black or white?

It’s been a while—three years to be exact—since we last conducted a poll here at andthree. So today, we do another one.

On the blue corner, or shall I say the black corner, we have got the blackboard. Its opponent –the white board. I prefer the blackboard for the reasons listed below:

• First the sentence: all whiteboards should be rounded up and shot.
• That unassuming of boards which, fighting ignorance with its back against the wall, has raised us from wee little children into becoming really old children don’t get replaced by some shifty upstart buster
• Trying to clean a whiteboard usually is an exercise in smudging it: wrong type of markers, no cleaner fluid etc. A blackboard stays graceful even when it is ashen.
• A whiteboard is not for the claustrophobic. Blackboards have got acres of space to roam. There are anomalies though. Back when I was in Bahir Dar, they had this king size (or perhaps principal/dean size?) whiteboard made and they tried to literally marginalize the blackboard. I had the handyman to return the blackboard back to its centerpiece status. I gave the handyman asir bir leshai meTeCHa. I don’t know what he did with the asir bir. For me, the whiteboard has got as much irk factor as Etyopians calling other Etyopians Mr. and Ms. Even if I don’t got a PhD, please don’t call me Mr. Ekele. If you are hellbent on the need for an appellation, then by all means, use Tr., for teacher.
• Traction. I hate the way a marker makes love to the whiteboard. The feeling that my hand gets while writing on a white board is the same one experienced by my teeth when they suddenly crush a piece of stone camouflaged as yemisir wet. The chalk on the other hand, has got game; a direct line is established between one’s hands and brains, sorry, brain.
• The days that I’ve taught well are those days on which I am smeared elbow-high in chalk. Ain’t no shame in being caught white-handed.
• Finally, contrary to popular belief, chalk does not cause cancer. Allergies maybe. Still, I can’t not vouch for allergies being the reason why our elementary school teacher used to handle chalk with gloves. Sidebar: Two students used to stand on either side of a third  student, holding him/her down by the arms, while the aforementioned teacher went to town on his/her bare ass with a whip. I wonder where she is at now; Guantanamo probably. Chalk can however be detrimental to health should it be mixed with other chemicals. See reaction below:

CaCO₃+ CH₃CH₂OH and/or cathinone, etc →Real bad shit!

The reaction is particularly sped up by news that a second round of pledges for the dam has commenced; becomes highly exergonic.

Don’t let me bias you Polling stations are open.

Another thing that we need to be doing, GeTere,  can I induce you to do another wordle? Just to see whether our attentions have shifted or they have stuck.

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