Academia nuts

Sometimes I find it difficult to put life into words. Except four-letter ones.

As my alarm rings itself off the night stand this morning beginning at about 7:30, I open my eyes to the first throbbing headache of yet another banal week. Having not bothered to obtain any dextroamphetamine or ativan from Arthur this weekend, I can neither take any interest in the monotony of the week nor can I ignore it altogether.

This week I am faced with the daunting task of conveying to 100 of the brightest and most overprivileged undergraduates what any slightly retarded 12 year-old with a chemistry set could readily figure out for himself. So after what seems like an eternity with a particularly "gifted" student this morning:

Me: We should consider the possibility that you may be just incapable of understanding this... other students who actually have a hope of passing this class are waiting. NEXT!

Student: You're waaay too impatient to be a TA!

Me: Listen kid, the average human being has an IQ of about 100, maybe 110 on a good day. The average retarded person has an IQ of about 80. The difference between my IQ and that of the average human is at least double the difference between the IQ of the average human and that of the average retarded person. How patient would you be if you had to spend your entire life in a world full of retarded people!?! NEXT!

And coincidently, our yearly anonymous course evaluations come back today. It seems that despite my obvious charm, I have the lowest popularity of any TA in this course over the past 4 years. However, the sentiment is not without exception: a group of 7 asian girls who usually sit at the back giggling to themselves have taxed every neuron to orchestrate the synchronous writing of "Willy is hot!" on the back of their surveys).

What follows are a few of my favorite comments:

"Wen r u going 2 get a new TA" - OMG he failed twice already x-(

"Sometimes I think the TA is making fun of me" - particularly astute

"教師是逗人喜愛的" - something about rice?

"The coarse expectations are to hi" - grade 5 grammar for instance

"Wilson thinks he is God" - I admit that I sometimes wonder...

Tomorrow I plan to occupy myself with contiguous episodes of Boston Legal - now that it has been on the air for a good 5 years, it's time to give it a whirl is my usual forensic manner. I figure with 2 former Star Trek characters, it can't be all bad. Though I truly wish they would bring back that jew midget with the nasty ears (turns out most of it wasn't makeup).

2 musings

Of all the possible superpowers, I would feel ripped off if I got this one:

However, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one against whom the universe mocks intelligently:

A scientist's quest...

So, my method of "shag once and then ignore" has been harshly criticized based on the law of diminishing returns. However, other more astute observers have appreciated that shagging 50% of the population is necessary in order to best choose which one to keep shagging - this is related to the statistical conclusion that if you shag 50% of everyone available, then the very next one that is better than any whom you have already shagged has a 25% chance of being the best shag ever.

However, this is unsatisfactory because it doesn't present a practical solution (and it takes too long to shag that many boys, most aren't attractive and the probability of contracting a disease is greater than that of finding the best shag ever) leading me, after some consideration and two bottles of Catena Malbec, to propose that I should actually shag n/e boys and then choose the next best one (where n is the number of boys I would be likely to shag in my lifetime and e is the base of the natural logarithms). I would derive this for you, but luckily I don't have to because some twats (Gilbert and Mosteller) at Harvard recently published the general case.

Anyway, how does this sage wisdom apply to you, I can hear you all (both) asking. Well, if

• you plan to live to about 70 (sorry Tim)
• and shag about 5 boys per year (sorry Dickophile)
• say, starting at the age of 20 after having already shagged about 12, and shagging 10 less each decade from that time on...

then you would likely shag about n=162 in your lifetime. Luckily, dividing this by e (that's about 2.718), gives you 59.6. This means you should shag about 59 boys, plus one shorter one:

...keeping a running estimation as to which one was "the best". After that, the next boy you shag who is better than "the best" of those, will have the highest probability of being the best boy you're ever likely to shag, and you can just stop there.

And now for a fun cartoon:

Op. No. 52321 in D minor

As I open my eyes this morning (early afternoon) I already wish that I hadn't. In my left temporal lobe, an overwhelming sense of disdain has engaged a pounding vascular headache in a rousing football match at which I find myself a reluctant spectator. Luckily we have pills for that - my own cocktail of anti-inflammatories, benzos and a muscle relaxant that's related to the tricyclic antidepressants of yesteryear known to cause heavy sedation and loss of sensation below the neck, all to be washed down with a half glass of red that's been sitting on the nightstand since sometime last night - breakfast of champions. I'm not going to attempt a forensic reconstruction of the previous night because there is little variation between breakfast and dinner.

