Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Political Correctness

My Partner in Crime (Meigan) and I had a presentation for our Public Health Nutrition class this afternoon. We took a short cut and revamped a presentation we had done earlier in the semester for another class on obesity and the school lunch program in Cochise County.

We worked on the presentation this Saturday after being hung-over from the night before. Thus, neither of us were feeling particularly...reverent...about childhood obesity in Cochise Co. She left earlier than I did to watch a basketball game with her boy and I stayed in the library to put our outline into PowerPoint format. Just joking around, I threw some off-colored "fat-kid" jokes in the presentation, to give her a laugh later.

This afternoon, I loaded the presentation up for the class and the opening slide proclaimed: "Meigan and Elisabeth's School Lunch Program for Fat Kids in Cochise County." I almost died! She hadn't taken out the fat kid jokes! Further into the presentation, as I'm explaining the difficulties of schools initiating extra PE time while trying to still meet the No Child Left Behind Act goals, I see another line she'd left in: "But at least the dumb kids will be skinny." The entire class started laughing.

Let's hope that Doug didn't notice my politically incorrect slips and this should teach me to never be irreverent or crass when doing class presentations.

(Though I sincerely doubt I'll truly ever learn that lesson. Ever.)

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