Skip to main content

In The Wednesday Wars, what happened to Holling's backpack, and what is in it?

Holling's backpack tore at the seams and dumped out all of its contents.  His pack was loaded with four cans of chili and all of the utensils for the entire class.  


During the month of June, Holling, his class, and his teachers go on an end of the school year camping trip into the mountains.  The vehicles can't make it all the way to the camping spot, so the students must carry all of the supplies to the final spot.  Mrs. Sidman and Mrs. Baker select a few of the boys to carry the heavy packs with food and cooking gear for the entire group.  Holling gets the pack with all of the eating utensils and four big cans of chili.  Holling tells his readers that his pack was an older pack.  During his long, arduous hike up the mountain, the seams on the pack began to tear loose.  As Holling and the pack jostled along the trail, utensils began falling out.  Nobody noticed this because Holling was the last person up the trail.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.