At 10:15 I swim for 45 minutes and then lay in the sun for at least as long, because balance and harmony are import hallmarks of my existence. I then have a small handful of nuts and some soy milk for lunch and wonder quietly to myself how permavegans keep from offing themselves (this is all part of my scheme to loose those last pesky 2.5 ounces by eliminating food from my diet).

At work a coworker wants to reminisce about a certain student who graced us briefly this summer with a very perky ass that swayed gayfully around the office in tight designer jeans (you guessed it, I picked him myself):

Coworker: Do you miss Eric?

me: Certain parts.

In the late afternoon I listen (daydream while pretending to listen) to the another coworker bitch about her inane interpersonal problems that quite obviously stem from her own insecurities and lack of introspection:

coworker: Bla bla bla... My life sucks! What should I do?

me: Smile. It only gets worse.

And then I pack up and leave quickly before she can start talking again. And on a street corner halfway home, I encounter a curious young man who stares blankly and obviously at me from less than 2 feet away for what seems like an eternity, but is in fact less than the amount of time that it takes for a street light to change:

me: Do you want to just take a picture?

him: Actually I do. I'm a photographer.

me: Oh no... I'm not falling for that again.

him: No seriously, I'm a professional photographer and I'm looking for male models. It's totally legit. *hands me a business card*

me: Well thanks, I'll keep that in mind if I ever lose my ability to employ myself by thinking.

When I arrive home Charlie, my housemate with an obvious case of OCD, is washing his hands and coughing up something into the bathroom sink (probably bits of cancerous lung cells and incomplete combustion products of tar and nicotine). From this disgusting vignette and the pile of garbage that he has left on the kitchen table, I conclude that the fastidiousness of OCD is no match for the squalor of chineseness, and a I make this mental note to use in the selection of future housemates.

And now I'm interrupted by my troublesome ex who is returning a pair of pants that he borrowed yesterday for a photoshoot of his own...

Flame and miss fortune

This Friday begins the same as every other one except much worse because I actually have to do something. I am required to present my study to a committee that is responsible for deciding whether it should actually be allowed to proceed. It's not that I have to:

• put together a presentation (because I have assistants for that sort of thing)
• nor do I have to generate tables with data in them (because I have graduate students with slightly fewer letters after their names for that)
• nor do I have to collect or enter data (because this was naturally delegated to the most attractive summer student who applied for the position)
• and its not that I have to be organized enough to bring visuals or a laptop with me (because this too has been made the responsibility of yet another research assistant)

Instead I am displeased because I have to show up at work at 9:30 AM, which is basically the middle of the night, to wave my arms around demonstratively and speak for 45 minutes. And the astute reader may recall that I harbor great resentment for:

• having to leave my apartment
• having to move my arms and legs
• having to stand erect before 10:00 AM

We all know (all 3 of you) how I revel in the sound of my own voice and thrive on attention. However, HAVING to do something automatically makes it loathsome (like shagging someone you're dating - it was fun when you didn't own them yet, but now you just want a good night's sleep, and most of us can only have so many headaches in one lifetime).

After my talk I am told that it all went very well and that the committee is very impressed which is a good thing because I can't remember what I've said since I am still half-asleep and partly (completely) under the effects of yesterday evening's dinner (bottle), and I had never seen the Powerpoint slides I presented anyway.

And if that isn't a long enough day already, when I return to my office around 12:00 PM I am asked to explain (impromptu) the study (yet again) for a group of department heads and senior members of the institution who seem to have invaded my personal space without invitation or prior warning. And after 15 minutes or so I realize that my desktop picture has been set to the following:

And this image has been reproduced without permission from here, and if any of my readers look anything like this please contact blogsmithwilly@gmail.com immediately. Cheers.

And if this isn't awkward enough, a casual glance towards the back of the crowd reveals our institution's press liaison and a news crew who have been filming me and my laptop for the evening news (...nothing like making your sexuality known to everyone you'll ever work with and the entire city in one fell swoop... Hi mom!). And nothing would make me happier than to post the news spot except that this is an anonymous blog.

And I don't know why I have chosen to write this blog entry as one long run-on sentence. It could be the bottle of dexedrine that I found under the bed next to a half-eaten swiss chocolate bar and a pair of underwear I can't identify.

Incidentally, if anyone knows the origin of the following, please claim them ASAP as I would rather not have to touch them myself. Cheers.

This is why...

