A Ton of Crap (2 page)

This is an education by way of the bathroom visit. It’s about time you took your stay in here a little more seriously—well, as seriously as you can with your pants around your ankles. What follows is a digestible re-education in everything you probably learned at one time or another, but forgot because your head is filled with so much crap. Don’t worry though; the way the information’s presented, the learning won’t be too rough, and you’ll actually be entertained as you pass the time.

During every visit, you’ll be schooled on five academic subjects: History, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Foreign Language. Each subject is broken down into topics like Ancient Egypt, Logarithms, and Poetry. And then each topic is split into six mini-lessons to avoid cramming too much information into one sitting. So you aren’t just presented with a brain-dump on the American Revolution all at once; instead, you’ll learn about the shot heard ’round the world during your first visit, the Battle of Bunker Hill the next time you drop by, and so on so by the end of the week you’ll have a full understanding of the topic. Think of each visit as a day of middle school crammed into one bathroom break.

But don’t think you’re squeaking out of here without getting tested. This is supposed to be educational after all. Once you’ve digested the week’s worth of information, you’ll be quizzed on those particular topics. Don’t bother bringing a pencil though. The quick and fun multiple-choice questions don’t require any real writing, and you don’t have to worry about wiping the page clean when you finish. Just take your time and don’t push yourself too hard.

So get comfortable, relax, and get ready to learn. Rather than idle away as you do your business, it’s time for a first-class education that finishes when you flush—and picks back up again when you sit back down.

HISTORY:
Mesopotamia and the First Civilizations
The Sumerians, Ziggurats,
The Akkadians, Babylonia,
The Hittites, Inventions

LANGUAGE ARTS:
Punctuation
How It Started, The Period, The Comma, The Semicolon, The Colon, The Dash

MATH:
Numbers
Babylonian Numbers, The Greek Numbers, The Egyptian Numbers, Roman Numerals, Arabic Numerals, Real Numbers

SCIENCE:
Evolution
Charles Darwin Sails to the Galapagos, Darwin’s Finches, Natural Selection,
On the Origin of Species
, Genetic Drift, Mutation

FOREIGN LANGUAGE:
Latin
Ancestor of Romance Languages, Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin, Medieval Latin, Renaissance Latin, An Extinct Language and New Latin

MESOPOTAMIA AND THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS

The Sumerians
Six thousand years ago, the first civilizations developed between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Iraq. The first civilization was known as Sumer, and the different villages developed self-governing city-states with a temple, or ziggurat, at the center of each city-state. As a result of the location, there was seasonal flooding and a hot, dry environment. This led to very fertile ground, which farmers took advantage of, producing crops such as wheat, barley, sesame, and flax.

PUNCTUATION

How It Started
Use of punctuation dates back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Orators placed marks in their speeches to indicate where and when to pause. These marks were given names such as period, comma, and colon, correlating for the kind of pauses needed. Punctuation was used infrequently, and it was not until the fifteenth century, with the introduction and rise of printing in England, that the punctuation we know today began being used.

NUMBERS

Babylonian Numbers
The Babylonians, another civilization of Mesopotamia, created a number system 5,000 years ago. The Babylonians used the cuneiform writing system, and their number system was originally based on a set of tally marks. Their number system was extremely complex, and the Babylonians divided the day into 24 hours, 60 minutes an hour, and 60 seconds a minute. Their system was sexagesimal rather than decimal, meaning all numbers are based on the number 60 and powers of 60. Decimal, or base ten, is the number system we use today.

EVOLUTION

Charles Darwin Sails to the Galapagos
In 1831, twenty-year-old Charles Darwin, a failing medical scholar and naturalist, sailed to the Galapagos Islands on a five-year-long trip. When Darwin landed on San Cristobal, he noticed something peculiar about the animals on the island. Not only were the animals different from those on the mainland, but also, among the islands, animals of the same species behaved differently due to different environments.

LATIN

Ancestor of Romance Languages
Latin is an Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient Rome. It is the ancestor of all modern Romance languages today, including Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian just to name a few. Although it is officially a dead language, meaning no one speaks it as a native language, Latin is still used in the Roman Catholic Church.

MESOPOTAMIA AND THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS