Fire!

Nothing brings a lot of attention like the fire alarms going off.  Especially when everyone in the building has to leave, and they're all there to work on math.  It's especially not fun when there's close to a foot of snow on the ground, and the temperature is below 40.  Everyone then gets to spen the next five to ten minutes trying to stay warm while finding out what's going on.  Usually the announce a drill via email, or something.  since this surprised the tutors as well as the students, I think someone was either smoking or pulling or prank (maybe some other reason too).  But we got back inside and back to work without too much delay.  Felt bad for those who had been taking tests, because the proctors had to separate them and make sure they didn't try to look at notes or something.  If they did, the proctors would have to terminate their test and make them start over.
Funny how an election can bring up unusual topics in class.  One of my english classmates thinks we need to get rid of the electoral college.  Given that most votes are counted electronically, they have a point.  But the only way to get rid of them is to assemble a continental congress, because it's a constitutional amendment.  Given the way things are going, that's highly unlikely.
One can dream though.  The electoral college was meant for times when counting votes would take far too long.  With the current method, that's a little outdated.