“The days of pilot projects are over. When people say we’d like to do 3 or 4000 in our country to see how it works, screw you go to the back of line and someone else’ll do it and then when you figure out this works, you can join as well.”

From a Ted Talk that isn't really worth watching.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuro-anatomist who suffered a stroke in 1996. As a scientist, she realized she had "ringside seats to her own stroke" and proceeded to pay close attention to the details of her trauma and recovery process. That attentiveness has led her to some profound insights about the way human thought and experience is organized, and how changes in our thinking could profoundly alter the way humans choose to live.

Here she is presenting her insights at TED:

I just came home form a meeting with my thesis adviser where I yet again, switched gears with my thesis. She actually pointed to a piece of paper on her board that had (one of) my original ideas pinned to it, and I think wanted to know if she could throw it in the garbage. I said sure thing; any idea that hadn't been mentioned in 6 months was as good as dead as far as I was concerned.

When I got home I turned on the radio and was starting to fry onions in preparation for Jen and I's "Get your drink on, it's Valentines" - dinner, when I heard this piece on the radio.

Dance Your Ph.D

It's Awesome.

Just a general, kinda tired and cranky query to the general public but especially my pointy-headed friends in academia.

Do you guys ever get frustrated because you feel like if you have to be doing something so cutting edge and novel it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page yet?

I am just trying to write a project proposal and I feel so un-original, un-inspired and washed-up (and yes, I know, I haven't even written a fucking page of my thesis yet), that I feel like writing an opener like;

This morning, I was reading the first in a set of readings for my production class. The article is called "Principles of Community-Based Action Research" it's all upbeat and pro-active about research that "provides people with the means to take systemic action to resolve specific problems."

The professor or someone, had added a bunch of marginalia to the reading before it was copied for class, so there are little comments littered around the text.

On one page, directly under the sentence :

"These values and assumptions are built into a set of guiding principles that can facilitate a democratic, participatory, liberating, and life-enhancing approach to research."

it says;

"fuck-off"

Oookay, so I won't get my hopes up too much then.