Academia: the Last Refuge of the Coward

My students are racist bitches

2011-10-29T15:54:00.002-05:00

Assignment: Take a stand on an ethical position, explain why you believe it, then evaluate how good your reasons are for supporting it. "You can believe true and good things for bad reasons, people."

Response: Affirmative action is bad because it puts totally unqualified minorities in places that could have been filled by qualified members of the racial majority. My evidence that this is true is that there was once this Latina girl in my high school who got in to a private Catholic university. Everyone told her that she only got in because she wasn't white, and she dropped out after a year, so obviously, they were right.

Oh, also the paper claims that we don't need affirmative action because there are no racists left in America. The end.

Incapable of creating a writing assignment that doesn't involve trauma.

2009-09-19T13:19:00.002-05:00

The first thing the CowardlyAcademe assigned this semester asked students to talk about their first week at the university. Responses included stories about hideously racist encounters ("Why do black people only drink cheap booze?") and being abandoned by parents. I, uh, okay.

Look, the class is based around ideas of what is appropriate and inappropriate language, so let's do a softball. Tell me an incident in which you offended somebody or somebody offended you. Quick writeup. The CowardlyAcademe was not expecting, "I hate this phrase because it's what my mom calls me when she's drunk."

There's a reason the CowardlyAcademe is not a damn guidance counselor.

I love it when they ask the easy questions.

2008-11-09T13:08:00.003-06:00

Student sends email:
If I am not in class on Monday, it's because I killed my roommate after she threw out a bunch of the papers I need for the course. I'm trying to figure out what to do.

Logical response:
You can still come to class. Just don't get caught.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2107426_dispose-dead-body.html

I know what he is now.

2008-09-01T10:58:00.002-05:00

My advisor, that is. He's impossible to track down except by physically attacking him. Nearly two months ago, I sent him the chapter abstracts he asked for, and waited patiently for his response, knowing that he was busy and not wanting to bother him. (In the meanwhile, I worked on the first chapter.) Finally someone else in the program emailed both of us asking for some information on my progress.

I just received an email from him asking for some work so he can respond to that email.

He is henceforth the Black Hole, a power of such immense suck that nothing, not even hope, can escape.

Things that are hilarious once the confusion wears off:

2008-07-31T23:46:00.003-05:00

Putting the bread in the toaster.

Depressing the lever.

Assembling the toppings for the toast (as it is too hot to cook, you have been eating Things on Toast for a week).

Hearing the toaster pop up.

Blinking stupidly at the magically-empty toaster.

. . . oh, well, the top of the recycling bin was FAIRLY clean . . .

Student has "the Macbeth problem"

2008-02-24T12:02:00.003-06:00

That is, Student's writing is full of sound and fury, and signifying absolutely fuck-all. Ahem:

"To look at literature as literature is to be ever perspicacious in objectively concluding the extent to which the aesthetics of a piece achieve the goal of the writer, namely that which is contained in the predicate of such profession - craft."

Student also used "lexical" as a noun, which hurt the Cowardly Academe in a special way.

In which geekdom is revealed

2008-01-29T08:52:00.000-06:00

The Cowardly Academe has recently discovered that it needs to find a new apartment at an inconvenient time of year, and has started haunting craigslist ads in order to find one. Also I have spent a lot of time curled up into a small ball, whimpering. Last night, I sent off a batch of emails to places that looked okay - some to live in by myself, some being offered by people with extra rooms.

One shared one I responded to because it made me laugh pretty hard - it was for a bedroom in a place where the respondent had to be understanding because the other people hosted D&D on Saturday afternoons. I sent an email to the anonymous poster, asking some questions about the place and explaining that I currently host a weekly RPG session myself. He responded a few hours later, a response I did not receive until this morning. At which point I stared with horror at his name and responded:

"Oh, shit, you asshole. I cannot live with you. You are a former student."

I just have one of those faces, apparently.

2008-01-06T01:30:00.000-06:00

The kind that says, "Go on, tell me your problems. Confide in me. I am a womb of love and understanding."

Not that this is always true, but it appears to have been scribbled lightly on my forehead and won't come off no matter how hard I cry and scrub in the shower.

This is occasionally useful in figuring out what the fuck is going on, as when a student reveals that the reason he's barely functioning in class is that he's just come out to his whole family and is trying not to get kicked out of the house. ("Oh. Uh. Yeah, take another week on that paper then. That's cool.")

This is occasionally frighteningly useful, as when a student reveals that he hasn't turned in any work because he had a psychotic break and was involuntarily committed. (". . . you know what? Just don't ever turn in that paper. Whatever. Just - you know, as long as I survive the semester and don't die at your hands, I'm golden.")

And then there's the rest of the world. As the CowardlyAcademe waits for a local bus:

Errand-Running Woman (probably in her late forties, conservatively dressed, carrying a couple of shopping bags, totally standard): Are you waiting for a bus? What bus?

CowardlyAcademe: Oh, yeah. Well, we just missed the four, but the three shouldn't be too long.

ERW: Oh, I know! Just missed it! Just missed it! I'm SO mad! I have an appointment
at two. With, well, you can guess who.

CA: (Am I being slow?) Hmm?

ERW: Bob Dylan.

CA: Oh. Uh. Yes?

ERW: (Yanking off left glove, revealing two very nice identical rings on her ring finger.) You see these?

CA: Mm.

ERW: Platinum. You know who had to buy these? Me, of course.

CA: . . . I'm sorry.

ERW: You know, he's drinking so much now he's going to have to have a liver transplant.

CA: Really? Jeez.

ERW: We have this special relationship, though, because I sent him a fossil.

CA: A fossil?

ERW: A fossil necklace.

CA: (Nodding as though I now magically know what the fuck is going on) Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

ERW: Well, I'm hungry and the bus is fifteen minutes away. I'm going to go get a sandwich. Save my place in line!

(CA nods, ERW trots away. CA cautiously approaches Obvious Lesbian, who approached the bus stop during the end of the conversation and is obviously waiting for the bus.)

CA: Do . . . did you see that woman? I think she's crazy.

OL: I am having the worst day. I just broke up with my girlfriend.

The CowardlyAcademe is currently eying an electric stove and trying to determine whether extensive facial scarring makes one more or less approachable.

Finding new things to flee.

2007-12-28T11:07:00.000-06:00

The CowardlyAcademe hasn’t spent Christmas with family in . . . a while. My current university has a surprisingly long winter break, and I find it easier (and cheaper) to just wait until January to go see them. I’m pretty cool with this, though I wish my dad wouldn’t start crying when he calls Christmas Day.

