It's that time of the semester again. It's the time when you question why you're studying what you're studying. That leads to questioning why you're in school, then questioning what you want to do when you graduate, which leads to questioning your reason for living. Ah, good times, good times...
I have been through this many times before, of course. I have been enrolled in at least 6 credits for every semester since fall of 2001. I am coming to the close of my third degree now, so I suppose I have the right to be feeling a bit burned out. Usually, at this point in the semester I'm beginning to feel the pressure of a couple annotated bibliographies, perhaps a large presentation or two, and a big paper looming on the horizon. It makes you feel guilty every time you sit down without a book or article in your hands. Everything you do that isn't related to your work becomes a luxury - movies, games, friends, sex... for some real extremists, this comes to encompass food, sleep, and bathing as well. You reach a point where you can't enjoy anything until the semester is put to bed. Once that last assignment is turned in, you can breathe again. I love that feeling.
Now, I'm beginning to see, that feeling is gone forever. It's not long after you begin to think about being a lifer in the academy that you realize that means it is NEVER all done. My methods class has made it abundantly clear to me that there is always another paper, another article, another study. And it's not just your own work - there is the work of others in your field that you must keep up with, think about, and with which your work must ultimately compete. When I'm feeling upbeat and positive, I call it "job security." I'm not calling it that today.
It's not that my life is all that terrible; I am, in fact, quite privileged. It's not that my class load is all that onerous either; I have only two classes, both excellently taught by professors I respect. It's not even the fear of this all coming to an end (which it will, gods willing, in a few more years). It is the realization that so few other options are open to me. I am destined for a career in the academe because I am so unsuited to anything else.
-I am accustomed to speaking my mind- this disqualifies me for a great many vocations, ranging from sales to customer service to politics to religion.
-I do not suffer fools gladly, which makes untenable any position in which I must deal with non-academics - and a good many academics as well.
-I am both cynical and critical, which would make me a terrible manager.
-I talk far too much, which keeps me from fitting into most office settings.
-I often stumble onto a new topic that grabs my attention in a sudden fit of interest bordering on obsession, but the duration of these fits is generally not long enough to make any sort of profit from them. (Tonight's fit was on the viability of an in-depth survey of furries, but that's another post...)
In short, I am easily bored and mouthy about it when I get that way. I need the room to explore, colleagues to discuss my findings with, and students to pontificate at. Unfortunately, the price for that is continual publishing and wrangling over tenure. I knew that already - my mother is an academic - but there is a difference between knowing something intellectually, and suddenly feeling it in your bones. When I look to the future I see my thesis prospectus staring back at me. Just past it stands the thesis itself, and peeking over its shoulder is a dissertation. There are articles and chapters and a book or two as well, all standing in a line that stretches out of sight, waiting their turn under the hammer.
My fingers ache for the typing yet to come.
A Glimpse of the Future
Comfort and Cameron "fix" Darwin's work
Charles Darwin’s work on natural selection has been with us for nearly 150 years now. In fact, the 150th anniversary of his classic, On the Origin of Species, is in November. It was earth-shaking stuff when it came out, but after nearly a century and a half of biology, paleontology, anthropology, zoology, and a host of other “-ologies” lending credence to his concepts, the most amazing thing about it may be that so many people still prefer the literal biblical interpretation, with the 7 days and the tree and the whole “it’s the woman’s fault” thing.
Some of them are so convinced of that version, in fact, that they are taking their little snake and apple show out to college campuses. One of these people is former sitcom star and now uber-Christian, Kirk Cameron. On November 21st, he’s going to be distributing a new version of the Origin of Species with a 50-page intro penned by his sidekick, Ray Comfort. You remember Ray – he’s also known as Bananaman. He got his 15 megs of fame on the Internet a few years back when he taught us all about how the banana was designed by God to fit the human hand – and then quietly apologized as it was pointed out that man hybridized the banana into the shape it has today. This, of course, qualifies him to write an introduction to one of the most defining scientific books of all time… an introduction which paints Darwin as a racist, misogynist, and heretic, then goes on to link evolution to the rise of the Nazis.
They’re going to be handing out this literary gem on the top 50 college campuses in America – which by the way, apparently does not include the University of Wyoming, a fine institution of which I am an alumnus, two and a half times over. It’s one thing to tamper with the most important theorist since Newton, but simultaneously diss my alma mater? Son of a bitch must pay.
I’m tired of this crap, so I’m just going to lay it out for you here. The Origin of Species is not the problem. Natural Selection is not the problem, nor is evolution. The problem is blind faith. Blind faith has caused many more problems than evolution ever will or could. You can decide what you choose to believe, but don’t tell me to not think for myself, and lastly – if your god tells you to tamper with the work of minds so clearly superior to your own, then screw him too.
