Miscellany

1)Here is a good piece about whether the repeal of DADT will lead to increased ROTC presence at elite universities.

2)There's a movement afoot in New York to ban i-pod use while jogging and crossing streets. It's rare that Adam Serwer and I agree about anything, but he is completely right that music is one of the best ways of alleviating the dullness of exercise. I highly recommend Teaching Company lectures as well.

3)What happens when a professor tries to take an easy class and make it hard? One of my college roommates repeatedly enrolled in legendary "gut" classes only to find that the class was being taught by a professor determined to shake things up and make the class harder, much to her frustration.

As for me, attempts to take the easy way out academically never worked that well. Apparently I have a comparative advantage at dealing with curmudgeons, who tend to want to make me a special pet. In dealing with normal, well-adjusted professors -- let alone popular and beloved ones -- this advantage seems to fall away entirely. It's true that this might be partially ideological - faculty who share my political views are perhaps more likely to be curmudgeonly and difficult, whereas lefties are more likely to be touchy-feely -- but I don't think that explains this phenomenon entirely. Not that it matters anymore, however, given that I'm probably out of school forever barring a sudden, unexpected rush of desire to obtain a Ph.D.