So since I’m always around, I usually end up doing a lot of housesitting for people who are used to relying on me. This year, I’m taking care of ten animals and assorted houseplants. Two of these ten are antisocial sonofabitch cats.

These cats hate everyone except their now-absent owners. There’s a small white one who hides and, if discovered, will hiss softly and look terrified. Then there’s the other – a huge goddamn monster of a cat covered with shaggy black fur. I swear it’s like a bobcat. His tendency is to lurk under tables; if I enter a room where he is sitting, he will first hiss and then start making that MRRRRRRRRWWWWWWWWWLLLLL catgrowl noise. The last time I took care of these cats, he decided after four or five days that he could come over and sit next to me if I were on the sofa. Then he would lie there and purr, unless I tried to pet him. Or shift my position. Or make eye contact. Any of these actions resulted in me being immediately and savagely attacked, and then he’d run away.

So I was prepared for more of the same this time around, and it had been. Yesterday, I arrive, open the front door, and discover just inside the door, a pile of cat vomit. (I think. It might have been diarrhea, but I would lean towards vomit.) Ah. The cats are upset. Great. I step over the vomit and head into the kitchen for cleaning supplies and cat food.

As soon as I enter the kitchen, I know why the cats are upset. There is a bathroom right off the kitchen (“I’ll take ‘eccentric design choices’ for $200, Alex”) and it is completely trashed. I’d been told this by the owners, but forgotten – “work” is being done on their bathroom while they’re gone, and I’ve so far managed to miss the workmen. Everything is torn up and looking totally nonfunctional. So of course the cats are upset; they hate strangers and they’ve had not just a bunch of people walking in and out, but a bunch of people invading their space and making an unbelievable amount of noise.

This all takes me about three seconds to process, and I turn around to see that Huge Shaggy Black Cat has followed me into the kitchen. I have time to think, “That’s funny, he’s never done that befo-“ before he launches himself across the kitchen floor at me, screaming with rage and windmilling wildly with all four sets of claws. This is not an upset cat. This is a cat who has LOST HIS GODDAMNED MIND.

My jeans took the brunt of the attack, and I believe that my girly shrieking and attempt to retreat to the top of the kitchen table so confused my attacker that he retreated. He came after me once more while I was putting food in the bowls (I discovered that cats do not respond positively to, “What the fuck is your fucking problem, dude?”), and then we had a battle of wills over whether I was going to be allowed to clean up the probably-vomit. Yes, he was guarding the pile of probably-vomit. I won, but only because I squirted him with the spray bottle of Lysol I was carrying (I swear it was just a little bit).

I CAN’T WAIT TO GO BACK TODAY. I want to see if he’s got like three remodelers trapped on top of the kitchen counters.

Grad students are poor.

2007-12-09T11:12:00.000-06:00

The CowardlyAcademe does not usually buy red meat; this is not out of some sort of moral feeling or health concern, but because chicken, fish, and tofu are cheaper. I also tend to buy whatever I've been craving lately, as I feel that such cravings are likely the result of malnutrition. If I wake up slavering over tomatoes, that's probably a sign.

So a few nights ago, my housemate had cut up some steak in the kitchen, left it marinating in something or other, and left the room. While I was there preparing my own dinner (rice and beans), my eyes were repeatedly drawn to the raw meat sitting on the cutting board. It looked . . . so . . . delicious.

It called to me.

I guiltily filched a chunk and ate it.

Let me say that again: I STOLE AND DEVOURED RAW MEAT.

And it was FUCKING GREAT. I wanted more. I wanted to eat the side off a cow while it was still moving.

I have decided, I hope wisely, that this was an indication that I may need more iron in my diet. I blew ten bucks the following night on steak and spinach. I even cooked the steak. I'm back in tofu/rice/beans land now, but by god, I had a glorious moment of pure carnality.

In which the CowardlyAcademe is forcibly reminded that people have real problems.

2007-11-08T18:41:00.000-06:00

As opposed to, say, problems because they suck at subject-verb agreements or that their thesis isn't fully realized.

The CowardlyAcademe, frowning, scribbles a half-realized lesson plan on the blackboard. Student approaches.

CowardlyAcademe (having no idea who this is, continuing a scowl): 'Sup?

Student: I might have to leave class today.

CowardlyAcademe (eye contact is for the weak): Okay.

Student: And I might not participate that much.

CowardlyAcademe (is the original text really conjugated this poorly? Christ): Okay.

Student: Because my best friend died this weekend.

CowardlyAcademe (oh shit this requires personal involvement): Jesus, I'm sorry.

[Insert brief chat about said friend and expressed empathy, plus bizarre class period in which different Student has a nosebleed of epic proportions. The CowardlyAcademe briefly considers blaming the Gothic novel for the whole fiasco, then decides such a blame process would be too much effort.]

After class, the CowardlyAcademe investigates obituaries from Student's hometown. Not that the CowardlyAcademe disbelieves Student, but is instead overcome by morbid curiosity. Desired obituary is almost immediately found; friend, aged nineteen, has died in her sleep.

The hell? Wonders the CowardlyAcademe. Who dies in their sleep when they're nineteen? No cause of death is given, and the CowardlyAcademe continues to peruse the obit with an inquisitive eye. Ah, there it is.

Instead of flowers, the family requests that donations be given to the National Eating Disorders Association.

Oh.

Jesus.

Nineteen.

It looks like the CowardlyAcademe may have to make a donation this weekend.

Nineteen.

Signs that your association has picked a great city for its conference

2007-10-05T23:11:00.001-05:00

The Cowardly Academe had a bit of a journey involved in this conference as it was, as the hotel rooms ran out some four months beforehand, and a youth hostel was utilized instead. A typical youth hostel time was had by all, complete with drunken roommates stumbling home at one in the morning, snoring, and being too drunk to set an alarm clock properly, meaning that it went off at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 AM. At least there was no sex. Calgary natives may not find this surprising.

The Cowardly Academe's hostel bunkmate and fellow conference presenter was from Perth, horrifically traumatized by Calgary's cold weather but still a sport. When she arrived, the Francophone desk clerk apparently picked up on her foreignness and felt fit to warn her:

Francophone Desk Clerk: Don't walk in (pointing) that direction.

Perth Girl: Why not?

