no country for stupid men

They expelled a guy a couple of days ago. The head of the committee that did the honours was good enough to mail the entire batch a narrative describing in full the cold and calculating nature of the criminal's misdeeds. With its noir undertones and the starkness of its prose, it could well have been Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon putting pen to paper. Telling us that on the night of the 21st of January, the accused did this. On the 22nd, he did that. On the 21st of February, when he realized the game was up, he confessed. But of course, the mail made clear, the confession was in "close confirmation with the conjecture on the sequence of events made by the committee from available documentary evidence even before his confession." Yeah. Great going, Sherlocks. What a complete disgrace.

The poor boy had fudged answers on to his graded answer script, and submitted it for re-evaluation. He had gotten away with it (along with an impressive 50 point increase) during the mid-terms, and was stupid enough to try it again. Got caught, and got expelled. Deserves as much for being a one trick pony.

Of course, the way I see it, a post graduate institution really has no business awarding grades in the first place. Harvard doesn't. Nor does Wharton or Kellogg. This place is already super-competitive as it is when it comes to landing those plum job offers from companies who don't even pay that much attention to your GPA. The last thing that we need is a diabolical grading system that takes the joy away from learning in this short interval between self-righteous penury and corporate harlotry. But no, the committees that matter like playing cops and robbers, you see.

Jesus etc.

We sat around the fire. Memories flickered like fireflies in the night, and then died, as is their wont on days like this. We made our confessions, with the thousand yard stares of soldiers who have seen too much, and told our Canterbury tales, full of the intrigue and deceit that so described our lives. Then, we jumped into the fire, sizzling, and then fizzling out when the little boys on the shore broke their little castles of sand all over our Walpurgisnacht-before-time.

We woke up the next morning, and we went to work and we went to college, full of ourselves and our lovers' Valentine messages. For once, we were truly happy, because in the clarity of the morning, we truly understood sunshine, and the warmth it brought with it. Lives that are long suffering in the darkness are thankful for the small mercies, and the big miracles. Here's to you, lover, for walking on water.