I guess I started this blog because I feel like I've spent so much time writing academic papers that I lost my voice. Now that I've finished my thesis, I want to go back to writing interesting stuff. Initially, I started my thesis with the notion that it would be an academic paper written in an unpretentious, fun-to-read (relatively speaking), op-ed style. I worked on varied sentence length. I used lots of fragments for effect. Got a little carried away with semi colons. I understood that a thesis was supposed to show a mastery of an area and should be presented in a manner that showcases scholarly authority, but I thought I could do it in a different way.
My committee was not impressed. Several thousand rewrites later, I surrendered my creative vision and caved to their demands for a more scholarly tone. They were right, of course, but I'm still pissed. Academics need to make up their own esoteric jargon just so they can feel important when no one else knows what the hell they're talking about. I don't like using language in a way that alienates my audience. For this reason, I deliberately avoided using words like "hegemony", "underpinnings", and fucking "paradigm." Eventually, I had to use them b/c my conscious avoidance of those terms made me look like I was stupid and had a bad vocabulary. And the worst thing is that now I'm having a hard time shifting back to how I wrote before I wrote my thesis.
So I am here. A recovering pseudo-intellectual.
Check out this Dinosaur Jr. video that I never knew existed.
(Related to other posts b/c J. Mascis looks kind of Amish with a hat on.)
In case you don't want to scroll through the comments, here is a good one:
just noticed that the dude with the black hair in the house is the guy in 'Superbad' who starts the fight at the party! he has the GF with the period blood stain. -toecutterr6
My favorite:
J. smiles at 1:57 -flamethrower211
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