FDC: Well, in this country, we call them . . . "crackheads." [Insert lengthy speech on the definitions of cocaine and crack, the differences between them, and the subsequent undesirable characteristics of the animal known as the crackhead.]

After this speech, having the following happen was really just icing on the cake:

* Drunk man in business suit making homosexual overtures to the (straight) bearded fatty the Cowardly Academe went out to dinner with.

* Perogies and whiskey at the Unicorn Pub while the manager screamed obscenities at Flames-watching local hosers for sexually harassing some of her staff.

* Prof from a local art college enthusing about the drive-by shooting on 5th Avenue last month.

It was really a glorious time, and when one of the aforementioned raving crackheads inspired Perth Girl to press herself close to Cowardly Academe's side, it was hard to drum up too much distaste.

You know who you are, Student.

2007-09-05T23:14:00.001-05:00

Yes, you, whom I have never met or heard of before two days ago. You have already, so far:

Emailed me expressing excitement about being in my section.

Approached me after lecture to reassert said excitement, and been informed by me that you are not in fact in any of my sections.

Emailed me again to share that you changed your schedule to be in one of my sections, and that you would really like to know when my office hours are (I will keep them secret from you as long as possible, which realistically, at this point, is about ten hours).

Stopped me on the street to introduce me to your best friend from high school and once again assure me that you would see me in class and did I remember what room it was in (no).

All of this, before I even teach my first section. Congratulations. You are a stalker, and I am watching my back.

Bars are the new research library

2007-07-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

After a long hard day of teaching some high schoolers something at some summer program or other (woo, grad school summer jobs), the CowardlyAcademe obviously deserves a drink and manages to run into a vague acquaintance from whom cigarettes can be borrowed.

Vague Acquaintance: What DO you specialize in, anyway? What's your dissertation on?

CowardlyAcademe: Blah blah (long and boring explanation that not even the CowardlyAcademe cares about any more), but then I found this one book that is pretty much half my dissertation already. It's pretty awesome. I'm just going to lean on it and then write on everything it leaves out. It's called Book That is Half the CowardlyAcademe's Dissertation.

Vague Acquaintance: Hey, my undergrad advisor at Dartmouth wrote that just a few years ago.

CowardlyAcademe: . . . really? Could you . . . could you introduce me?

Vague Acquaintance: Sure! Gimme your email address.

The CowardlyAcademe has now successfully networked with someone both more knowledgeable and accessible than the dissertation project advisor. Libraries ain't got nothin' on bars.

Also, if anyone knows how the CowardlyAcademe got home, such information would be gladly appreciated.

Dissertation advice for the stumped.

2007-07-01T10:11:00.001-05:00

Order more books.

Conferences are not necessarily realms of the academic elite.

2007-06-22T18:04:00.000-05:00

Or, Conference Questions I Have Been Asked.

Cause: Me giving a paper on a piece of Holocaust writing and suggesting, nervously and terrified of being called anti-Semitic, that this particular novel states that it's not always good to remember the past and sometimes we just need to move on.

Effect: Tiny elderly man raising his hand to ask a question about my potentially offensive paper. (Oh, shit.) "Did you bring that water with you all the way from home?" "Uh, no, I filled my mug up here." "That's good, because we have very good water here."

Cause: Me giving a paper on an obscure children's book from another country by an otherwise famous author and presenting a tangled case for the book's metaphoric use of a folk hero, terrified I'll be corrected by a native of the country in question.

Effect: Beaming, balding man: "Did Disney ever do a version of this?" ". . . no."

And then I yell at my students for slacking off

2007-06-12T19:19:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's true. In less than twelve hours I get in my car and drive a thousand miles to deliver a conference paper. (Well, technically I'm only driving eight hundred miles tomorrow and two hundred the next day, but still.) As of this moment, I have not yet:

* Packed

* Readied my car for this trip (shouldn't there be air in the tires?)

* Prepared my pets for my absence

* Acquired phone numbers for the places I'll be staying

* Finished the conference paper

About the only thing I've managed to do is buy a new shirt (four whole dollars!) to wear while delivering the paper that does not exist, and throw my printer into the back of my car so that I can print the paper at the fictional time in the future when it will be finished.

Bonus: my mother will be at said conference. Listening to the paper I haven't written about a topic I know very little about. Dammit, academia was supposed to be a haven for cowards, not an obstacle course for the poorly organized.

Dear Motorists:

2007-05-29T17:07:00.000-05:00

Today I rode my bike like a crazy asshole cyclist. I have no justification. I heartily apologize and will not do so again.

If you give a mouse a cookie

2007-05-06T14:09:00.000-05:00

If you get an email from your TA urging a quick response, don't ignore it.

If you ignore the email, don't lie about your laptop being broken all weekend when you finally answer it.

If you lie about your laptop being broken all weekend, don't live on a college campus where there are multiple computers available to you all the time.

If you live on a college campus where there are multiple computers available to you all the time and you used not having a laptop as an excuse, don't use computers in a way that is really obvious.

Specifically, don't go drinking all weekend and then spend Sunday afternoon posting pictures of yourself drinking all weekend.

If you go drinking all weekend and then spend Sunday afternoon posting pictures of yourself drinking all weekend, don't put those pictures on your Facebook account.

If you put pictures of yourself drinking on your Facebook account, don't have a publically accessible account.

If you have a publically accessible account that proves you were either lying or have terminal levels of stupidity, don't try to treat your TA as though said TA were the stupid one in the relationship.

Also: the CowardlyAcademe is creepy and stalks students via Facebook. That is all.

More signs that the CowardlyAcademe watches too many horror movies

2007-03-01T22:14:00.000-06:00

My world as a comedy: Taking a class, as a student, with one of my own students. Occasionally looking like an ass in front of Student because I am not in my primary area and sometimes don't know elementary things.

My world as a low-budget psychological thriller: Student has already failed my class just a few weeks into the semester, though we continue to take a class together as fellow students. I begin to privately speculate about Student's desire for bloody revenge.

My world as surrealist horror film: Student failed my class automatically because Student never actually attended my class despite emailed assurances to the contrary; I therefore have never met Student but know we share a class because Student's name is called during roll. I have no idea what Student looks like or whether Student is aware of my presence in our shared classroom. I spend two days a week in perpetual terror that any one of a few dozen fellow students may assassinate me at any moment and that I will only have time to say, "Hey, so are you AIIIIIEEEE!"

Stupid Internets.