(Thanks to Cerus for the heads up on this.)
I shall fear no lid...
I know I promised that I would confine the workout shit to my other blog, but I'm too excited about this to not blog it. Some of you may recall that I have been working on my grip strength. The grippers that I use are the Captains of Crush (CoC) line made by IronMind. To put things in perspective, the little plastic grippers you see at your local godless corporate superstore call for about 30-40 pounds of pressure to close. The approximate poundage needed to close the CoC range is listed below.
CoC #1 - 140 lb.
CoC #1.5 - 167.5 lb.
CoC #2 - 195 lb.
CoC #2.5 - 237.5 lb.
CoC #3 - 280 lb.
CoC #3.5 - 322.5 lb.
CoC #4 - 365 lb.
I started out with a CoC #1, and mastered it pretty easily. Then came the overtraining, the injuries, the illness, and the painful starting over. I have been back to using the grippers regularly for a while now, but at a much more sane level of intensity than before. I have been doing proper warm up sets, stretching my fingers out, and giving my hands time to rest between workouts... which is all stuff that is found in every training manual, but why would I listen to experts, right?
So with the hard lessons learned and the injuries behind me now, I've been making some progress. About a week ago I finally closed the CoC #2 with my left hand. That was an amazing feeling, since my left side in general has been seriously lagging behind in strength development and coordination (ask any of my handball partners about how my left hand is "my lucky fin").
That was a nice dose of confidence, so I started hitting the #2.5 pretty seriously with my right hand. I have been close to closing it for a few weeks now, and today was the day! At the beginning of my evening kettlebell workout, when my grip was rested and fresh, I gave it a try and the handles touched pretty easily. I tried it again about an hour later, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, and I was able to close it again.
In the grand scheme of things, it's not really all that important that I can generate 237.5 lbs of crunch with my right hand, but it does feel good to reach one of my short term goals. Also, it makes me the bane of pickle jars the world over...
Black Vatican Hardware Upgrade
My Tuesday class was cancelled, so I literally had nowhere to be all day. I got up at the crack of noon, and began the difficult task of breaking in my new Macbook Pro.
I got it on Monday afternoon, but due to my Monday evening class, I'd only played with it for a few minutes. Today I did all those things you do when you get a new computer - set up my email accounts, set my homepage, downloaded Firefox and Word for Mac, etc. I haven't, however, hooked this baby up to my old iBook G4 for file transfer yet, and I might not. I am enjoying the "clean slate" feeling of this shiny new toy. No old essays cluttering up the hard drive, no half finished blog posts on the desktop, no stale pr0n in the trash bin... It feels like New Year's Day - the future is full of promise, and resolutions of power computing.
"I resolve to properly categorize my bookmarks."
"I resolve to change my passwords every month."
"I resolve to keep food and drinks at a safe distance."
"I resolve to cycle my battery regularly to extend its life."
"I resolve to not use my desktop as a file cabinet."
Unfortunately, just as the resolutions of January 1st usually only last until the 15th or so, I know it won't be too long before I'm looking at my hard drive saying, "WTF is all this shite? When did I save 120 MB of lolcats?!
For now, however, it feels lovely. It is like skiing on fresh snow; I am alone on this pristine cyberslope, and each link I click on is a beautiful Telemark arc in the history window...
Wow - where did that come from? I don't even like winter sports.
Maybe it's time to put the Macbook down for the night...
New Accolyte
Since the Papal Hell Puppy has been reassigned to the D.C. branch of the Ministry, it was decided that FlockHall was underrepresented in the quadruped demographic. In the interest of cultural and species diversity, an exhaustive selection process was put into motion. After a final round of interviews yesterday, a female Havana Brown was chosen; Miss Quinn officially joined the Flock around 5pm Black Vatican standard time. She spent most of last night sleeping on my head, so she is fitting right in.
Just to clarify - I am not a huge fan of cats, but I do not, as has been reported, "fucking hate them." I was misquoted. I did say, "My mother had these cats; I fucking hated them." That is a very different thing. Miss Quinn is welcome here, and like any other member of my Flock, she is much beloved (Yes - I love you all, creepy as that sounds).
Frogs Are People Too
I was all set to just come in here and bitch about how Lewis Black stole my flying car joke, which I posted here, on this very blog, on July 18th of this year. I’m not looking for royalties or anything, just a little recognition and maybe some better seats at your next show, Lewis…
Instead, I’ve spent the last two days trying to figure out if Glen Beck is actually so deranged as to throw a living frog into boiling water on live television. In case you haven’t heard about it – the alleged amphibicide took place on the September 23rd edition of his show. In order to illustrate some arcane point about how the American people are being boiled alive slowly by John McCain or suddenly by President Obama, Beck appears to toss a small frog into a pot of boiling water, with fatal results. For the frog, alas.
