Farewells

[robinturner]

I have just unsubscribed from an e-mail list that I've been a member for years, partly because it was wasting my time, but largely because my patience with American conservatives has run out. They make British conservatives look like effete ivory-tower intellectuals. While I agree with the Stoics and Buddhists that stupid, annoying people provide wonderful opportunities to cultivate the virtues of patience and tolerance, there is a point at which you are in danger of being flipped round into the corresponding vices. When more than 25% of the members of any online forum like Anne Coulter, it's time to pack your e-bags. Still, it makes me sad to leave, though what makes me really sad is that someone who can do Linux system administration can like Anne Coulter. An intelligent but psychologically disturbed person with a tendency to get the horn for evil could at least pick someone like Elizabeth Bathory.

I'm also thinking of bidding farewell to my current place of employment, as I'm getting very pissed off with our director's addiciton to crappy software, and also I've just applied for a PhD scholarship. (Believe it or not, at my advanced age I only have an MA, in a career where a PhD is usually necessary to get a job as a tea-boy.) I'd initially rejected the idea, because on the whole I like my job, and relocating to Amsterdam in a hurry would be difficult. Then I realised that I'd said "relocating to Amsterdam".

Comments

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's a huge deal. Is ye olde spouse excited about Amsterdam as well?

[solri.livejournal.com]

Yes, but don't call her "olde"!

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry ... younge as the deweye springe grasse.

I don't know how to spell in olde Angle-ish.

[solri.livejournal.com]

LOLLE

[blorky.livejournal.com]

Compartmentalization is an incredible human ability. The person who did my father's heart valve replacement is a creationist.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Good point. There are a lot of fundamentalist doctors here, and I've noticed that the highest number of religious types in our university are in engineering. As someone pointed out, maybe engineering predisposes you to want manuals ;-)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

maybe engineering predisposes you to want manuals
and if my engineering colleagues are any example -- to expect that despite the existence of the manual, one shouldn't bother actually reading it or understanding why any particular piece of information is there.

perhaps we're on to something.

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

And the hard sciences seem to be more accepting of black-and-white, yes/no thinking. Whereas people in the humanities are more open to ambiguity.

Perhaps.

[asteriskhere.livejournal.com]

Wow, Amsterdam, awesome. Just don't let them civilize ya. ;)

[cf.livejournal.com]

You've got a choice between a village overlooking a town with the wonderful nature of the winters we know you love and um, Amsterdam?

Damn.

I love the feeling of walking into a tk building in the middle of the winter. The snow has turned to ice outside, and the newspaper on the marble floor succeeds in turning the snow tracked inside into slush with a coefficient of friction better than teflon. How is it that the black out always happens then?

Of course, I'm just mentioning the bad. You know the good, the free yummy veg and the ability to do almost anything.

Good Luck on your efforts to move to Amsterdam!