coldhearted scientist وداد

I have had three locked bicycles stolen from the campus area so now I put my bicycle in the office. Many do this.

Today as I entered the building the building safety captain, who was smoking by the door, against the rules (and should be hanged contrary to custom) yelled nastily at me that I could not bring the bicycle in. If I did, she would call the police to have them take it out of my office, she said.

I told the department chair I do not want to be treated this way and he said the safety captain was very good as she has saved the university a lot of money. Her threat was a promise, he said; I am to acquire a bicycle I do not mind losing and leave it outside.

I was not pleased to be the only one told I cannot bring the bicycle inside, or to know that a staff person can call university police to have them confiscate my bicycle from my office. What about the men, why is it that the safety captain is always issuing these orders to women?

Then I spent three office hours explaining, to people who understand things very slowly, some basic concepts about reading, spelling, and so on. I explained what a noun was.

That was the morning and it is why my experience being a professor is not necessarily very different from the work experience I would have had had I stayed home in Oakland and taught middle school.

This is why I stopped talking to professors at a certain point — I do not live on Planet Professor and I and professors do not share the same Lebensraum or Lebenswelt, really.

Axé.