So, I'm a total fuckup. Today, I presented a paper at group meeting about genetic accomodation and bidirectionality of information, and Rustem, my boss and P(ain)I(n the ass) totally ripped me apart for twenty minutes straight. However, I do deserve it for thinking that I can present something or do something in the sciences. God, what am I thinking? I have no sense of direction whatsoever. I hold onto this labjob because I believe that it's the ticket to success, but how will I be able to continue down this road when I feel exhausted with it already? Yes, there are arguments that rebuke my childishness--after all, I'm only a first year in the College, but attending the University of Chicago makes me realize that I'm not at all smart, and, even worse, neither is anybody who claims to be.

Truth is, Steve Kron, my bio seminar teacher (who is awesome yet extremely blood-thirsty), has shown me the utter incompetence of the authors of the many papers being published, and Staci with an "i", my loving TA, revealed to me the disgusting politics and sheer stupidity that pollutes scientific discourse. Maybe I'm approaching this from a totally off angle, but shouldn't honesty and rigor be the basis of science, not bullshit? I was asking this question to one of my classmates last night (or early this morning, if we want to be very technical), and instead of continuing what could've been an interesting conversation, he began to berate me on insignificant things, while steering the conversation off topic (case in point--Me: "Well, this is what I was referring to, Bayes' Formula, so-" Him: "I don't want to look at it." Me: "Oh... kay... I just wanted to show my argument in mathematical form since I'm obviously not explaining it well." Him: "I don't want to be looking at it and fill my brain with it when I'm trying to fill my brain with biochem." Me: "But you asked me to explain--" Him "Which you couldn't, so you don't know what you're talking about.") I don't mind "eccentricity," but if he defines being a total ass as being "eccentric," then I think I would feel much better if I put him down with thorazine and chained him against a wall, only when he wakes up, I'll be administering electroshock that paralyzes... I trust you get the point. Of course, there is one other classmate who is in my mathematics course that I get annoyed with (but for a different smugness that I perceive as hostile and extremely sassy--this is my personal way of describing him, so if you think of him differently, so be it, but he's really a bitch--a fucking cunt, if you fesbian leminists would forgive me for such language), yet without going too much futher into my contempt with specific people, I just want to say that I'm surrounded by jerkwads in all directions. Perhaps they'll read this and snicker at my "vulgar" speech, but to you who are so squeamish, to you who are pedantic, to you who are smarter than me yet act as if you're much more immature than me (and I can get pretty immature), FUCK YOU. I have no trouble in admitting that I don't have all the answers. I don't resent the fact that you're smarter than me (well, I do, but I can at least acknowledge that without being a total ass about it). But, FUCK YOU. If you're reading this and having yourself a good laugh, go on, laugh ahead. I don't believe in karma. I don't believe in retribution. And to tell you the truth, you may be much better than me and achieve much greater things than I will ever do with my existence. But know, for what it's worth, that I was honest and had the decency to acknowledge my limits without being a pompous ass. Who knows? Maybe the next person you piss off will not be as restrained or as weak as I am. I can live with that hope that there is such a thing as balance in the universe, despite my solipsism, and if not now...

This rant has been brought to you by The Life of the Mind at The Univ. of Chicago.