coldhearted scientist وداد

This is, essentially, what I mean to say.

I have not been much of a passive reader since the fifth grade, because I started writing in the sixth. In particular, I only occasionally read long novels for recreation; I do not normally find them relaxing or interesting, and I have to be relaxed and entertained already to take one on. For recreational reading I prefer fields like history, sociology, literary and cultural theory, and poetry. If I want someone to tell me a story I will go to the cinema or the theatre, or even to a sporting event which is also a form of narrative, or I will read their weblog or a newspaper, and that is that.

This is why I repeat that one of the worst pieces of academic advice there is is that one should stop reading so as to write. I have found myself unable to write at times but it was because of not allowing myself to read. I have always read while writing and written while reading. When I have disallowed reading I have been unable to write.

All the exhortations during graduate school about how the content of what you published or your level of interest in it did not matter, how only the vita line did, did not help. Neither did the discussions on how the number of times you were cited was not important in our field or at least, not for me at the level I would be allowed to practice it.

I think the professors who raised me must have been very, very depressed. I think this is why they did not understand me or believe I had any potential. I am so glad to be from where the sun shines.

Axé.