Professor (to a student): Okay, now uncap the nitrogen flask and fill the canister.
TA: Actually, I think there's already nitrogen in the canister, Professor.
[Professor grabs the canister and quickly dumps its contents on the floor - it flows out towards the students, then disappears - hey, it's nitrogen, right?]
Professor: No, there isn't.
TA: Right as always, sir.

(earlier)

Professor: So if current is like water flowing in a pipe, what is our electrical analogy to pressure? You. [Points at a student]
Student: Uh ... Coulombic interactions? Electric field? The conductor?
Professor: Are you going to rattle off all the nouns you've heard this semester, or should I just tell you the answer?

(This substitute professor was actually a neat dude - way better than the usual lecturer.)

It is so wonderful to have my own wheelchair back, as of five minutes ago - the one I can get into without losing all dignity, the one that has places to put my laptop, my backpack, my keys, the one that has a variable speed throttle as opposed to just an on/off, the one with a swiveling seat. The one that doesn't make horrendous sounding noises at inopportune moments (or constantly, for that matter).

Yup, my day has been made. (And ring presentation tonight - sweet.)

EDIT: As always, there are some great posts out there that say it really eloquently. Here are some quotes:

Blue says:

Also, many of the same joys people get from driving their cars can be found driving an electric chair. There's skill to it, enjoyment of speed and mastery of a machine.

Fahrvegnügen!

Wheelchair Dancer says:

You can get a sense of how long it takes to turn in a chair, what it feels like to PUSH a chair, how to stroke, wheelie, etc. But you don't know what it means to actually live in a chair and feel it melded to you as an extension of your body or, especially, what it means to actively use the chair instead of feeling it as a prop. And this means you won't be able to move in it as we do. You won't feel comfortable in it in the same way that we do; you don't even see the texture and surfacing of the floor the same way. Our relationships to the space are different.

Wheelchair Dancer again:

I look around me. I see people in their seats. And it suddenly comes to me. They are all frozen in uncomfortable seats. My seat is an extension of my ass. It's shaped around the contours of my body. I am comfortable. My hands fall to my side and strike the smooth, cool titanium of my rims (plastic covered for dancing, titanium for life). It sounds unoriginal, but stick with me for a minute. My chair moves -- yes! really! Their chairs do not. My chair has mobility built into it. I swing a little, rock a little. Do non wheelchair users think of wheelchairs as confining, things to be bound to (in?) because their experience of seatedness is without motion? If everyone's chairs had wheels -- dining room, office, stools, sofa, armchair, rocking chair -- would wheelchairs be less stigmatized?
...
We have chosen, culturally, to privilege the model that is less developed, less technologically cool. Weird.

And The Idiot Zone is just funny.

From the University of Wisconsin (at Madison?):
"In addition to completing the task while wearing both implants, the children [aged 5-14] were asked to remove the microphone and other external parts of one, rendering them deaf again in that ear.

"That turns out to be an interesting experience, because they don't like to remove an implant," says Litovsky. "We have to barter for that, with M&Ms or something else that motivates them.""

I could've told you that would happen, and without a longitudinal study, too. People don't like reducing their capabilities, even temporarily.

Not long after I was diagnosed - so when I was three - a doctor bribed me to walk up and down a hallway as many times as I could by giving me a quarter for each round trip. Bribery works ... although I think my scale has gone up in the intervening years.

It has been a very good day so far. I met with the ADA Architect here, who seems a lot more on top of things in person (and suggested some changes to their protocols that will make retrofitting for accessibility a lot more efficient than before).

On top of that, the Disabilities Services Office and I will be pushing to reform policy here so that accessibility is planned in, rather than retrofitted in on an as-requested basis. (And from a practical standpoint, none of this "but technically the code doesn't require that" stuff.) We've come up with the names of the people we think we need to talk to, we've got our argument partially framed ... I think this will end well.