I am sort of reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I pick it up now and then and read one of the short chapters. It has lots of nice ideas, useful for giving one the motivation to find joy in the journey and don't sweat the small stuff and other things like that. Mostly it makes me think about professors I have known. Some approached the status of demigods, causing me to recite embarrassing poems in protest of their dismissal. One film professor actually tested us on his tangential ramblings about celebrities he knew ("What did Elizabeth Taylor say when I made a joke about her shoes in 1978?") In the relatively small pond of a university, professors seem like Triton himself, able to banish us to the depths of humility with a critical comment on a paper.
Back to The Last Lecture. It's worth reading. Some best-sellers make that list for a reason. Some, like a certain unnamed book about a teenage girl and her vampire, do not.
3 comments:
I think within the "stuffy halls of academia" it may be easy to lose one's focus. That is the case in general, though, be you an artist, professor, musician, corporate guru, and so on. I love finding things that help us remember what's "real" and who we are and bring us back down to earth. We're all human, after all.
And, think what you wish of me, but despite the hype (which I tend to shy away from), I put aside my preconceived prejudices and actually read unnamed book and was pleasantly surprised that I liked it quite a lot - I like all of them, especially the last one.
Of course, I do like vampires, am a bit of a hopeless romantic, and have a dramatic side to me that I usually suppress for some unknown reason. But mostly, I enjoy the moral undertones - overcoming, sacrifice, friendship and love.
Sorry... rambling again. Hope you're enjoying the new place and not stressing out too much.
I totally remember that! The protest we went to for Prof. H. I was so upset she was fired. Still am. I loved her!
I still think of some of my professors, too--amazing how influential they can be.
Yeah, although the vampire book had a compelling plot line and I did read it in one sitting, the writing left a lot to be desired.
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