2007-01-30T00:21:00.000-06:00

And then Josh was all, like, "I'm trying to disable hotlinking from my site. Can you help me test it?" And I was all, like, "Yeah, okay."

Oh, baby, no.

2006-11-27T00:53:00.000-06:00

I sign up to teach the course, and I already know it's going to happen. I talk about texts involving race or sexuality, and damn . . . my students try so hard, but they're just . . . I mean, it's kind of adorable, because they don't even know they're being offensive.

"Audre Lorde wishes she weren't Black, because it's terrible."
(Did you capitalize "black" to disguise the fact that that was totally wrong?)

“The narrator of the Invisible Man wants to be judged by people just as they would judge someone of the opposite race.”
(And here I thought there were more than two races. My bad.)

“American women realized they had to choose between being frustrated housewives, or being successful but lonely and ugly.”
(I'm not sure if I should worry more or less because you're female.)

"He ‘hugs & kisses’ the U.S b/c he is proud that the U.S. is a free country & people are accepting of such things as gayism."
(I'm starting a new discipline: Gayism Studies! Who's with me?)

"The difference between regular poetry and Native American poetry is that I don't like Native American poetry."
(Shine on, you crazy diamond.)

Logic never devised by the mind of man.

2006-11-07T10:21:00.000-06:00

CowardlyAcademe: Hey, thanks for taking the time to meet with me. I really need an advisor for my dissertation. What are you doing for the next couple of years?

Professor: No. You're not really working in my area of expertise.

CowardlyAcademe: Oh. Okay, well -

Professor: Also, your idea for proposal is really interesting, but you can't write it. You should have talked to someone before you started.

CowardlyAcademe: Um. Oh?

Professor: It's too narrow and not good for employability.

CowardlyAcademe: I . . . have you SEEN what other people in the department are doing? What - okay, never mind. Will you be my advisor if I change it?

Professor: No.

CowardlyAcademe: Okay. Can you recommend someone else I can talk to?

Professor: Not until you change your project.

CowardlyAcademe: So . . . I can't write my proposal until I get an advisor, but I can't get an advisor until I write my proposal?

Professor: (Reveals self to be Yog-Sothoth.)

CowardlyAcademe: (Goes mad.)

Have I mentioned that I love the humanities?

2006-11-03T14:11:00.000-06:00

Seriously. There's all the joy of being able to rely on bullshit to get you through any career situation, without having to have any of the real creativity that the really professional liars (writers) do.

I'm currently in the middle of four major projects. One of these is my dissertation proposal, which is gonna be awesome because none of the people at my university of choice have done any work in it. I could make up all these damn books and they'd have no clue. Excellent. One of these projects is a conference paper about 50's B horror movies that I'm revamping so it actually matches the title when I present it next week. I really like the title. One is a conference paper I'm trying to write so I can write a proposal about it, though I guess I could always just do what I did last year, which is write a proposal for a paper that doesn't exist, then throw all the books in my runk, drive to the conference, and write the whole paper in the hotel room the day before. This one's mostly inspired by Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to work in a clip. And finally, because I have the attention span of a toaster, I'm doing some hot hot hot NaNoWriMo action. My novel is about zombies.

Academia's not just for cowards who can't face the real world. It's also for fandom refugees who finally moved out of their parents' basement but can't hang out with their old buddies any more because they "totally sold out" when they started investing all of their money in tuition rather than pewter figurines.

Oh, irate Student, you make my day wonderful.

2006-10-10T18:05:00.000-05:00

Student sends furious email demanding to know why the "novel" that must be read over the weekend is not available in the University Bookstore. Student further goes on to rage several other local bookstores, investigated by Student, also do not have the novel. Not only that, fumes Student, not only THAT, but the course syllabus does not even LIST the novel as one of the textbooks Student is required to buy.

How, the Student demands to know, just how did this apparently non-required book suddenly become something the Student has to not only purchase, but also must have the entire book read by Monday? And on top of that, Student has to find it on their own because it's not even in the bookstore!

Obviously, we instructor types are sadists at best, and probably incompetent father-rapers at worst. (Student does not claim this, but I feel this is implied.)

CowardlyAcademe responds with a quite chipper note the gist of which runs thusly: the piece you must have read by Monday is not a novel, it is a short story, and, as the syllabus indicates, it is available in the online course reader (which Student has already had to use to access several readings).

It's the little sparks of joy like this that make up for the monotony of grading. It brings a tear to my eye.

Did everyone bring their handcuffs today?

2006-09-16T11:47:00.000-05:00

Real fun: teaching teenagers how to do something I hate doing. Like analysing poetry. My preferred method of teaching poetry: Read a piece aloud, announce, "Isn't this great?" and then beam like an idiot for a few seconds before moving on to something else. Unfortunately, doing this means I get unbelieveably shitty papers. So teaching close reading just makes my life easier in the long run.

Yesterday in class we covered a poem that references S&M, and closes with a mention of there being "no password" to call it off, in this instance. So I pause with the book of poetry in my left hand and my right held up in the eternal, "I'm teaching here, people" gesture, and announce: "Okay, wait a second. Just so we're all on the same page - does everyone know what an S&M safety word is?"

I have trouble imagining another situation in which I will make the same pronouncement.

(Also, I had a little-too-enthusiastic student explain the concept for the benefit of the class.)

Oh god, just kill me.

2006-08-30T17:36:00.000-05:00

What . . . am I doing with my life?

Sweet Christ, what is grad school for? Do I really want to end up like some of these sad fumbling professors who cannot maintain conversations because interpersonal relations make them shiver like chihuahuas?

When I was an awkward, adolescent CowardlyAcademe, with a nose that was one-third my body weight and a face that could break cameras, mocked by my peers in middle school, my mother told me that the best revenge was living well. Well, shit. Many of my friends from high school are married, and/or have kids, and even have jobs where they make more than $9,000 a year. Yes, that's right. I fucking fantasize about living above the poverty line. Thank you, grad school. Thank you so damn much. Not only have you allowed me to remain so emotionally stunted that I am unable to achieve normal life goals, your version of socialization has let me stay at an emotional level where I still think it's important that bullies from my youth know I am more awesome than they are.

Am I even really that good at academia? Shit, I haven't published a damn thing yet, and no one's ever appeared to care about anything I've written and given at a conference. Ever. One guy once asked if I had brought my jug of water all the way across the country with me.

I'm going to go down to the river and throw myself in. Except that that will make me think about every literary figure who has ever shown up in a river, from the Lady of Shalott to Virginia Woolf, and that makes me a giant lit fag.