At 11:00 AM I find myself momentarily perplexed by an agonizing throbbing sensation in the back of my head, a horrible ringing in both ears and a general feeling of uncertainty as to who and where I am. But then it all comes back to me: this is what being awake feels like. After 20 min staring at the ceiling in an attempt to remember what day it is, and think of just one good reason to get out of bed, I notice that there seems to have been a party in my room last night, as there are two empty wine bottles on the floor. However, forensic examination reveals only one wine glass, and no anonymous gay kids on the floor.

As I stumble towards the bathroom, Charlie is leaping around in the hall in his bathrobe clasping one of his feet and screeching like a VCR eating tape. I presume this must be a Chinese thing, and I carry on.

Charlie: Are you going to offer me a little sympathy?

Me: That's just how you look and you're going to have to learn to live with it.

Charlie: I stubbed my... *the rest of the sentence is truncated as I close the bathroom door behind me*

At work nothing happens, at least I presume that nothing happens (I arrive at 2:00 PM, put my earphones in and my feet up in the desk, watch 3 episodes of Dexter and then fuck off home while my 3 summer student's furiously enter data).

Then in the evening I have dinner with Arthur and he chooses an expensive French bistro because dining casually at expensive French bistros is the kind of thing that Arthur likes to do. That, and drive around in his BMW convertible even when he's only going across the street, and occasionally kick homeless people when he thinks nobody with a permanent mailing address is looking.

And I am pleased to learn that even amidst all of the pretense and flemmy consonants the French are able to cook me something that translates into roasted chicken on salad. Aside: I have never quite been able to get my tongue around french ar's.

At dinner Arthur refuses to eat pain, pommes frites or clafoutis because he is preparing for a his trip to Greece with his new Polish boyfriend (Polish to me really just means hairy, but curiously Arthur has always been a fan of the fixer-upperers). This just leaves Arthur with a lump of salmon from in his entire 3-course prix fixe. And given that he stopped working out 9 months ago, at this juncture we have to applaud Arthur's optimism at what might be accomplished in a few weeks of abstinence. Aside: Arthur is not amused by my suggestion that with their eyes so close together he will probably look thin to the Greeks anyway.

For the rest of the evening I try to make conversation but I can scarcely be heard over Arthur's stomach rumbling. And I have little sympathy for him, not just because I lack that human capacity in general, but also because we all know that misery is the price one pays for visible abdominal muscles. And if you don't have visible abdominal muscles then please stop reading this blog (instead try here).

Recruiting, and aging

Ladies and gentlemen (probably very gentle if you've arrived here), I am pleased to announce that this blog has just enlisted it's very first follower. This is a momentous occasion because we have never had a follower before here at City Solo. In fact, apart from Tim and Tyler, Google Analytics tells me that nobody has ever visited more than once. It seems most folks are just as bored reading it as I was writing it, which is slightly more bored than I was when I lived it the first time.

However, since I have a follower I feel obliged to report on my day:

10:15 wake up and contemplate the excruciating agony of facing yet another new day, which is destined to be just as dull as the last several thousand Aside: as a child I had always hoped for a car accident or a bolt of lightening long before the advanced age of 29.

11:15 get out of bed and lament the labors of my morning (having to move my arms and legs), still unable to solve the "need coffee to make coffee" paradox.

12:45 emerge from the elevator into the lobby of my apartment building

one of the indistinguishable cheery filipinos who run the office: Good morning Sir.

me: Is it?

12:46 peak out of the front doors cautiously checking, as I do each day, for falling Koreans.

1:00 catch the shuttle to work. Today, an obnoxious and obviously gay teenage summer student attempts to start a conversation:

twat: Hey, I'm James, do you take this shuttle often?

me: Yes, and I have since you were 8 years old. *puts on earphones and sunglasses and faces stoically forward*

1:15 stumble into work still slightly dissonant from whatever I seem to have been drinking the night before and the mild (to horses) sedative that constitutes my favorite evening snack.

2:00 take a brief lunch, at a nearby sidewalk cafe: baked chicken on salad with no dressing (I learned long ago that if it doesn't taste like saw dust it makes you fat) and an espresso.

4:00 return to the office

4:15 catch the shuttle home, contemplating what a long and difficult day it has been.

5:00 swim for 50 min

After this, nothing happens. In retrospect, I realize that I have spoken less than 50 words aloud today, and that the filipinos got more than their fair share.

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Alienation and fear of intimacy eXamined...

