Things have come to a head in academics land. But I read a lovely sentence today and felt like putting it down.

“…societies vegetating on the periphery of an industrialising Europe like a vast reservoir of labour power periodically called into action by the spasmodic actions of metropolitan capital”

yum… I love how such delicious propaganda sneaks into text books.

I really like texts where the authors put in an effort to make it interesting, sort of like an inside joke between him and the reader. Like this book we referred to for linear algebra last year, the epithet for the chapter on Vectors was “arrows of outrageous fortune” (Shakespeare, from Hamlet, P.O.D. I think)

And that holds more so for teachers as well. Like when rohini compared being in an ergodic set to like being stuck in “hotel California”, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave… it was hilarious and actually the best possible description.

I read not so long ago that Kurt Vonnegut once said to his students:

“…if you really want to disappoint your parents and don’t have the nerve to be gay, go into the arts.”

And while I’m at it, something I read over the summer-

“worlds on worlds are rolling ever
from creation to decay
like the bubbles on a river
sparkling, bursting, borne away”

- Shelley

don’t know why I put it down in my notebook, but it must have made sense to back then, it doesn’t even sound particularly profound right now. Actally sounds quite stupid. Maybe its just econometrics eating away at my brain… bleh…

I’ll wrap up this much plagiarised and sufficiently pseudo post-

“the hour of departure has arrived and we go our separate ways- I to die and you to live. Which is better, god only knows”

I hope that when I die I have the presence of mind to be eloquent like old Socrates (who if I recall correctly was in the process of being put to death). Either that, or to have some clever and charitable person around to make up an impressive sounding sentence and give me credit posthumously. I’m going to start working on the invitation list right away.