Oh, and now I've jumped through almost all your stupid little hoops, made it through the winnowing of my class's ranks, and now, if I'm good, I just might get to write chapters of a thesis until I die? No fucking thank you. I think I've had it. I've learned my lesson. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on you, fool me for twenty years' worth of schooling, I would rather set a hedgehog on fire and shove it -

Wait, what? A giant string of back-to-school parties? Will there be beer? There will be beer? Can I get drunk and fondle strangers? I can?

Maturity is for chumps. I gotta go grab some chips so I have something in my stomach before I hit the kegger.

HA HA HA! KNEEL BEFORE ME, MORTALS!

2006-08-24T23:33:00.000-05:00

From my email inbox today:

Dear CowardlyAcademe,

Your prelim exam committee contacted me this morning regarding your
exam results, and I am very pleased to inform you that you have been given
the mark of PASS. You may celebrate this milestone without reservation.

Please let me extend my heartfelt congratulations.

Departmental Secretary

I would like to now encourage the universe at large to SUCK IT.

Prelims, it turns out, aren't really all that bad. I pretty much got my worst-case scenario question:
"Hey, CowardlyAcademe, remember that one essay by that one guy?"

"Well, I - wait. That obscure one? Where he talks about - well, I remember seeing this essay, there was something about dialogue in it, but if - um. No. No, I do not."

"Great, well, talk about how it relates to four different novels that span the course of the twentieth century."

". . . sure."

Apparently, the sort of fearlessness associated with weary resignation leads to AMAZING MAGICKAL POWERS OF BULLSHIT ZOMG.

I Love You, Leo Stein!

2006-07-01T14:45:00.000-05:00

"Here is a picture of lifting belly having a cow."

- Gertrude Stein's poetry. (Yes, I know what the line means. It's still awful.)

"She's basically stupid and I'm basically intelligent."
- Leo Stein, talking about his sister Gertrude.

I LOVE YOU, LEO STEIN!

Fuck off, "Mount Fatty."

Today's quote that brought me joy:

2006-06-21T20:26:00.000-05:00

"Mama! See the Negro! I'm frightened!"
- Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

Not only is this hilarious (out of context, anyway), but it's totally appropriate for the CowardlyAcademe, it's starting to more and more be an accurate representation of how I'm interacting with the world of literature.

"Mama! See the Imagist poet! I'm frightened!"

Prelims are coming, and they are very hungry.

2006-06-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

So, prelims. Preliminary exams. Preliminundo. Prelude to terror.

So the deal is here that you get a list of about 150 “items” that you have to read, which you will then be tested on over the course of two days. Now, one “item” can be one novel, say, oh, A Clockwork Orange. Everybody loves A Clockwork Orange. I love A Clockwork Orange. It’s like 200 pages long, nice clear message, okay, so the language can be a bit of a struggle when you’re starting but really it’s not bad. Fine. However, one “item” can also be three novels totaling about 800 pages and written off and on in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. And they do not care for your tears.

I know it seems like quite a price to pay for cowardice, but I still say it’s easier than making some kind of human or professional commitment. So the exam is in August, and I have a couple of months to stagger under the weight of some of the Great Minds of the 20th Goddamn Century. Fortunately, the Great Minds sometimes Fuck Up or are Unintentionally Hilarious.

Today, I got this little gem:

“The love-region is excited by the appearance or beauty of the loved one.”
- HD, Notes on Thought & Vision

Shit, HD, thanks. I was wondering what that tingling in my loins was and now I know. I was afraid it was a rash.

You don’t even want to know what’s after that. It includes things like “womb-brain” and drunk moths.

Why does Kansas torment me?

2006-02-03T10:31:00.000-06:00

I love teaching freshmen. They're so cute and dumb. I'm constantly torn between pinching their cheeks and just punching them really hard in the face.

Student turned in the first paper of the semester. It's sort of a throwaway assignment; they're given a prompt to respond to on the first day of class, so they're writing on something they may not know anything about. I don't expect them to be brilliant. This particular paper was great in its off-the-wallness. The poor guy came in for a conference with me and I couldn't stop laughing uncontrollably during our conference. And it wasn't his invokation of both the Catholic church and Harry Potter as moral guides. It was his first two sentences:

"The most important parts of human identity are personality and rationality. Without these, we are nothing but dust in the wind."

"So, uh, yeah, your paper was- bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - I'm sorry, that's unprofessional of m- ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

More great moments in teaching

2005-06-29T19:48:00.000-05:00

First of all, I give myself like three more years before I get arrested for doing something completely reprehensible to or with a student. Knowing me, it'll probably be some form of sexual harassment, but I can also totally see the possibility of me bribing my students to become my hired goons.

With that in mind, let me share with you another one of my personal Great Moments in Teaching.

Student comes in to see me to discuss student's paper. I like Student, and friendly chatter ensues. I am aware of the fact that all of my students are, at this point, doubly burdened: they are attempting to finish a novel and simultaneously produce working final drafts of their text-analysis essays. So I casually ask Student how Student is coming along on the reading portion of the week's work.

"Oh, I finished the novel this morning," says Student.

My black little heart is warmed by this revelation, and I congratulate Student, adding, "Isn't the ending of that novel depressing? I mean, every time I read it, I'm so emotionally worn out that I feel like I've been beaten. By the time you're done, don't you just want to kill yourself?"

Student laughs a little, agreeing that the novel is indeed not a happy one, and the two of us proceed to the matter of Student's paper. About two minutes later, I have a horrible realization.

Wait a minute, my dim reptilian brain kicks in as it slowly begins to process all relevant information. Student is the student who was out of class for a few weeks because of severe depression.

Fortunately, Student did not commit suicide as a result of our conversation, although one of my officemates that it really wouldn't have been a problem if that had happened.

"It's just good pedagogy," he said. "You're just trying to keep class size down."

Indeed.

Angels only fear to tread this shit because they're sober

2005-06-27T21:59:00.000-05:00

Going to conferences seems, in the abstract, like a totally barbaric process, especially when you're at the bottom of academia like yours truly - in an area nobody cares about, not even dissertating yet, no published credits, etc. You just poke around until you find a conference subject you more or less could sort of have something to say about and then apply, knowing full well that it has the potential to turn into a barbaric wolf-pack type of savagery. You're about to be faced with a room possibly full of experts on something you possibly only know well enough to talk about for ten pages. Fortunately, many academics are so blinded by their own genius that the ones who ask the really hard expert questions end up answering those questions themselves. But as you're getting ready, as you're reading, as you're sitting on that panel, you always have that horrible sinking knowledge that someone, someone out there is going to ask one of the many possible questions that reveals you not only as a fraud masquerading as an expert, but a complete moron and waste of human skin that would have been better employed as an Ed Gein poncho.

