Aloha

I have become a delinquent blogger. That means it is time for me to say farewell. Yes, it is time. It’s a lot to say goodbye to, there are my readers, my blog friends and Dr. No. All deserve a worthy send-off. I don’t know how to do it. It has been a fabulous ride. What can I say? I started Acadamnit, and like all bloggers, wondered if anyone would ever read it. Then I wondered what if people do read it but they are all weirdos? What if I am outed? How would my colleagues react? Can I really obscure my identity? Can I tell anyone that I blog? Fortunately the answers turned out to be:

Yes, people do read it. No, they are not all weirdos. Maybe a couple of weirdos, but overall some very clever people that never cease to make me laugh out loud and have led me to feel “close” in that strange blog relationship kind of way to them. Nope, I have not lost my anonymity. If someone knows who I am- I am not aware of it. Eeew, my colleagues would be PISSED. Yes, I have been able to keep my identity obscured. I have often been tempted to include more personal information…in particular, information that would identify my profession. Have I told anyone that I blog? Yes, one person. One person who is forbidden to ever follow or comment. With this exception, Dr. No and Acadamnit are my little secrets.

Thank you for reading. I will miss this. Feel free to begin preparing the festschrift, perhaps a special edition of Plow Science?

Tripping the Scale

You may have noticed that I haven’t been blog-reading or blog-writing much lately. That’s because I’ve been focusing my efforts on blog-rithmetic. Well, that’s a lie. I don’t even know what that is and even if I did, I wouldn’t engage in recreational math anyway. I have just been busy. Busy with tangible work and busy with the mental work required to adjust to tangible work after sabbatical. The shit’s exhausting but it’s not all bad. Some folks talk about the work/life balance. Usually the conclusion of such talk is to keep them separated and maintain dedication to each. This does not work for me. I cannot separate things into “work” and “life” categories. Work is how I spend the bulk of my days, it is responsible for the tweediness of my wardrobe, it is the reason I’ve read more nonfiction than fiction, and it provides money for the booze I drink on the couch it bought. Work is why I am tan in the summer, it is responsible for the bulk of my travel and for a significant portion of the people I know. Work keeps my dog in Milkbones.

There is no separation between work and life, no balance to seek. I am just trying to make work more tolerable and, at least occasionally, fun. But damn I feel busy.

The Changing of the Reasons

I have to remind myself why I ever wanted this job. I periodically need to think about that. I can always come up with a few reasons, but my reasons change― well, change in the sense that I rank my reasons differently but the reasons themselves are essentially the same. Considering that my job provides me with an endless array of work-related bullshit I need to keep a clear understanding of the positives because the goals and perks are easy to become complacent about. Sabbaticals have skyrocketed to the top of the list. Seeing my name in print remains a constant source of enjoyment and the fact that tweed is an acceptable sartorial fetish keeps these two reasons holding steady in the ranking. Various other reasons have fallen out of favor. For instance that MacAurthur Genius Grant just doesn’t seem to be forthcoming (damn you John D and Catherine T!) but the joys of a lazy boozy Sunday afternoon spent in my Professor House are still pretty good. It's easy for me to forget that as the post-sabbatical bullshit starts to accumulate.

Confession: Thetan Count Rising Edition

When I was young, and I mean young in terms of my academic career- so young that I had just realized what my college major should be, I had some insanely naïve views about scholars. I knew nothing about academic life. I just knew that some person wrote my textbook, taught my classes and wrote articles that were assigned for reading. Collectively they formed a mysterious people, a tribe of scholars that I made both exotic and admirable. It seemed so cool to me that they, these names I knew, were discovering things. I imagined their names attached to those perfect scholars we see in TIAA-CREF ads but more cracked out on tweed. I was ready to undergo training, perform indoctrination rites and drink the Kool-Aid. The moment I decided to be a myrealobjologist, that I would keep that textbook, this image of scholars began to erode. Bit by bit I learned about those people whose tribe I wanted to join, and the deeper into it you get the less envious the society becomes. Did I want to come back from sabbatical and encounter this?

No. Damn. Seriously. This is not what I wanted to come back to.

Leaving the (sab)Bat Cave: Screw Technology Edition

This transition from sabbatical life to real life is not so easy. I am suddenly busy, very busy, painful please get out of my office I cannot possibly solve all of your problems right now busy. I’ve lived this life before, but a year of not being busy makes you get soft. So, motherfucking god-damned shit on a stick motherfucking christ my University web system is a piece of fucking shit. (Oh, and anyone thinking what the fuck is with all that motherfucking gratuitous cursing shit just needs to fucking realize that it is not fucking easy returning to work after a sweet assed motherfucking sabbatical). Why does my university have this ridiculous web-based system controlling my access to all manner of important shit? Why is it so difficult to download a class list? When you push the download button next to the class list wouldn’t you expect some useful file to pop out? I do. Instead you get some bizarre file format with a bunch of useless info cluttering things up. I know MY name, it’s MY fucking class. Just give me THEIR names. I don’t care about all their secret numbers, or their parents, or the fact that they joined the Klingon club in motherfucking high school. And what’s with all the weird spacing? Should 30 names really require 82 fucking lines? I just want a list of names. Screw this. I’ll type it myself.