So does anyone remember the unscrupulous Subject eX (featured here, here, here, here and most recently here)? Probably not, because my scathing remarks have likely prompted just about all of my regular readers/commenters to lose interest and fuck off. And on that subject, I am told (by a random uninteresting psychoanalytic gayer who attempts to score in a sissy bar) this week that this is a psychological mechanism in which I engage to distance myself from people in order to avoid getting hurt:

gayer: I think your attitude is just a psychological mechanism that you use to avoid getting hurt by distancing yourself from people.

me: Well not all of us are fortunate enough to be able to do it with our appearance alone.

Ironically, he lost interest and fucked off. So there's my abrasive personality, and then there's the irregularity with which I post, which admittedly might dissuade the casual reader and make it somewhat difficult to appreciate any sense of continuity. Aside: Nonetheless, I am told that this place still receives at least 1250 hits per month, mostly due to the immense popularity of our resident goat man in google image searches (featured here). I would like to reiterate my frustration that this horrible creature is more popular on my own blog than I am.

On the subject of Subject eX: This week, in a moment of weakness (and having previously rented every other film in the store) I find myself renting Jumper, premised on the ridiculous idea that a very hot young man somehow possesses a hereditary ability to disappear at will and reappear anywhere in the known world, as pictured:

And I am clearly renting this film due to a perverse attraction to Hayden Christensen (at least, when looked upon from certain flattering angles like this one):

And as I bring the "film" to the videostore counter, I am approached by Subject eX, who admittedly bears a striking resemblance to Christensen:

Subject eX: *points to film cover* You know, I've been told I look like him.

me: I admit there is a vague resemblance.

Subject eX: Does this mean that you'll reconsider dating me?

me: Hmmm... Do you have magical teleportation abilities?

Subject eX: Well if you just say the word, I'll appear on your doorstep, like magic.

me: Meh *shrugs* I'm kinda holding out for superpowers.

And then nothing else happens this week.

Kamikaze

Today begins like almost every other day, except that my head hurts slightly more than usual and the room is insidiously bright. My curtains seem to have somehow fallen from the window. And we may never know how this came about since the precise circumstances which lead me to bed last night are shrouded in mystery (though forensic analysis reveals: one empty bottle of a 2003 Cab Sauv and a single wine glass on the desk... you don't have to be a CSI character to figure that one out... though it would be more fun if you were, especially if you were that kid that hangs out in the lab...).

And this reminds me of a brief conversation that I had with my roommate yesterday:

Willy: How do you go about your daily life? I mean, why do you carry on in this pedestrian manner busily doing nothing and then getting up the next day knowing that you'll only waste another 24 hr of oxygen doing the same inane bullshit again tomorrow?

Charlie: I dunno. What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Willy: When I have to pee.

And this is not true. In fact what gets me out of bed is the following: The abovementioned roommate is afflicted with a rather obvious case of OCD. He detests touching doorknobs for fear of germs and everytime he touches one, he feels compelled to engage in an elaborate hand-washing ritual. Thus at least 10 times per day, he enters the washroom, pulls the door shut behind him (but leaving it open a few inches so as not to have to touch the knob when he's done), and then beginning his hand-washing behavior. My reason for getting out of bed is to wait precisely 139 of the 140 seconds that he spends at the sink with the water running to pull the washroom door shut from the outside.

And to continue the forensic theme of this post, the above conversation with my roommate was prompted by the demise of an unhappy Korean girl who leapt voluntarily from her 20th story bedroom window in the middle of the night. So far, all I have been able to ascertain from the astute security staff is that "she didn't like her life". Well who does? Show me someone who likes their life and I will show you someone who is either boring or stupid (probably both, this is America after-all).

I would like to raise a few issues regarding this suicide. First: how did she clear the patio to land on the street? Well, I suppose if the olympics have taught us anything it is that asians are good divers. And second: Why couldn't she just take pills like everyone else? What if she had landed on someone? How irresponsible. Fucking Kamikaze. I mean how many times have I considered jumping out the window only to reconsider (the elevators in this place are unbearably slow, which is murder for someone as impatient as I am).

In a further conversation with my roommate:

Me: So what do you feel like for dinner?

Charlie: How about Korean?

Me: Well there might still be some on the...

What worries me most now is the potential for haunting... Apparently she left a note saying how everyone would regret having ignored her. I myself have no idea who this girl was, nor what she looked like (and I'm told that she was my neighbour for 7 years). And this is just fantastic, the last thing I need is some pale-faced grudge-like dead kid gurgling away in the corner of my room while I'm trying to sleep.

For the rest of the evening, I play Pergolesi's Stabat Mater in honor of the dead korean kid that I never noticed (well, that too... mostly because I just feel like listening to it).

Everything's amazing and nobody's happy...

Something to consider...