Presenting: The Best of Professor Baldo Marinovic’s Dad Jokes!
Has anyone heard about the new restaurant on the moon? I heard that the food was great, but there was no atmosphere.
You see a break-in at the Apple store. What does that make you? An iWitness.
Why can’t you trust atoms? They make up everything.
What is a child guilty of if they refuse to take a nap? They are guilty of resisting arrest.
Why couldn’t the bicycle stand up on its own? It was two tired.
Why can’t you trust stairs? They are always up to something.
Which country’s capital has the fastest growing population in the whole world? Ireland, because everyday the population is Dublin’. - Allie Wang
Bella’s Tales
Prof. Shawn Noren is the instructor of two clusters at UCSC COSMOS: Cluster 3 and Cluster 8. She has two amazing teacher fellows: Lindsay and Arina. However, she also has one more teaching assistant who serves by her side to bring a whole lot of serotonin to the students. Here’s the catch, though: she’s not very good at her job. She’s always falling asleep on the job, yapping at Prof. Noren’s feet, and distracting the students. Despite all that, we still love her.
Who is she? Prof. Noren’s dog, Bella, of course!
Bella is an Australian cattle dog and a long term guest during Prof. Noren’s classes. As a student from Cluster 8, I did not have the pleasure of seeing Bella’s numerous tricks until the third or fourth day of COSMOS, as our afternoon class always seemed to coincide with her daily beauty nap. I am most definitely not complaining though, since her sleep schedule resulted in her continued appearances during breaks, when Prof. Noren would try rather unsuccessfully to rouse her.
When she finally did wake up for us one day, it was in a way none of us expected, Prof. Noren included. During our break that day, Prof. Noren was doing some jumping jacks to loosen up, and, much to everyone’s surprise, Bella decided that it was the perfect time to get up from her nap and start jumping along. Unfortunately, we, the students, were unable to see her little hopping dance as Prof. Noren’s camera was off, but finally, finally, we could see her tricks.
While we all watched with adoration, accompanied by lots of “awww”s and “oh my god”s and “she’s so cute”s in various combinations of lowercase and capital letters in the chat, Prof. Noren had Bella sit, stand up, roll over (it took a few tries for her to get it, but it's still my personal favorite), and the latest learned crawl. The break ended and we got back to work, talking about cetaceans and pinnipeds and thermoregulation and countercurrent exchange. But I think we can all agree that other than the dolphins and whales, there was another mammal in the call that brought us undeniable joy. After all, we really, really love our teacher’s assistant! - April Zuo