This may not sound like an ideal situation for an admitted coward to enter into. This is why you must always approach them while at peace with the fact that what you're doing is totally insane.

One should be drunk during all steps of the conference process and only do the prepatory work when absolutely necessary. For the faintly OCD academic who needs some order in their insanity, you can make a highly structured drinking game out of the whole rigmarole. Notice a likely (or unlikely) call for papers, take a drink. Take subsequent drinks for each paper you've written in grad school which cannot be used at this particular conference. Take two drinks for each paper that could work. Of each of those, take a drink for each page you need to cut to get the damn thing readable in ten minutes. If you have no eligible papers, count the number of days between the current date and the date proposals are due, and take a drink for each. Repeat on the day the proposal is due, and only then write the proposal, emailing the poor incoherent little bastard child of your loins off to the conference peoples only when you're having trouble figuring out if you spelled your own name correctly in the top line.

This process continues on and on; I'm sure you can figure out the remaining intricacies on your own. The ideal conference paper should be written on source material you haven't read, in notecard form, no more than ten minutes before you're due to speak, while you're half-crazed with fear and at least twenty-seven sheets to the wind. Extra points for each four-syllable word you can squeeze into the title. That way, when difficult questions pop up, you'll have enough leftover adrenaline and Irish courage to start throwing boozy punches. Remember, everyone in academia is insane. Demonstrating that you're willing to perform for the kiddies as a particularly memorable, entertaining, and volatile insane person will guarantee you spots at many career-enhancing conferences to come, all of which you will apply to because you are, after all, insane.

This is my theory.

Now, I'm slacking a little bit on my scheduling, admittedly, but am currently attempting to write one paper for a conference I was accepted to a few months ago and a proposal for another conference (again for a paper I haven't written) which I believe happens just about the same time. I have to say this because I have completely forgotten when the first conference takes place - I think I remember which state it's in, but that's all - and am sort of vaguely hoping that the good people who let me in on the strength of my staggeringly incoherent proposal will contact me at some point to remind me to show up. So I can at least get my ten minutes' warning to buy notecards and vodka.

Safe for another day

2005-06-14T10:24:00.000-05:00

Made it back home from Singapore. Trip was about thirty hours, door to door. Part of that, however, was discovering that although I apparently have no problem making it halfway across the planet and back, I cannot remember my damn bus pass for the last three miles home. Also, I was a quarter short of bus fare home. So some of that time was spent alternately staring at passers-by and hoping they would sense my intense need for a quarter and making collect calls home hoping a housemate would eventually receive one (they did).

While this was frustrating, the worst bit, probably, was the final hour of the flight into the US. There was some really nasty turbulence, which started with a great "We're all going to die" moment, where the plane dropped suddenly and dramatically enough to make about half the people on it shriek like little girls. I did not participate in the shrieking. I was half-asleep, dreaming of stomping to death the demonic toddler across the aisle. So when my stomach, in accordance with the laws of inertia, attempted to leave my body through my nose, I was too disorganized to attempt a shriek but instead flailed wildly with my left arm and managed, after some bleary-eyed panic, to get a grip on the armrest. Because that would save me if the plane happened to come to a sudden stop. Against the ground. Or something. If I'm going down, then I'm taking this damn armrest with me, even if I have to dislocate my shoulder to do it.

After this kicker of a flirtation with gravity, there was a stunned silence, and then the intercom crackled briefly into life: "Uh, flight attendants, please be seated." Both awesome and timely. I tried to imagine stewardesses lodged halfway into bulkheads, like heroines in a Salvador Dali painting.

As my life in academia closes off more and more job options for me, there are some jobs I long after sadly, sure I would have been pretty good at them, if I'd only taken the chance. Being a pilot is not one of them. Besides the fact that I'm legally blind without my corrective lenses and easily distracted, I could just never manage the PR side of things. Teaching has taught me that being in a position of authority causes me to become inappropriately honest ("Yeah, I had a nine-year-old help grade your papers." "Can anyone tell me what this piece is about? Because I sure as hell don't know.") I can't imagine this translating very well into the cockpit:

Dramatic drop in altitude; passengers scream, flight attendants and beverage carts go hurling through the air like feathers at a cockfight. Plane levels off, passengers continue to whimper in fear.
*crackle*
"Uh, sorry, everyone. I dropped my bagel."
*crackle*

Yeah, we're all better off with me in the back abusing the free booze and trying to read Pyncheon while drunk and sleep-deprived. Score one for academia.

I'm not sure I feel any better about it . . .

2005-06-09T06:30:00.000-05:00

My mother and I took a two-day side trip to Kuala Lumpur. By my reckoning, the final count was:

Squatty potty: 1
Me: 3

Squatty potty: 2
My mother: 1

These being among the most memorable moments of the trip, I have a deep need to take a picture of me looking really sad in a stall with one of these. I do not, however, have a deep need to do so in front of an audience of confused, amused, and possibly irritated Asians of varying stripes.

Don't ask.

2005-06-05T05:03:00.000-05:00

Squatty potty = 1
CowardlyAcademe = 0

Tourists: They're Made of Meat

2005-06-03T03:29:00.000-05:00

So we're staying with my incredibly generous (and wealthy) cousin, who has, among other things, made each of us the gift of an hour-long massage at the private club he and his family belong to. So this morning I went in to experience my first ever professional massage. A very pretty Indian woman showed me to the changing room and gave me a locker key. "Put on the robe," she said, "and the sleepers." Sleepers? Oh, slippers. "And the paper bahntee." Bahntee? I thought, while simply nodding outwardly. What the hell is a bahntee? Some kind of hairnet? Wrapped snugly in the robe, I unrolled the little paper package.

Ohhhhh. Panty. The word is panty.

Oh, this'll be fun.

I do not have the kind of body one would write home about, and was raised with a pretty healthy sense of shame about it. I'm not morbidly obese or anything, but I am flabby, pale, and have unsightly hair in all the usual places. I followed my masseuse into the darkened spa room, horribly, horribly aware of the fact that I was nearly a foot taller than her and possibly double her weight. Suddenly all of my bulk, usually useful for looming over students and small children, was more horribly embarassing than the everyday shame of looking like a land whale when wearing shorts.

