Strangely Patriotic

A wistful sentimentality and a false sense of accomplishment, ultimately just some window dressing to an altogether haphazard existence, conspire vindictively and fatally to warp reality beyond recognition.

During our last lecture, my E&M professor, frustrated with our poor performance on the previous exam, asked the class what he needed to do in order to make the class better. One of the international students quickly responded that we needed more time on the exam to finish the problems. To which the professor replied, "You could masturbate all night, and if it's not going to happen, well then it's not going to happen." Aside from the glaring reality that the poor international student probably did not catch all of the subtle nuances of the statement, I definitely thought it was one of the funnier things I had heard in awhile.

Frustration seems to be standard these days. I would like to go back and order up my life to come custom with bluetooth wireless compatability, side airbags, and perhaps some tacky ground-effects lighting.

When I was a grade schooler and I asked my dad for a word's spelling, his first response, invariably, would be to say, "Well, look it up." Some learning comes from rote memorization; while in other subjects, intuition comes at the heavy price of arduous problem sets and cranky, sleepless nights. Most unfortunately though, only a finite number of references exist. That's lame.

How much of myself is my own work? How much is cribbed from the canon of culture that biases opinion towards an ambiguous point of reference? Maybe it's deep inside of me, behind a left ventricle, that hint of originality and creativity. I'm fairly certain though that the notion was copied from somewhere -- most likely a music video or some movie or a documentary I just watched.

At any rate, in case you were wondering, my professor is right. You may perform the experiment at home, if you wish. But please wear your lab coat and goggles.