After reading a dozen so-called news reports, and watching the video over and over… I just really can’t tell. He does look a bit stunned when it doesn’t jump right back out, but Beck is a consummate showman – that could be part of the act. What point this was supposed to make is beyond me. What I can tell is that Glenn Beck is one pathetic little monkey. He reminds me of a 5 year-old kid dancing around in his pajamas when company comes to visit. It’s kind of pitiful really, the way he is willing to do anything for attention and a bigger slice of the Nielson pie. It was making me feel kind of sad for him, as if he didn’t deserve the all the ire that is heaped upon almost daily – I mean, he’s sick, right? It was as I was leafing through the DSM IV in an attempt to diagnose his personality disorder when I suddenly remembered… he made 23 million dollars last year! Even if it is a sickness, it’s a lucrative one, and I kind of wish I had a case of it myself…
Becks lunacy aside, what does his popularity say about his fan base? I can’t believe that they’re really just a pack of ignorant hillbillies who would be amused by dropping live animals into boiling water. I mean, that’s just… wait, what? I’m sorry, hang on, folks… Oh – oh, they are? Ok, one of our fact checkers is telling me from the booth that they are just ignorant hillbillies. Ok, wow – I stand corrected. Well, in that case, I guess this is just par for the course. You can’t really expect much more from the demographic that made turning left for 500 miles a major televised sport.
Glenn – as one radio personality to another – let me give you some advice. This kind of crap may be good for ratings, but in humor, you really only have two choices – tell a joke, or be a joke. Looks like you’ve made your choice.
Fallout is a Harsh Mistress
Contrary to what you might have assumed, neither this blog, nor I, are dead. I wish I could say that I've been really busy or that I'm still sick, but no - the truth is, I've just been Lazy McSlackenheimer of late.
I only have two classes this semester, plus 3 credits of thesis research. Granted, those two classes (Sociobiology and Research Methods) are both beastly, but in past semesters I have taken 3 classes and still had time to post. I'm not sure what the deal is this semester, but it seems like I have less time to write than ever. I am beginning to believe that the days are shorter this year. It probably has something to do with the economy - fucking greedy Wall Street types...
Several of the BCPs have tried to motivate me by offering topic suggestions. Some have suggested that I go back to my usual pissy ranting about the ennui of college, but even I'm tired of that. Another wanted me to put more effort into bashing the talking heads of the Right, but that would mean that I'd have to listen to Limbaugh and Beck more. The Papal cardiologist and the Papal therapist both recommended against it, as listening to those asshats simultaneously depresses me and makes my blood pressure soar.
One even offered me a book concept. She said, "You know how you're always saying that the average American doesn't begin to understand why the Proletariat should rise up and throw off the Capitalists? You could write a book that explains it to them!"
"Yes," I said, "but that book has already been written. It's called The Communist Manifesto."
"Well, yeah, but you're so funny!" Then she wrinkled her pretty nose and said, "Besides, no one wants to read Marx."
Despite these adorable shows of support, I have remained a non-productive lameass. Some of the problem is related to my brief but intense fling with Fallout 3 (if that game was a woman, I'd buy it chocolates and ask it out - and it would say "no," because it's way too good for me, and I would just love it from afar... maybe wait outside it's house... and end up with a restraining order). I can't really blame my silence on that, however, as the Xbox here at Flockhall is currently out of commission, due to the red ring of death. It is by sheer force of will alone that I am not at WalMart right now buying a new one.
Truthfully, I believe it is mostly due to my lack of a proper schedule, which is directly related to my lack of regular workouts. Simply put, if Linus no tired, Linus no sleep. Now that I'm well enough to sweat again, I'm trying to remedy that lack. We have been playing handball for the last two weeks, I've been swinging the kettlebells again, and I've started going back to the MMA gym as well. I am taking it easy, however, as I am finally accepting the mileage my body has on it. I don't want a relapse of the mystery virus, nor do I need to tweak my shoulder again. I just want to be tired enough to fall into bed around 11:00 every night, so I can rise early and get stuff done. If that works, I should be able to take some daytime shifts in the computer labs, and that is when the blog magic happens.
So - if you have missed my inane blathering here, make the correct obeisances before whatever heathen altars you frequent, and pray that I sleep. Light candles, make burnt offerings, anoint things, or even one another - I'm authorizing you to pull out all the stops. Once you get the attention of the supernatural entity of your choice, ask nicely, like you would ask Santa.
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