"I'm really a good person," I wanted to say to her. "I know I have the regulation white-trash tattoo, but I belong to a really specialized kind of white trash known as liberal academia." I had this great need for her to see me saving a puppy from a burning house or helping a little old lady ford a bustling Singaporean street. "I know my body is disgusting," my eyes pleaded with her dumbly, "but my heart is pure." (Quiet, you. If I can't lie about my body, I can at least lie about my morals.) I could just imagine what the conversation would be like afterwards in the back room at the spa:

"How was your last appointment, Wendy?"

"Oh, flabby, pale, with unsightly hair in all the usual places. Regulation white-trash tattoo."

The massage itself felt great, physically. Though fingers were thrust -hard - into places that not many have dared to tread. The shame, however, was horrific. You lie facedown on the table, see, and there's a little space for your face to peek through and you stare at the floor - where they've put a sunflower in a bowl for you to contemplate. I ignored the sunflower in favor of obsessing over my pudginess and the etiquette of the massage. About five minutes into it, she asked, "S'okay?" to which I responded "Yes, thank you!" This sounded incredibly stupid and I began worrying about whether I should keep up some sort of running commentary during the massage to let her know she was doing a great job. I determined finally that this would sound sort of weird and sexual ("Ohh, yeah. Yeah, right there.") and that if I started suddenly doing so after ten minutes of near-total silence, she would think I was having some sort of seizure. So the two of us remained in grim silence, interrupted only by her comment as she reached my shoulders: "Too much computer."

How'd she know that? Maybe my shoulders were all tense from playing too much tennis or - oh, wait, that's right. She's just seen all of my flabby white ass in its paper panty.

By the end of the massage, I'd mentally composed a tiny essay that I did not relate. It contained such rich information as the fact that the massage was a gift and she honestly probably made more money than me and this was my first massage and I was fully aware of the implications of colonial history and the problems of occidental vs oriental beauty and I was a good person.

"Thanks very much," I simpered. Definitely a simper.

"You come back," she beamed.

Ha ha ha ha ha no. I'm so glistening with massage oil I feel like the entire Rambo series and my head smells like peppermint. Okay, the peppermint-head thing isn't so bad and my back feels awesome, but no. Thank you for letting me in on your mad oriental massage skills, Wendy.

How Academia Can Ruin Your Life: the Saga Continues

2005-06-01T07:37:00.000-05:00

I am currently on a most-expenses paid trip to Singapore. I'm staying in an incredibly nice house for free, just down the block from the French Ambassador, I get to hang out with family I haven't seen in a long time. I should be ecstatic.

But no, oh no. See, I'm a grad student in a department that likes to focus on global concerns and problems of representation.

This means that I've read Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place for two separate seminars. I'll probably read it again. At the rate I'm going, I'll probably end up teaching it. If you've never read it, it's an excellent, moving non-fiction work about the island of Antigua, its colonial history, its postcolonial present, and the problems of identity and living in a tourist-driven economy.

This means that I can't exist in Singapore without feeling massive, massive guilt. "Oh, well," I thought to myself, "At least I won't be staying in a hotel. It won't be that bad." Failing to reckon, of course, with the fact that the cousin with whom I am staying has a Filipina housemaid. Who is incredibly nice and makes all the meals and sort of generally, well . . . servile.

I tell you, you work and you slave and you build up your ideology and you buy organic and you learn postcolonial theory and at the end of the day, you're still the white oppressor. Guess I'll go on down to the Raffles Hotel tomorrow and throw back a couple of Singapore slings and be all fat and American. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Academia: The Job that Goes Everywhere and Nowhere

2005-05-23T14:30:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving in a week to go to far-off shores and have been desperately trying to figure out how to pack productively. I own no appropriate clothing for where I'm going, which I'll just have to work around, but of more concern is how I'm going to get some work done while I'm on the road. Various levels of my own cowardice and scheming have trapped me. Witness:

Problem the First: Serious issues of fear in regards to your intellectual abilities. Anxieties about revealing your complete incompetence to your peers.

Solution: Focus on an academic area in which there are no experts in the immediate vicinity. This has served me well. Going to a small Christian undergrad university and doing your honors thesis on "Post-Stonewall Depictions of Women in Gay Men's Literature" means that all your committee's going to be able to do is blink in confusion and give you an A.

Resulting Problem the Second: Nobody gives a crap about what you're studying, so the books are really obscure and hard to find. Also, you are a seriously cheap bastard.

Solution: Librariness. University libraries are required to keep around stupid useless texts that nobody cares about except for you. Which means you can check them out, renew them indefinitely, and no one will ever notice until you finish your dissertation and skip town.

Problem the Third: Travel. You're taking a long-ass trip, and you'll have plenty of time where you're forced to sit around doing nothing. An ideal time to catch up on all the reading you should have been doing all along. But, being a fine, upstanding citizen, you don't want to take along library books to a different continent. And the few books you do own on the topic were so damn hard to find you're sure as hell not going to risk losing them in an airport in Tokyo.

Solution: Drink heavily every single day until you leave on said trip, then haphazardly fling into a suitcase all of your underwear and some porn. Enjoy.

. . . okay, so solution is still in progress. GodDAMN, books are heavy.

The Student: A Russian play in one act

2005-05-13T02:05:00.000-05:00

(Setting: An idyllic glade. LECTURER sits in the clearing, alternatively scribbling furiously with a quill on parchment and gazing thoughtfully into the distance. TA enters, dancing in a manner to indicate sorrow. LECTURER and TA make eye contact. A tableau indicating tension)

TA: The students.

LECTURER: Fail them.

TA: I have grown to love their perversions.

LECTURER: Fail them.

TA: They think of me as their drunken sibling.

LECTURER: Set fire to them, THEN fail them.

TA: Have you lost your heart? Has your soul become reams of paper?

LECTURER: You're such a pussy. They're using you.

TA: . . .

LECTURER: How many As have you given out?

TA: Fuck, you're right. Should I not have prioritized teaching concerns over my own academic issues?

LECTURER: You DID that? You are SO fucked.

TA: *sobbing*

LECTURER: Aw, it's all right. I know your advisor. Come, we shall make merry and discover that Marx was not a Marxist.

TA: MustI fail them?

LECTURER: You may give them Ds.