Flux Capacitor Needed

Wow. This is big. This changes everything. Here I am blogging away, ice cubes clincking in the scotch glass, lounging in my casual tweeds, it all seems perfectly normal right? But and this is a big BUT, a giant ass-slap to reality kind of but, it is the year 2015 for me. Yes! I am from the future. Holy crap. Who knew?! I must be wearing future-tweed and drinking extra old scotch! Cool! I can prove it! Just look at my syllabus! Today is obviously Monday, August 24! See! My entire schedule of events (readings, exams, blah,blah, blah) are ALL based on the fact that today is Monday, August 24. That won’t be possible until 2015! Clearly I am living in the future. Thankfully the scotch is fantastic.

Leaving the (sab)Bat Cave

I’ll try to keep this short…but, damn. I forgot how much shit there is to do on a daily basis when, like a normal non-sabbatical person, you actually go to work. Damn. Colleagues want you to do things. Students want you to do things. Emails flood in. Next thing you know you have a bunch of shit to review. The phone rings. You spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to erase all your voice messages in the stupid university system without having to listen to them, any of them. I don’t want to hear any voicemail messages. I do not want to know how many there are (a years worth). I am not even willing to just put the phone down while the messages play, or even turn the volume down…there must be some way to just delete that shit instantly. I cannot figure it out. My office phone has this red light that lights up when you have messages. I hate the fucking red light. The only way to turn it off is to deal, really deal, with your voicemail. I refuse to fall victim to this evil “forced listening of my voicemail” university phone system. Screw it, I’m just going to spend the next hour searching for some electrical tape to cover up that damn light. Then I’m going home.

Syllabusted

I get it. I really do. For the sake of consistency and the prevention of future headaches we are all required to insert some very specific statements regarding disabilities and academic dishonesty. Fine. I can see the utility of that. But why must I insert multiple paragraphs of ridiculously wordy, overly complex bullshit? Who writes this crap? University lawyers I assume. And why does it keep getting longer?

It’s simple. If you have some type of disability contact these people, here’s their email address, phone number, and office location. They’ll contact me and we’ll figure it out. If you cheat, and yes- you do know what that means (so don’t even try to convince me that you don’t) I will bring academic dishonesty charges against you. Here’s a link to what that entails. Simple enough. But instead, I have to say this, that, and the other thing in order to cover every possible ass you can think of. It’s making the information you are trying to convey more confusing, the specificity is making it more open to interpretation and most importantly, it is fucking up the layout of my damn syllabus.

Random Detritus

The city is distributing new trash cans. I got mine today…

For what percent of households is the first thing they put in their new trash can their old trash can?

What are you supposed to do with it?

I’m not going to throw it away but I don’t need it.

And screw those stupid ass ideas about turning it into a compost bin, planter, rain water collector, or whatever the fuck else bored people come up with. It’s a fucking trash can.

…I guess I just have to be trashier.

Playbook

Why is this so difficult? At times like this I am embarrassed to be an academic. Here we all are, again. We do this every year. We just need to come up with a class schedule. That’s it. We’ve done it before. But no. No. Instead of just getting this task over with everybody wants to forget a few things. Things that, considering that we all have PhDs, you’d think we could remember. So here’s a fucking list. Memorize it.

1. You cannot require students to take two specific courses and then schedule those two courses at the same fucking time. Really. It doesn’t work. We’ve been through this. Please refer to the minutes of the Class Scheduling Meetings (1985-2001, 2003-2009).

2. You cannot teach “Big Fun Intro Class We Teach to Boost Our Numbers” at 6:00 in the fucking AM. I’m pretty sure it’s not even possible to schedule a class that early. Pick a nice hangover accommodating hour of the day.

3. Stick to the fucking University schedule. You cannot start and end a class anytime you want. Have you not noticed that all classes follow a certain schedule? ALL classes?!? You cannot just declare your class to meet on Mondays and Thursdays at 4:38. That makes no sense.

4. Now is not the time to question the utility of required courses. Don’t question the graduate or undergraduate requirements. Don’t question the major or non-major requirements. Nobody fucking cares about that right now. The stupid course has to be taught so somebody needs to buck up and teach it. There will be plenty of time to discuss its lameness at other meetings. Remember back in 2002 when that class wasn’t taught and shit was all fucked up for years?

