The new chat thread - now with bitter arguing

i had the most boring day in a long time... i now wish that uni starts again so i would have something to do and i wouldnt be sitting here in front of my computer all the day.
 
nf: world tour coming to an end tomorrow so a bit sad, a bit wistful. and also worried about fanboyism. i attended a keynote lecture by a random bigshot (a random good one, in this case). was too shy to actually use question time to ask a question, hence renounced in favor of silly people raising silly points. tonight at the farewell party i also missed the chance, because it just sounds stupid to corner someone with academic questions in the middle of a party. so i have been drafting an email with my questions. but i'm reluctant to even consider sending it, because it's dangerously bordering on fanboyism. a friend of mine was telling me tonight that it's not like the undergrad "OMG i so luv your work" stuff so I should be confident. but I'm not - while not an undergrad, I'm kind of acknowledging, if I resort to email, that I'm not cool enough for face-to-face or even phone call. which amounts to fanboyism, in professional circles. or at least this is my understanding.
 
Just send it. It is normal to think worse about something you wrote than it actually is.
 
@hyena: i don't know what's considered fanboyism and what not in professional circles, so i'll have to take your word for it. being an internet child myself, i wouldn't think of it as fanboyism, just as another means of communication that leaves room for better preparation. but then that's just me, and i wouldn't email profs because i'd take it for granted that they don't know how to reply to emails because they're senile. :p
i'd suggest either going through your email a few times after taking breaks, trying to get some distance from it and see how it sounds, or having a trusted friend of yours tell you how it sounds. if you still feel bad/dubious about sending an email, try making a phonecall then.
 
@siren, matse: thanks for the suggestions. the line between fanboyism and acceptable behavior in such cases is a bit thin. on the one hand, if i were part of the academic elite in the field access would be a given; the very fact that he doesn't know who i am, however, puts me in a grey area where it could be a good idea to try, but it is not that sure. the general idea is that these people are paid to answer questions from their own students, or to take questions in public events such as conferences. sending questions privately, eg through email, leaves them at liberty to either disregard the writer or not. i have had very different experiences through the years: for example, my recent research stay in America was a direct result of someone being willing to give me credit and space even if he could just have dismissed my request. he had absolutely no reason to think that he could get something out of my visit, so he basically wrote me a blank cheque, and it was a very good idea indeed in the sense that he ended up liking my work and we're now set to write a paper together. unfortunately, however, this is not the rule, and also while the guy in question has credibility in his field he's still at GMU, which is a good university but not top of the feeding chain. on the other hand, this person i'm thinking of writing to is at princeton, which basically means somewhere completely unaccessible, for the time being, for the likes of me. i guess i'll just have to try my luck, and if i end up being cast as a hapless kid and get no reply at least it won't be unexpected.
 
Hardly sleep in days ... long bored stretches trying to drift off ... my mind is chasing its own tail
... then mad confused little 5 second dreams that startle me and wake me up ...
what did I do today?
I must of done something?
I try to add up all my memories from now to when I last has a normal sleep(3/4 days ago?) it comes to about 30 minutes ... Where did all the other time go?
 
Just finished cutting video about my most recent skydive:



Been awesome.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
nf: world-weary and wise. so brett gurewitz founded epitaph records in 1982 to put out bad religion's first record. and then proceeded to expand with an enormous roll of anti-establishment bands etc, and he got rich. i have never been a part of the sanctimonious crowd who accused him of "selling out" the whole punk scene. on the contrary, i am a fan of his business acumen. now he's got this myspace page where he posts, among other things, photos of his teenage daughter hanging out with rupert grint. ha. ha. ha.
 
I was at the supermarket earlier today and some body milks caught my eye. They looked very luxurious, the series was called "kings and queens" and the descriptions were really fancy, all in english. I couldn't resist buying one (it wasn't expensive after all). And now that i look closer, i'm shocked to see that they're actually greek.
This pointless story is an effort to resist describing to the world how i made an ass out of myself today.
 
@siren: come on, tell us what happened. you already know english better than 99% of greeks, if my experience with greeks is anything to go by, so you're a cool person anyway. we won't hold a single mistake against you. :p
 
Yes, please sacrifice all your dignity to a temporary increase of the overall forum happiness. :)
 
Ah well, it wasn't a big deal, just one of those moments that embarrasses you and makes you feel utterly dumb, while in fact everyone else forgets about it in 10 seconds. Or remembers it and points fingers at you and laughs. :p
Anyway, here it is for your reading pleasure: i went to an office to sign up for an exam, inside there was the secretary and a former resident (considered good looking, which means he's average among a crowd of crap). She asks me which year i am in, i reply. She repeats the question (obviously she didn't hear what i said), so i reply again. Phone rings, and since i'm sleepless i tune out while she answers it. Suddenly i hear her ask again in a louder voice "which year are you in?", so i get kinda pissy and give the same answer in a louder voice too. Only to realise that this time she was asking the person on the other end of the line. :p
 
I just got an email through our mail list from the university, advertising an exposition about Machine-Tools, precision work and stuff.. the relevant part is, that the exposition is called EMO :D

11090.jpg

EMO-Hannover

Great stuff :D
 
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