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Exam Suicide (Pencils Up The Nose)

when i was training in ju jitsu, someone told me that a swift palm heel strike up to the nose would push the nasal bone into the brain and kill

They used to tell me that in Shotokhan Karate class too.

There were a few things that they came out with that sound rather ULish in retrospect, the usual claims about the finger of death expert move type thing, but the one I always remember was a Sensai who used to warn you to be careful with open handed strikes because if you got it wrong and a finger went either side of what you were striking then your hand would split open like a chicken wing:cross eye
 
my sensei at the time, used to claim he kept his hands under ice in the freezer for half an hour everyday to makes his palm heel strikes harder. hmmm.
 
"pupil at my school who had some sort of break down during an O or A level exam. He stopped writing in English"

A breakdown? For amusement, for one high school exam (English essay), I wrote my answers entirely without vowels. The teacher found it less amusing than I.

re: the potato masher. They are not particularly big. I doubt that one could be "impaled" by one. Besides, who pleasures oneself backed up against the front door?
 
"used to claim he kept his hands under ice in the freezer for half an hour "

Ever leave your freezer door open for a half-hour?

Certainly plunging one's hands into buckets of ice or rice is a long accepted method of toughening them.
 
Rube said:
"pupil at my school who had some sort of break down during an O or A level exam. He stopped writing in English"

A breakdown? For amusement, for one high school exam (English essay), I wrote my answers entirely without vowels. The teacher found it less amusing than I.

One of my language teachers told me about a French Oral exam where the student was asked to act out a scene with examiner about going into a shop and asking for a jar of jam. The student forgot the word for jar, so they came out with "paquet" - which we were told was a good improvisation - unfortunately they also forgot the word "confiture". In trying to think of a french equivalent of preserve they asked for "Une paquet de preservative sil vous plait." :laughing: (A packet of condoms please)

To make matters worse the next question on the examiners script was "Quelle parfum?" (What flavour?) !

I would have loved to hear the tape - unsurprisingly the examiner had a hard time keeping a straight face.
 
Originally posted by Rube
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Certainly plunging one's hands into buckets of ice or rice is a long accepted method of toughening them.

What effect does rice have?:confused:

Is this dry rice, or in water, or even boiled?
 
i have heard of punching into buckets of sand, but not ice or rice.
 
What effect?

Rice - you know, that hard little grain. No, not cooked. You could do the same with dog kibble I am sure, but rice was more commonly found in Asian countries
 
So the idea is that you actually punch into the rice is it? Rather than standing around for half an hour with your hand in the bucket of it? That meant sense with the ice - but I couldn't understand why just putting your hand into rice would make it stronger.
 
Not necessarily

"punch". You would use the hand formation that you commonly use, ie, fist, knife edge, knife thrust, beak...
 
Re: Not necessarily

Rube said:
"punch". You would use the hand formation that you commonly use, ie, fist, knife edge, knife thrust, beak...

So its a resistance exercise - I think I'm getting the idea now!
 
There's a hand formation called "beak"? :D
Sorry, ignore me...childish.....I'll get my coat....
 
I saw the scene from the film 'dead zone' with christopher walkden.he palys the character of a fellow who can see the future.A cop in that sticks open scissors up his hooter and whacks them off the side of the bath giving him a sick note from the rest of eternity.

perhaps this is the basis of the legend?
 
The sharpened pencils up the nostrils examination UL.

Yes, we had this one at school as well. And we all believed it.


i am loving the potato masher one! ahahahahahha!!!!

I heard this one was a broomstick also, but a potato masher sounds much funnier. LOL
 
When I was a school boy, I remember a friend telling me a grisly tale about a student at some other school who decided that the pressure was too much during an exam, took two pencils, put them up his/her nose and then smashed their face down onto the desk. Has anyone else heard this grim legend or did my friend just have a warped imagination?.
 
I haven't (yet) found any confirmation of that particular storyline, but exam-related teen suicide is a big problem in certain countries. For example, in India:

Data published by the National Crime Records Bureau show that 2,646 people killed themselves in 2015 due to "failure in examination [category reproduced as printed]" -- many, many more than those who'd been driven to suicide by extra-marital affairs (785), cancer (827), divorces (391) and AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases (190). 1,511 of them were male.

SOURCE: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/sto...-irreparable-human-tragedy-1250031-2018-06-04
 
My brother works in a college testing facility, and there are extreme heightened emotions around exams, that's for sure.
 
When I was a school boy, I remember a friend telling me a grisly tale about a student at some other school who decided that the pressure was too much during an exam, took two pencils, put them up his/her nose and then smashed their face down onto the desk. Has anyone else heard this grim legend or did my friend just have a warped imagination?.

Yep that was a common tale at my school too. Might be a Midlands thing?
 
The one I heard had a pupil stand up in the middle of an exam and shout "I'M AN ORANGE!!!" When the invigilator approached to calm him down, he screamed "DON'T SQUEEZE ME!!!" Bit more comical than suicide, but the exam anxiety theme is there.
 
Possibly took the advice 'draw on your imagination' too literally.

INT21.
 
I'm not sure where I heard it but it wasn't in the UK.
 
You two should've written for Roger Moore :kersplat:

I've edited to include a Snopes link in a post above discussing this urban legend.
 
jokers famous scene in the dark knight used this

i heard it at school too, manchester in the eighties, but that it was a chinese school kid thatd done it (possibly, pencils = chopsticks, somehow)
 
When I was a school boy, I remember a friend telling me a grisly tale about a student at some other school who decided that the pressure was too much during an exam, took two pencils, put them up his/her nose and then smashed their face down onto the desk. Has anyone else heard this grim legend or did my friend just have a warped imagination?.

Yes indeed! (Hertfordshire 1980s) and a mate from Manchester once related the same tale as if it really happened (see henry's post, above).

Of course it was always at another school, attended by somebody's cousin or whoever.
 
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