5. Get the necessary Class-Poaching Permits* prior to the meeting. Class-Poaching (aka the teaching of a class widely recognized as Dr. So-and-so’s) is permissible with required permits. Do not just try to up and steal a class from a colleague. This meeting is a big enough clusterfuck already. Let’s not add your personal differences into the mix.

*Class-Poaching Permits, depending on the season and species of class being poached, are available in the Department. Fees may vary. Minimum fee involves a simple conversation, maximum fees may include the costs of ammunition, the formation of posses, and ninja suits.

Pod People

There’s a long list of things I don’t believe in. Decaffeinated coffee. Fairies. Ghosts. Gods. Edited volumes that are worth a shit. Angels. That Coke and Pepsi are equivalent. Vacuum cleaners that don’t lose suction. Reincarnation. Baggage fees. Jack & cokes. That Avatar was a good movie. The list goes on…

But I do believe that my ipod has magical powers. It does. Granted, all the music on my ipod is music I put there. I get that. But how does “random shuffle” know to pick the perfect tunes for a rainy intoxicated afternoon? How does it know that? How does it know that I need a post-writing music session? How does it know my type and degree of intoxication? How does it know the weather? I believe my ipod to be wise. Maybe I should sober up before the toaster starts talking to me. I gotta go. I have a strange and urgent need to make cinnamon toast.

Yep, I’ve Joined the Bandwagon

Perhaps you find yourself thinking Hey, was that SCDP logo we saw in the new office in Arial font? No it wasn’t. It’s Akidenz Grotesk, totally acceptable if you are a stickler for such things. You might also be thinking Font? Who cares about that shiz. Did Don just request to be slapped around by a prostitute? Damn. Yes. Damn. Many of you however might be thinking Well I dooooo declare, what in tarnation are you talking about? Mad Men is the answer (and yes, I imagine you thinking in that folksy southern voice). I got sick of all the hype and figured there was no way the show could be worthy of all the praise it received. But then I watched it one night. I stand corrected. The show is good.

*Stole the hedcut from here.

City Council Decree

You realize that your office is in Crazytown right? In fact, you are a pillar of the community. You are sort of the unofficial mayor of Crazytown and perhaps the town cryer and maybe even the town thief. Your office, the one next door, and your labs make Crazytown. Beyond your walls is the city limits where Crazytown ends and the remainder of our Department begins. You are landlocked. You serve no purpose. You have no valuable goods or services with which you can engage in trade with our Department. You have broken all diplomatic ties. You will not be annexed into our Department. We will no longer provide services. We will allow Crazytown to further devolve into lawless chaos. Your town will wither and die. We will then take possession of your land and gentrify the shit out of it.

Sleazy

Fuck that. I just don’t give a shit. Why do I care about making learning “easier”? Easier? Fuck that. Look, I’m all for trying to be a decent teacher. I am willing to put some thought and effort into the task. But I have zero interest in making it fucking “easy”. Some shit just ain’t easy. It’s not easy for me and it won’t be easy for my students. That’s fucking college. So fuck you and your lame seminars about how I can make things “easier” for my students. What fucking good comes of easy?

Who runs these seminars? More pertinently, who the fuck comes up with the titles? Making Your Class Easier for Your Students. Now why the hell would I want to do that? And who the fuck needs a seminar about it? It would be easy to make my classes easy. We all know how to make our classes easy for students and ourselves. I mean think about that for a minute. Did any of you need longer than that to design the easiest motherfucking class ever? No. It’s easy. It’s also crap.

Easy is for right now- a sunny Friday afternoon. I’ll be holding a seminar on my patio titled How to Pass an Easy Afternoon Through Sunshine and Substances. Sign up now to secure your spot!

Hero Worship

How many letters of recommendation have I written? Who the fuck knows. A lot. How many letters have I written for my hero? One. I just wrote it. When I’ve written such letters in the past for people considerably more “senior/accomplished” than me it’s always been in the context of me serving the role as the more “junior/newbie” letter writer. Know what I mean? I’ve always been expected to attest to their skills as a mentor/professor/leader from the perspective of a young ‘un. But this time was different. I mean, shit, this dude is my hero. I’m actually flattered to have the chance to flatter him and by “flattered” I mean “fuck yeah go me!” I’m a jerk like that. One minute I’m reminiscing about how awesome someone else is, how grateful I am to know them…and then, poof, I’m waxing philosophical about how fancy and tenured I am.

Grammnit!