(General merriment. TA and LECTURER exit, hand in hand, skipping. STUDENTS set fire to stage, oblivious of both the prancing couple and their own complete disregard for course requirements.)

FIN

Great Moments in Teaching

2005-05-11T20:52:00.000-05:00

No. 1: The Multiculturalist

My students took their final exam today and are deluging me with emails because they don't have the grades they want. I am, in turn, determinedly not wringing their necks. In celebration of this fact, I offer you a Great Moment in Teaching from my past.

Not long after the start of my first semester teaching, a student approached me after lecture. [The way this class was set up, there was a lecturer who spoke twice a week to three hundred students, said students then being broken up into about fifteen smaller groups that met with me and other TAs.] She explained to me that she would not be able to be in class on Friday, because of Rosh Hashanah.

Now, what I heard, in the midst of three hundred students packing up, was "I'm sorry, I can't be in class on Friday because of rush." As in, "I'm joining a sorority, so I have to take class off on Friday to go be in a pillowfight" or sock-filled-with-nickels-fight or drizzling-honey-and chocolate-all-over-other-girls-and-then-licking-it-off-fight. Whatever. I've never been in a sorority, so I have no idea.

Though if I were in charge of one, I know which way I would lean.

Anyway, some relatively lower-functioning part of the brain has processed this, and my head snaps completely upright, my left eyebrow shoots skywards, and I fix her in place with my very best evil eye. "This is not an acceptable reason to miss class," proclaims my evil eye (the left one). "And you are going to hell for thinking so." Such is the power of my gaze that nearby milk curdles. Neighborhood dogs are castrated. Walls shift uneasily out of my line of sight.

Student has actually retreated a step, eyes widening. "I wasn't going to go home at all," she squeaks, "but my uncle died."

Go home? I think. Why would she - ? And then my brain puts all the syllables together:
Ohhhh, rosh-ha-SHA-na . . .

"Oh, right," I say, the eyebrow returning to heel. "Sure. No problem."

I can see the realization in her eyes as she continues to back away: Only death can appease this TA. She eventually turns and flees, once she's at a safe distance. Leaving me feeling foolish and boogieman-like and wanting to call after her, "Hey, I'm really sorry! We don't have Jews where I'm from!"

She later dropped the course. I wrote up a couple scripts in my head about her being too distraught over her uncle's death to continue with the class, rather than being totally horrified by my refusal to acknowledge her faith.

How Academia Can Ruin Your Life: The Saga

2005-05-10T15:54:00.000-05:00

So I've been cranked into high gear recently, grading students' papers and writing final seminar papers of my own. When I do this, I like to watch movies. Preferably bad (or at least relatively mindless) movies. This is actually a bonus for my students; no matter how bad their papers are, their writing still looks good next to Sorority House Massacre II. And it's a bonus for me, because when I get really bored and frustrated, I can just immerse myself in a few minutes of Slugs: The Movie and emerge refreshed. Fortunately, I've got a limited free supply of VHS tapes that allows me to indulge this hobby. (The tapes are another story all together.)

So I happend to run out of complete crap the other night and moved on to better-calibre action movies. And had another "Oh, Jesus, I've been in school too long" moment. I was about half an hour into Mad Max II/The Road Warrior when I found myself becoming increasingly offended.

"Look at this," I said to myself. "This movie is all about the threat of communal living and alternative sexualities. Mel Gibson might as well have 'HETERONORMATIVITY' stamped on his forehead."

"I mean," I continued some minutes later as I explained this to my housemate. "Just look at the action on the screen. Mel Gibson is driving a truck with a kid and a woman in it, trying to defeat a guy wearing assless chaps who's after Mel for having killed his gay lover."

"It's so obvious," I continued on Instant Messenger after said housemate stopped feigning interest. "The obviously heteronormative colonists try to tempt Mel Gibson to come with them by saying there'll be opportunities for breeding. Breeding, for god's sake! And they're all wearing white and the gay-ass bikers all have mohawks and hug each other on their motorcycles!"

"Fine," I muttered to myself after being advised that I probably needed to shut the hell up. "But there's an angry conference paper going to be written about this totally offensive, anti-queer, anti-liberal piece of trash!"

Yeah, I've been in grad school too long. It's made me incapable of enjoying things.

I eventually calmed down, though, came to terms with the fact that I was overanalyzing and forgetting the really important, up-front information the movie was presenting: A) gay anarchist bikers are stupid because they wear black leather in the desert, and B) hair-crimping technology will survive the apocalypse.

I'm sorry, Mad Max. I forgot to come to you with a child's heart and love your 'splosions.

Small Triumphs Every Day

2005-05-03T18:02:00.000-05:00

Today, I submitted a graduate-level seminar paper which referenced Randy Quaid twice.

I love the humanities.

Cognitive Dissociation: the Academic's Best Friend

2005-05-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

First of all, this is not my fault. Oh, no. This is the fault of all those people who asked me, "So what do you want to be when you grow up?"

(Especially the ones who gently disillusioned me when I said, "A kitty!" You bastards can rot in hell.)

Your brain takes "What do you want to be?" and slowly processes it through years of schooling and wedgies and underage drinking, until suddenly you're a legal adult. Then you wake up one morning surrounded by empty vodka bottles and unmatched socks, and you realize, "Shit, I don't have a career."

See, your brain has betrayed you. It's processed the input from all those people who told you you couldn't grow up to be a kitty and told you that it's not enough to just have a job. A wonderful, beautiful, meaningless string of jobs that you take, use, and release like a series of sorority girls. No, you've got to be something. You've got to have a career.

"Shit," you say to yourself. "I'm not ready to choose a career. What if I choose the wrong one? I better go back to school."

And this is where the stupid starts. "As long as I'm in school," says your brain, "I'm not an adult." Perhaps you further this illusion by wearing the same clothing you wore in high school, even past the point where the faded dates on them begin to disturb those around you. "As long as I'm in school," says your brain, "I'm avoiding picking a career." Whereas really what you're doing, the longer you stay in school, is becoming so specialized in something that you're unfit for anything else.

On some level, you know this. A tiny voice tells you. But you drown it out because now that you're over 21 and still in school, why, every year is like senior year! The future is open and the beer is legal!

Your brain just introduced itself as the son of a deposed Nigerian dictator wanting to cut you in on the deal of a lifetime, and you bought it, baby.

Oh, well. At least I still fit into my high school yearbook T-shirt.