Less than 2 months. Must be a record

Two months back to school, and already I'm fed up with acedemia again. The "If you can't test it, kill it, or evaluate it, it ain't worth it" is getting really old. (and this isn't just the Natural Sciences. Far as I can tell, its a plague thats hit the entire damn world.)

Second, this idea that if I can't automatically translate thoughts into writing, I can't think. Hell, I'll expand this: the whole: if you haven't spent your entire life in an ivory tower, you can't contribute to the 'intelligent' dialog. Every day, I hear smart people pay lip service to democracy, then berate the "unwashed masses" for not listening to their pronouncements from on high. Now, I'll be the first to admit that there is a lot of stupid people out there. Far as I can tell, however, the proportion of imbeciles to useful people is exactly the same in the accedemic community as there is in the general public. The only difference is the access to information, and so many of the intellectual elite show no inclination to share unless the world comes begging to them for "expert advice".

Thirdly: What the hell ever happened to actually enjoying your subject, or even enjoying teaching your subject? Why are we letting people who seem to only be in the university to show off their intellectual dicks teach? They're there to just process as many people as they can, so only those who can bend to their methods slip through. They're like god damn prions: one gets bent wrong, and bends everyone else into the same shape. Where's our Darwins, our Einstiens, our Turings and our Northrop Fryes? Where are the educators who love the subjects so much, they can pass that on, they can hand that fire down to a new generation?

University seems to have become just one more fucking hurdle on the way to actual discovery, actual joy.

Well, there's my rant. I might have edited a bit more, but I'm pretty sure that only TJ is still reading this, and he's heard this rant from me before. Well, back to performing stupid human tricks for the PhD's.....

"I've brought a tiny marvel of nature: a single snowflake. I think we might all learn a lesson from how this utterly unique and exquisite crystal turns into an ordinary boring molecule of water just like every other one, when you bring it in the classroom. And now, while the analogy sinks in, I'll be leaving you drips and going outside."
- Calvin