From: boesch@cs.washington.edu (Eric Boesch)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: Re: Oh no!!!!
Date: 9 Sep 92 05:02:08 GMT
Organization: Blind Deaf and Paralyzed Elvis Impersonators

Frederick.A.Ringwald@dartmouth.edu (Frederick A. Ringwald) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.134806.23704@bnlux1.bnl.gov>
>schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder) writes:
>> In article <1992Sep3.055323.17366@mr.med.ge.com> hinz@picard.med.ge.com 
>> (David Hinz Mfg 4-6987) writes:
>>
>> >6> Dan Rather reports that he's an alien
>>     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> 
>> I've known this for years! (or at least long suspected it
>[...]
>> "That's part of our world tonight," indeed.
>
>Why do you think you never see the half of him that's under the table?
>Because instead of legs, he's got six green, slimy tentacles?

But it's only the tentacles that you see on TV, and there's thousands
of them.  Usually he doesn't have more than one or two tentacles in
the same place, except in the UN building.  One of his zits exploded
in the Philippines more than a year ago, and he recently farted across
Florida into Louisiana.  And it's never an accident.

(Anyone remember the name of the movie where the space alien invades
the 70s people's house and kills them, and when the kiddie looks for
the rest of the family, it hides under the bedcovers and plays with
the family's heads and it looks like the family's having group sex?)

ObAngst: the US educational system: up to 1+12+4+2 years of
kindergarten.  (I wouldn't count the last years of a PhD, since you
start to run out of those handholding
grade-you-on-trying-to-learn-things-our-way and so
making-learning-almost-impossible classes.)

Angst for unAmericans: Not being on the leading edge of anything.
Knowing your country is becoming just like ours but it's a little too
slow about it to ever be us.  You may work better, your way might even
be better in outdated ways, but you're still becoming us.  And getting
patriotic and outraged about foreign influence would be very American,
too, but we're too much on the forefront of everything to worry about
it.

Bonus whine: trap states, when they're bad ones.  Being so limited by
self-conciousness in awkward situations that who I am depends
completely on who I'm with.  Screwing up immediately upon arriving
here, getting chewed out for it repeatedly, and feeling very nervous
when talking to anyone in the department about anything of substance.
Hating useless homework and bureaucratic chores and having to do a lot
more of both because I goofed up.  So I don't have the time or energy
to do anything well and the awkwardness doesn't fade and I don't get
past not having enough money or respect.  And the things that make
people tell me that maybe I shouldn't be a grad student would probably
make a boss tell me maybe company X isn't the one for me.  Why not
just tell me I should be dead?

And even worse, I want some ice cream and don't have any.  But it'll
only take half an hour to get some.  That makes $2 for the ice cream
and $5 for the labor to get it, but I can waive the $5 because I'm not
getting anything done anyway.  I have $2, easy.  Lessee... rocky road,
I think.  My life is joy, and it's all the fault of 24-hour
supermarkets.

-- emb
Newsgroups: alt.angst