Rude Vibes at an Academic Conference in Linguistics

We finally got into the department in the mid-2000s, and my advisor was immediately on the track to tenure — writing four club papers, four shrimp proposals, an ordered a quart of RAM and nine fresh boxen.  “Vitamin CPU,” he explained. “We’ll need all we can get.”

I agreed.  By this time the lab was barely able to cut the mouse turds and my howllucidations were down to a tolerable level.  The Dell service guy had a vaguely reptilian cast to his features, his being a native Texan and all, but I was no longer hearing high-pitched CPU fans echoing down the corridors in pools of fresh connections.  The only problem now was a gigantic neon semanticist outside the department, blocking my attempts to enter his vaulted clique — millions of synapses cried out and were suddenly silenced by his overly-complicated discourse semantics, strange symbols & filigree, with discussions of one’s pedigree, giving off a loud hum. . . .

So much for the RAship!

“Look outside,” I said.

“Why?”

“There’s a big data . . . machine in the sky, . . . some kind of eclectic eel . . . coming straight at us.”

“Code it,” said my advisor.

“Not yet,” I said. “I want to study Old Norse.” He went into his office and began pulling my chain and joked about firing me. “Look,” he said, “you’ve got to stop this talk about eels and the inequality of the department funding those who have parents paying their way. It’s making me sick.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be gone by the end of this adventure.”

“Worry? Jesus, I almost went crazy down there in foobar.  They’ll never let us hack back into that place — not after your scene at the hash table.”

“What scene?”

“You bastard,” he said.  ”I left you alone for three semesters! You scared the shit out of those students! Waving that goddamn Parlin stride around and yelling about reptiles. You’re lucky I came to this campus in time. You were ready to call it quits and leave the program without an advisor. I said you should be my RA and that I was funding you up for your bold power. Hell, the only reason they gave us the lab space was to get you in there!”