All right, to sum up, here is what I don’t like about it. I got all this advice but the cognitive dissonance was that from what I could actually observe, things were not really this bad. I always thought there was something wrong with me, that I could not see it, and feared what might … More More on Academic Advice
This blog is about getting over Reeducation, which had several elements – one of which was the academic advice given advanced graduate students and assistant professors, advice I misunderstood because it didn’t really apply to me. In the same period I had a psychotherapist who, unbeknownst to me, was also an AA sponsor; in AA, … More On Academic Advice
I know the reasons why there should be breadth requirements, but when I was in college there were not nearly so many as now, and there were many more courses allowed to fulfill them. And in the end, I do not like required courses beyond prerequisites and corequisites for the major. Am I terribly left … More On Required Courses
Too tired to sleep, I am musing on the blog but what the random kids at the corner store said was: “Wow! You have cool shoes. Your whole atmosphere — you don’t seem like someone from here!” Why not I asked, and they said, “Because you have so much energy, and such a calm energy!” … More Down on the Corner
Question: There are all these blogs about writing, and how hard it is, and how to get it done anyway, and all these blogs about teaching techniques and enthusiasms. Am I the only one who talks about how just plain hard teaching is? It seems that the level of difficulty I have with it – … More Another Question and Comment
I am overworked and I know it is a crime, but that has not been the point of the last two months of posts. My small point is, do not overdramatize because I can show you overwork and this person can show you still more. My larger and real point, and this is an individual’s … More Rainbow Sign
Readers, don’t worry, these are catharsis posts. I realize how Gothic they sound but I have absorbed many decades of dire warnings and discouraging words. Every post in which I expel my hatred for the various weak beings with whom I have attempted diplomacy as they tried to pull me into the graves they sleep … More “The Real Truth”
“My own University (U.C. Berkeley) was also approached in an inappropriate manner during that same Winter of 2005-06, but such untoward pressures were simply rebuffed. That, in the end, probably goes right to the heart of what really separates a top-flight university with one of the top Colleges of Engineering in the nation (and the … More Raymond B. Seed
Before this semester began I was told I could not write a major grant proposal, do major administrative work, and teach five courses. I could have said no to the grant proposal and canceled my seminar, and I could have, although it would have caused major trouble, wormed my way out of the administrative work. … More On “Protecting Time”
I was at a reading the other day by a famous writer with a good vita who is writing every day but declared he would not rush his book. He also said he had never submitted for publication anything he thought he could still improve upon. This attitude has not kept him from publishing but … More High Degrees of Perfection
coldhearted scientist وداد 