sheee's back!

on a dark and dreary day, pobody's nerfect arises from the depths of her messy room to post after what has been quite a long hiatus. sadly, though possibly relieving to those who are not among my fans, i will not be posting a personal anecdote or opinion today. all these semesters in college (or lockage as a dear friend of mine calls it) are making my brain soft as butternut squash. instead, i will give you a short quiz, one my professor gave us about a year ago. i had meant to post it back then, but it got squashed under a stack of papers only to be discovered now. so... here it goes:
(i'll tell you the point of the quiz after, though you may guess it straight away.)

Fill in the following blanks with the word that comes to mind. Don't allow yourself time to think before answering; just write your immediate thought:

• 1. If he is carrying a knife, he is probably ________.
• 2. Politicians are usually ________.
• 3. Male dancers are usually _________.
• 4. All ________ have good rhythm.
• 5. Jewish men make good ________.
• 6. Teachers are usually ________.
• 7. ________ are good at math.
• 8. ________ all sing well.
• 9. Restaurants are usually owned by _________.

Done?

Good job. Wasn't that difficult, was it?
So, what was the point of this?
Well, after my college classmates and i had all written down our answers, the professor read question one again. He then asked each girl to say her answer out loud. He did the same with the rest of the questions. We were astonished. So many girls had the same or very similar answers!
The course was titled, "Teaching the Social Studies Spectrum" and the goal of this lesson was to show us that everyone, regardless of religious observance or background, is somewhat prejudiced. If anyone has seen the documentary "Paperclips," I remember one of the teachers saying something along the lines of, "I'm a racist too-- I think of you Northerners as cold and always rushing, as opposed to us laid-back Southerners." Anyhow, I thought it was a cool exercise. Feel free to post your answers, and at some point i'll put up what the most popular responses were, both when these questions were asked to a random group of people and to my class in an all-girls jewish college.
enjoy!