Cloistered existence
Thursday, October 28th, 2004 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerYesterday, I thought I'd fixed the kitchen draw that keeps jamming. This morning it jammed again, so I thought "Oh well, I'll ring the housing office and get them to send a carpenter."
This provoked two thoughts. The first is that I am seriously lacking in male pride. I have no classes today thanks to the upcoming Republic Day celebrations, so if I were a real man, I would spend the whole day in the kitchen with a tool box making the problem worse and swearing a lot, then have an argument with my wife because I didn't call the housing office, which of course would be tantamount to admitting that I'm hopeless in bed. The drawer would remain stuck for several weeks, providing a fruitful source of domestic animosity.
The second thought was that living on campus is a wonderful thing. When I start grumbling about my low salary, I cheer myself up by either reflecting on how well off I am in global terms or compared to members of my own family a few generations back, or by counting my perks. If something breaks in the house, fixing it myself is a luxury - it's fun to fiddle with things, and if I do manage to fix them, I get lots of Real Man points from my wife. If I can't fix it, or can't be bothered to, I can just phone the housing office. The alternative would be something like the Zappa song Flakes:
Similarly, while my flat is uncomfortably small for two people, I pay virtually no rent for it. It's usually well-heated, and when it isn't, I can e-mail the provost about it and they turn the heating up. My Internet connection is painfully slow, but absolutely free, so it doesn't matter if it takes all night to download something (it used to go through the normal phone line, charged at normal phone rates, so I'd have to log on, download my mail, then log off again immediately, and casual surfing was out of the question).
Other perks include health insurance, a modest pension, a free bus service, cheap sports and martial arts courses and being surrounded by hot chicks. Put that way, the cloistered existence of an academic sounds pretty good.
This provoked two thoughts. The first is that I am seriously lacking in male pride. I have no classes today thanks to the upcoming Republic Day celebrations, so if I were a real man, I would spend the whole day in the kitchen with a tool box making the problem worse and swearing a lot, then have an argument with my wife because I didn't call the housing office, which of course would be tantamount to admitting that I'm hopeless in bed. The drawer would remain stuck for several weeks, providing a fruitful source of domestic animosity.
The second thought was that living on campus is a wonderful thing. When I start grumbling about my low salary, I cheer myself up by either reflecting on how well off I am in global terms or compared to members of my own family a few generations back, or by counting my perks. If something breaks in the house, fixing it myself is a luxury - it's fun to fiddle with things, and if I do manage to fix them, I get lots of Real Man points from my wife. If I can't fix it, or can't be bothered to, I can just phone the housing office. The alternative would be something like the Zappa song Flakes:
My toilet blew up yesterday afternoon.
The plumber he said "Never flush a tampoon."
This great information cost me half a week's pay
And the toilet blew up again the very next day.
Similarly, while my flat is uncomfortably small for two people, I pay virtually no rent for it. It's usually well-heated, and when it isn't, I can e-mail the provost about it and they turn the heating up. My Internet connection is painfully slow, but absolutely free, so it doesn't matter if it takes all night to download something (it used to go through the normal phone line, charged at normal phone rates, so I'd have to log on, download my mail, then log off again immediately, and casual surfing was out of the question).
Other perks include health insurance, a modest pension, a free bus service, cheap sports and martial arts courses and being surrounded by hot chicks. Put that way, the cloistered existence of an academic sounds pretty good.