Making shit move around doesn’t make it better. Unless you’re juggling, in which case it’s much better to keep shit moving around. Hold on, let me explain what I’m seeing right now. Microsoft Word, in its infinite wisdom, is freaking the fuck out right now. The title has the squiggly red lines under it and the second sentence appears to be resting on Astroturf. Oh, and Astroturf keeps getting capitalized even though I don’t think plastic greenery is worthy of capitalism. I’ve grown accustom to seeing a good percentage of the words I type sitting on little red or green squiggle boats. I don’t really care. I like pissing off Word. You ever click on the “About this sentence button”? I had never bothered until now. This is what comes up for the second sentence up there.

Fragment: If the marked words are an incomplete thought, consider developing this thought into a complete sentence by adding a subject or a verb or combining this text with another sentence.

Instead of: Meteors the entire night.

Consider: We watched meteors the entire night.

Instead of: Because the teacher said to.

Consider: You have to, because the teacher said to.

What? Technically, I get it. When I write for work I can make the effort to be grammatical. But when I just want to convey the fact that the addition of swirling photos all over the fucking University homepage just makes it even MORE annoying, well, fuck I will not consider revising! Why? Because the teacher fucking said so.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

What the fuck is this nonsense? You need to register for my class but it’s full?

My class. Full.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I have to teach again. What the fuck am I teaching again? Shit. Shit. Shit.

Who Are You, What Are You Doing and Why Do You Keep Looking At Me?!?

So I was stumbling around blogland drinking coffee and recuperating from eating grilled things and blowing stuff up― which, by the way, is exactly how ‘Merica wants us to celebrate its birthday. If that’s not what you did than you clearly hate ‘Merica (and by default, you must hate me, cheetohs, PBR and everything else that makes this country kickass too, in which case you can just move along). Anyhoo, I found myself over at Proflike's place. As I rooted around in the bushes looking for unexploded bottle rockets and unopened beers I found this meme. Seeing as how I can’t grill it, explode it or use it to intoxicate myself, I may as well post it. I’ve simplified it a bit, but hey, I’m curious. Don’t be shy. Just answer the damn questions…I’ll go make another pot of coffee. Cream? Sugar? Whiskey?

Tell me about you. Who are you? Do you have a background in science? If so, what draws you here as opposed to meatier, more academic fare? And if not, what brought you here and why have you stayed? Let loose with those comments.

Check Yo Self

So I got beaned in the head with a baseball. Seriously. A giant bulbous growth spurted out of my head instantly. It was crazy. A huge lump just materialized in seconds. That part was kinda cool. It was like being in a sci-fi film with a giant alien baby about to pop out of my head. I’m fine and the alien baby is retreating back into my brain. I am now in the “black-eye phase” of the getting-whacked-in-the-head-recovery-process. So people who see me think I am either a volatile drunk or a battered wife. Those are the stereotypes the fine people of the hardware store were weighing as I purchased trash bags. Sure, we can all think of lots of reasons why somebody would have a black eye, but when you’re of a certain age I think Mr. Dude Who Gets Drunk And Picks Fights and Mrs. That Bastard Hit Me are the most obvious guesses. And people guess. They fucking do, I can see it on their faces. This is not paranoia on my part. Although, I did recently experience some head trauma…and the trash bags were kinda looking at me funny…it is 1985 right?

Mofo

Oh it’s on! Prepare to get served. You brought it, now I’m going to bring it, and you’re going to get served! OK. I don’t competitively dance so I can’t keep this lingo up, just know that I know what you are doing and I am prepared to win this battle. You think I don’t know what you did? That I don’t see the long-term implications? What the fuck mofo?

It was your choice. You started it. I could have started it but I didn’t, because I am a calculating motherfucker. But you just couldn’t wait. You couldn’t be patient and now I’m going to win. Why couldn’t you wait mofo? Are you that weak? You just couldn’t stand the length of the grass anymore? It was bugging you so bad you just had to go and mow? You just had to make that obvious mowed vs. unmowed divide in our shared strip of lawn? What the fuck? You think I didn’t notice? I have to mow the lawn now. You made it painfully obvious. You completely destroyed the unity between our yards. You took their peaceful coexistence and drew a line. A line in the grass. A divide. You made mowed and unmowed where there was once a happy expanse of grass.

You really want to play this game with me? Cause I’ll mow mofo. Oh yes, I will mow. I’m going to mow my side better! It’ll be even shorter mofo. I might even put nice diagonal strips in it! Take that! You like that? You want some more? I’m going to fertilize. And I’m going to find the optimal placement for my sprinkler; your lawn will no longer be privy to any additional water from my side. None. I could probably get my dog to start pissing over on your side too. Would you like that? Golf course greens keepers are going to be asking me for advice and I’ll probably start renting out my side of the lawn for photo shoots (so don’t pester all the hot models on my side). You brought this on yourself. All you had to do was wait a few more days. But no. So what if my other lawn neighbor is going to be pissed. You started it. Not me. You just had to be a mofo didn’t you?