living down a lie

I saw an IMAX film called Mystery of the Nile. It's about a guy who gets so bored he decides to float down the Nile in a rubber raft. He reminded me of those assholes who try to fly around the world in a balloon. I hate those guys. Start a collection, read a good book, or just sit at home and stare daftly at the wall as your dreams slowly pass you by like most people do. And it's always guys now that I think about it. You never hear about a woman who decides she wants to paddle her ass across the Pacific Ocean in a canoe or a woman who wants to break the longest underwater, two person, three inch unicycle run (no joke, that's in the Guinness Book of World Records that I have).

So this fellow prates and blathers the whole documentary about how spiritual his trip is down the Nile. Apparently nobody had ever managed making it down the Nile from start to finish before. No one ever triumphed the four month, three thousand mile journey. And you know why? Because you'd have to be a fucking moron to want to and raving retard to actually attempt it. Try and tell me how spiritual the Nile is when you're getting your face chewed on by a crocodile. I watched the documentary and personally, I think traveling down the Nile is about as spiritual as a trip down the Hudson, which is about as spiritual as fucking your car's exhaust pipe. What the hell could possibly be so transcendental about starving on a leaky raft for four months?

I've found documentary makers tend to regard everything as something otherworldly. A river is spiritual, giving birth is divine, and apparently the panda bear is a god damn saint. You know what? Fuck the river, fuck babies, and fuck the panda bear. You know what's spiritual? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's all a big farce. Unless this joker found Jesus sunbathing on a hippopotamus, all he did was practically die countless times for the amusement of a group of people who are either so out of touch with reality that they actually buy into his whole free spirit, nature loving, inner soul, hippie ass documentary or so impressed with gigantic screens and surround sound that they'd actually sit through the shit he tries to pass off as entertainment simply for the visual and aural orgasm it induces.

Besides, I say, if you're going to do something stupid, why not do something exceptionally stupid. For example, instead of floating down the Nile on a rubber raft, how about paddling up the river on a refrigerator door, which probably doesn't even float. That I'd watch.


Now I move onto a completely different, but well worn subject. The subject of The University at Albany and my attendance at said college. I have decided, or should I say finally realized, that the professors here, despite physical limitations to the contrary, manage to both suck and blow at the same time.

I think I'm a reasonably intelligent person but despite that and the fact that I've done pretty well at this school, I feel I'm behind in what I know. This is because I've had lousy mentors for my early 100 level courses which are, in a sense, the most important because they are the foundation for all your future classes. For example, Physics-I was a train wreck because the whole first half of it I had this temporary professor from Germany who couldn't speak English. As a result, my basic Newtonian mechanics were lacking and Physics-II was subsequently harder. My introductory Chemistry course was so awful I know for a fact I wouldn't be able to move on to a higher level course. The professor I had for electromagnetism wasn't bad but he wasn't fantastic either.

I haven't had a teacher yet who really showed me what I was paying for (for some reason that sounded very sexual). Not one that came to class and was so well prepared and taught the subject matter so well that I stopped and realized why I was going into debt for my higher education. Nobody has impressed me. I mean, some have impressed me with how much they know but none have impressed me with their teaching ability.

Having a Ph.D doesn't affirm you'll be a good professor; it just means you'll know what you're talking about. Personally, I'd rather have a mentor that's less knowledgeable but a good teacher than one who's brilliant but terrible at communicating his vast wealth of knowledge in a meaningful way.


Ph.D's: all three of my physics professors, both my chemistry professors, my sociology professor, my journalism professor, two out of three for math, greek archaeology, both for geography, and my computer science professor was working on one


Apparently they hand these things out like condoms at Planned Parenthood. Sadly, the best professors I had were for computer science and sociology (neither of which interest me) and neither of them took my breath away.

Do you get this everywhere? I assume you must, especially at large schools. They hire these men and women based on their credentials or how many books they've had published which doesn't mean a thing. People who don't like to teach or don't know how should stay the fuck out of the classroom.


"You can take your clothes
Put 'em in a sack
You goin' down the road,
Baby and you can't come back"


--Note--
I suppose it is possible that I simply have very high standards or have had a run of bad luck. It almost makes me want to be a teacher, but not at a college. I'm seriously thinking about being a high school physics teacher. I think I could be good at it. I'd take my time and think about the best ways to present the information rather than just slapping it on the board... or, I could try to climb Everest with no oxygen or go down the Amazon in a boat made out of silly-puddy... you know, try to find the meaning of life under a rock or something.