Land of Chedder rejects the Passion!
I want to start this jammy jam with a shout out to my home boy who just got P-h-mother fucking D'd at the school who just rejected my ass. Congrats B.R. Congrats.
After the delightful intro I now begin the arduous task of explaining to my dear readers/fans why I was rejected. I know you are all shocked: "How could anyone reject the living Passion of SDK, the six day kid?" How indeed.
And yet this is not the first rejection I ever received. In fourth, fifth, and eighth grade the ladies I wooed so valiantly turned down my offer to "go out with me". Sources tell me these women cry themselves to sleep nightly thinking of what could have been.
Thats not all. Certain units of the I.D.F deemed themselves too "bad ass" for me. Can you believe that? They thought the ruckus I brought wasn't sufficiently terrifying enough for the missions they specialized in. As shocking as this may seem they were right. Early on I was in fact "soft" and I did in fact "break". While few men can compete with the total package of war-man-ship that I became: the emotional distance, the creative intellect, the calm aggression, and the wolverine-esque "berserker mode"-- there are far greater warriors then I. The I.D.F sleeps soundly with their decision, and my Golani brothers thank them for it.
The academic rejections are different. I don't know if I have a completely false valuation of myself. I consider myself a fairly smart guy. I know I don't write well, and even my formal argumentation is often quite sloppy. But false messiahs be damned! I have yet to meet a student who I couldn't keep up with--and this is what worries me. I've met plenty of people who I politely tolerate while they spout off nonsense. Am I that guy? Am I the nut job that no one bothers to refute because a) I'll keep talking or b) they don't want to piss me off.
I think my friends are smart and they like to talk to me...but schools don't want my war ravaged face on their campuses. I don't understand.
I have decided to give it one more go. I am going to teach the balls out of some freshman college students during the next school year. I am also going to apply to four more universities that have Spinoza scholars. If they don't take me I am going finish my degree and then straight up get some wealth.
[oh yeah, the picture: The Onion also finds Rasheed Wallace very funny. The caption for the picture is "the nba names a foul after Rasheed Wallace"
posted by Old Stallion at 6:29 PM
5 Comments:
The mistake was the "berserker" mode. Prep school would have taught us that the "fastball special" was the proper technique.
I was at yet another conference this weekend; this one being both the least respected and the most enjoyable. Why? Because it was stocked full of kids from state schools and professors from community colleges. And while 99.9% of the presentations were nut-numbingly awe-full, the people were genuinely nice, and funny, and told dirty jokes and talked crazy southern shit and went to good concerts and had fiancees in bands and got references to fastball specials and genuniely made you want to laugh and be around them and enjoy life. And, well, about 1% of these folks will land a job in academia outside of a community college, and they are perfectly content with this. Then there's the other conferences I went to, full of assholes from Berkeley, douchebags from Duke, and some perfectly nice, but sort of NPR-y and predictable, good citizens from Virginia. Many of these people will get solid jobs at liberal arts colleges and research universities, if, for no other reason, because they already learned how to talk their way into these sorts of schools as students, and they'll know what to say to get these schools to empoloy them, and they'll know what to tell their students to get them into these same schools a generation from now.
And where are we? Somewhere in the middle of this: significantly smarter than category one, about the same intelligence as the above average student in category two (but not even close to the robo-geniuses), but in no way, shape, or form of the archetype of category two--not in terms of taste, upbringing, politics, socialization, ideology, or, and I think this is really true, basic cognitive circuitry. (I don't think either of us asked high school teachers for our 'average.' Neither did we have a "rebellious" phase that we nonchalantly reference very non-specifically.) And while that's ok--and a good deal of the wannabe ivy-leagures think it's ok too, and some of the professors to boot--it's not like anyone is kidding anyone that this isn't the situation. So periodically we can crack through--in my case it was by doing things particuarly off the wall with my applications so they got a second look--but a lot of times we won't. (For God's sake, Harvard admissions existed to keep the student pool from being 'too jewy' not 50 years ago. And, regardless, admissions committees are always convened to keep out assholes.)
I hope this helps. I doubt it does. It blows you didn't get into Madison. They fucked up. Eat cole slaw. Say woo. Hate fuck a gooey mufalatta. Then try again in a year with some more warrior Spinoza action (or at least an article on the dude, which is like Rohypnol to these tweedjacketed clowns.)
-Team Wolf (solo project)
Thanks dog. I met with my professors and they all think my mistake was trying to get in as a Spinozist. They figure every other professor in any philosophy department that already a Spinozist is tired of listening to that fucker, and has no interest in dealing with another nutjob who thinks a relatively ignored dead guy is right where they are all wrong.
Further, they pointed out that my interests and my "skills" aren't really aimed at Spinoza scholarship. I should market myself as a philosophy of science/epistemology guy who thinks the modern (1600-1900) philosophers (especially Spinoza) can provide insight towards solutions of the problems facing our contemporary conceptions of science and language.
Both the Kant guy and the evolutionary theory of mind guy said pretty much this same thing...I should market the fact that not only can I do physics and science but I can also read and understand old famous guys and am interested in both. That way multiple professors can think I am interested in their stuff.
Maybe this ruse will work. Anyway, for now it will be good to try my hand at teaching.
I went to a joint History of Science / Philosophy of Science conference a year or so ago and it was one of the best conferences ever. So if you are in it for the conferences, Philosophy of Science could be cool.
wisconsin? more like wusscockshit! oh wait. no i meant wisconsin.
they couldn't handle the swan cry of passion.
What need you of this Wisconsin diploma? You are a student of life, graduating from the school of hard knocks with a Ph.D. in the streets. Rejections don't mean shit to a professor of passion, a lone wolf of funk, a member of BOKARR. Learn from them? They should be learning from you. Continue to suckle the wizened teats of living. Life is good. Bureaucracy is a stone cold bitch. Wisconsin fucked up.
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