—admirable from "admire";
Lumber, plumber; bier but brier;
Chatham, brougham; renown but known,
Knowledge; done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone; Balmoral;
Kitchen, lichen; laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German; wind and mind;
Scene, Melpomene, mankind;
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch,
ninth, plinth.
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with "darky".
Viscous, viscount; load and broad;
Toward, to forward, to reward,
And your pronunciation's O.K.
When you say correctly croquet;
Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;
Friend and fiend; alive and live;
Liberty, library; heave and heaven;
Rachel, ache, moustache; eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed;
People, leopard; towed, but vowed
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches; wise, precise;
Chalice but police and lice.
Camel; constable, unstable;
Principle, disciple; label;
Petal, penal and canal;
Wait, surmise, plait, promise; pal.
Suit, suite, run, circuit, conduit
Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular; gaol; iron;
Timber, climber; bullion, lion,
Worm and storm; chaise, chaos,
chair;
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Ivy, privy; famous, clamour
And enamour rime with "hammer."
Pussy, hussy and possess.
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf; countenance; lieutenants
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival; tomb, bomb, comb;
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt, but aunt;
Font, front, wont; want, grand,
and, grant,
Shoes, goes, does.[1]) Now first say: finger,
And then: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal; mauve, gauze and gauge;
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth,
loth;
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste; Leigh,
eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, but unite.
Reefer does not rime with "deafer,"
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull; Geoffrey, George; ate,
late;
Hint, pint; senate, but sedate;
Scenic, Arabic, pacific;
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, and succour, four;
Gas, alas and Arkansas!
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm; Maria, but malaria;
Youth, south, southern; cleanse and
clean;
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Sally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess—it is not
safe;
We say calves, valves, half, but
Ralf!
Heron; granary, canary;
Crevice, and device, and eyrie;
Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic; ass, glass,
bass;
Large, but target, gin, give, verging;
Ought, out, joust and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and wear and tear
Do not rime with "here",
but "ere".
Seven is right, but so is even;
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen;
Monkey, donkey; clerk and jerk;
Asp, grasp, wasp; and cork and
work.
Pronunciation—think of psyche!—
Is a paling, stout and spikey;
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing "groats" and
saying groats?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with
"enough,"
Though, through, plough, cough,
hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup"......
My advice is—give it up!
Wednesday, November 5, 2025
Saturday, November 1, 2025
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Saturday, October 25, 2025
3I/Atlas Is WAY MORE TERRIFYING Than You Could Ever Imagine!
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
What's the difference between...
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Friday, October 17, 2025
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
The mysterious stone formations in South America
On the Bolivian shores of Lake Titicaca, near the ancient site of Puma Punku, lie mysterious stone formations carved with extraordinary precision. Dating back over 1,000 years and linked to the Tiwanaku civilization (500–1000 CE), these stones rest nearly 3,800 meters above sea level, amid one of the world’s most enigmatic archaeological regions.
Sunday, October 12, 2025
My name was Oreo, and I am also a children's book
After only eight years with me, a very sweet, funny, and special boy cat has left me and his brother and sister cats here, and we will miss him so much. No replacing him, either: he was the most gentle cat I have ever seen, and so willing to adapt to changes in homes that happened to us.
My thought is that if you have a special dog or cat: if you need something to do or just feel the creative urge, write stories about your pet. Include pictures. And then you can publish it for some little boy or girl to use to learn to read. And you and the memory of your pet will grow in the hearts of those children.
I wrote this a few years ago, but now it is all I have aside from my memories and pictures. But I also have the hope that some child will find this funny, just as I did as I watched it all happen. And the thoughts of my dear friend, Oreo, also called "The Flumps," will bring some happiness again. I miss him so much already.
Hello! Let me tell you my name. I am The Flumps. I live with a person who feeds me. He loves me a lot too. I agree: I am worth it.
My real name is “Oreo” like the cookie. I am three years old. I was a Christmas present for a young girl who lived with her grandmother and her service dog. But the person who feeds me and keeps me warm calls me “Flumps.”
That is what he says I do: I fall down and go “flump” on the bed or the rug when I am tired. It feels good, and then I sleep.
(You need to read more about me in the book...)