What's the scariest thing you have ever done?

I take attendance --- even in my own absence --- by having the students answer a question.

What's the scariest thing you have ever done?

Swarthmore students apparently often encounter danger outdoors:

• almost fell off the side of mountain while hiking
• climb a mountain at night
• walked home from my town in the dark
• run for my life from a crazy dog through a snowy forest in Maine
• run through a forest during severe thunderstorm
• bridge jumping in Ecuador
• skydive?
• saw a shark
• almost fell off a waterfall
• almost got lost in a forest
• cage dive with great white sharks

Some people accurately experience fear at physical illness:

• been so dehydrated I had intense stomach pains and thought I was dying
• get sick before seminar

Some people accurately experience abstract fear at political situations:

• voted in the 2016 election
• live in the US during the Trump presidency

Unsurprisingly for an upper-level, abstract course in mathematics and computer science, there were several who expressed introvert fears:

• socializing
• life
• socializing
• talked

Other "scariest" experiences were mixed or inexplicable:

• been in a plane that had to emergency land and so dumped all its gas out the window
• play League of Legends
• I slept
• crossing an intersection while it's covered in ice in front of a truck
• ate wings with ghost pepper sauce
• played against Martin
• taken this class

This question didn't lend itself to joking answers, but one nevertheless made me laugh out loud: an answer that referred to a message from the homework-insta-marking algorithm: "1 attempt remaining."

This post's theme word is exungulate, "to pare nails, claws, etc." Beware the Jabberwock, my son, for he is freshly back from the manicurist and, though exungulated, as slashing and catching as ever!