Tagged: academia
Hutt’s New
Well, it’s a whole new year according to the fairly arbitrary human construct that is a complete circle around the sun, and you know what that means–it’s the season of empty promises!
Yes, now that we’ve imagined a clean slate for ourselves, let’s renew that annual gym membership so we can visit two (maybe three!) times this calendar year, all the while feeling guilty about the money we’ve commoded… Let’s also vow we will stick to a diet consisting only of kale and almonds, until that fateful night we have to stay late at work and don’t really feel like cooking and, oh look! There’s a McDonald’s on the way home. Surely just one Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese won’t derail our progress. Not a chance!… And yes, let’s buy several books that we fully intend to dutifully page through every night instead of gaping at the tv screen—except all of the shows we’ve been following are returning from their holiday hiatus, and we can’t be the ones in the dark on the latest plot twists at work tomorrow…
Sure, it’s a dangerous time to make promises—to resolve to break the rhythm of the past year, or even many prior years. And that’s why I’m here to tell you what you can expect from Twinfamy in 2016.
You may have noticed I have not regularly been attending my own party here at this fine publication, especially in 2015. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to apologize. (See what I did there?)
The truth is that for the most part, 2015 felt like an entire year of recovery, reshaping, and even occasionally (*GASP!*) relaxing—and in the middle of all that, while I occasionally peeked my head out of my cave, for parts of it I wasn’t all that sure what this blog actually ought to even be anymore. Continue reading
Questions for the Dudebro Drinking a Beer in the Campus Restroom Stall: A Non-Exhaustive List
One of the most thrilling perks of being a PhD student stems from the suspense of visiting the campus restroom. No, really! I’m serious. When you share a space with undergraduate students, you never quite know what you’re going to see when you walk in the door, making for an always-captivating mini-sightseeing adventure, right in the middle of the day.
For instance, creative undergrad use of the facilities often leads to fantastic signs I’d think would be appropriate for my two-year-old son, and NOT for the over-18 crowd. Consider this gem I found in the Engineering building:
Yes, that’s right. Engineering students were apparently having so much trouble with the physics of their own fluids that a visual aid was deemed necessary.
Additional fantastic signage can be found in this newer, more upscale campus restroom:
Again, I could see this as a valid reminder for my two-year-olds, who will climb on absolutely anything they can reach. Had there been a strategically-placed stepstool in this facility, this sign could definitely have applied to them (that is, if they could read). However, I’m not so sure what grown man in his right mind would decide to sit on this sink. Not only would said psychopath drench his ass and get in the way of fellow patrons…but…I mean…why? Sure, there’s some pretty nice marble on this particular sink (I’m not taking that for granite–HAHAHAHAHA), but didn’t hanging out in the boys’ room stop being cool in middle school? Apparently not.
This Space Unintentionally Left Blank
This is a picture of my son doing an impression of a zombie, but it might as well be a picture of me as of late.
If you’re anything like I imagine you to be, you’re checking in here at least twice a day to make sure your eyes aren’t deceiving you, and possibly even calling your Internet provider claiming that your strand of the World Wide Web must be tangled in a knot, resulting in the loss of almost a month’s worth of Twincidents.
“Surely John hasn’t stopped writing!” you lament, blotting tears of frustration off your trackpad. “Surely it is the Internet’s fault! I knew I should never have trusted Charlie. That kid bit his own brother’s finger without batting an eye. And it really hurt!”
No, Charlie has not bitten off my fingers, thus crippling me as a typist. And no, a LOLcat has not taken off running with my laptop, enthusiastically meowing “I can has computer?” And I certainly have not been busily studying the craft of how to write in a more Gangnam Style.
No, you must free your mind from these highly possible scenarios, O Loyal Reader. The truth is that lately, I just haven’t had a free frickin’ moment to sit down and spew genius into this fine publication. The reasons will probably not surprise you, since many of you have already told me you don’t know how I’m able to write at all while spending half of my week wrangling twin toddlers and the other half getting my PhD on. Factor in being a trophy husband and maintaining a shadow of a social life, and there’s not a whole lot of time left for pseudo-clever wordplay and bow-wearing stick figures.
Ugg
I am very excited, O Loyal Reader.
Ecstatic even.
I’ve never been a much of a dancer, but you can bet in just a few short weeks I will jig the jiggiest jig ever jigged, so jiggy that Will Smith will record a new song called “I Thought I Was Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It, But It Appears John Pseudonymous Has Even Bigger Willie Style.”
He could even have Willow Whip Her Hair back and forth in the video if she hasn’t already given herself whiplash.
You see, the reason I intend to throw my hands all up in the air (and possibly even wave them like I just don’t care) is because in a fortnight I will have completed The Semester From H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks. As I’ve explained previously, this is largely due to the two statistics classes I have been This!-Is!-Sparta!-ing.
I realize my work for this fine publication has been spotty, and will admit that as the term draws to a close, I’m very preoccupied with smearing Braveheart-blue warpaint on my face for this final fustercluck of papers, proposals, and stattacks (that’s a word I just created at this very moment that means “the act of attacking statistics problems, either with or without a Light Saber”). I’d feared I would not have sufficient time to complete a Twincident this week, but as luck would have it, I was struck this morning with a jolt of…well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it inspiration, but, it’s…well…
Discarded Research Questions from My Dissertation: A Non-Exhaustive List
When working on a dissertation, one of the most crucial components is its research question. It is the argument’s overall purpose–essentially the question the author aims to answer with his or her kajillion-page opus. Having waded through an obscene amount of academic literature on possible topics for the better part of this summer, I recently sat down to take my first stab at my own research question, and thought I’d share some of the questions that didn’t quite make the cut:
1. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, who gives a crap?
2. What are the longitudinal physiological and psychological effects of allowing an old man to knick knack on various parts of one’s body prior to rolling home?
3. To what extent does a random sample of people report whether or not they let the dogs out?
4. Where’s Waldo? (A Case Study)
5. In the event of seeing a little silhouette-o of a man, will a sample population do the fandango? And furthermore, in the presence of very, very frightening thunderbolts and lightning, will they let him go? (The researchers hypothesize that bismilah, no, they will not let him go, even despite numerous protests.)
After careful consideration, I decided that last question didn’t really matter to me.
Twinfamy 