Ah, yes.

The abomination of desolation.

The temple profaned.

If ever there were an Augean stable in need of rivers' re-routing.

And what of you?

What morbid wonder or weed-like masochism has taken root in you that you would wend hither to wade in this ordure?

Just kidding.

Sort of.

I used to joke that I was on the "10-year 2-year plan."

That's about how long it took me to finish community college -- I actually got a warning-letter to wrap it up or they'd boot me out and clear the slate.

What I'm saying is... early on, in high school, I encountered True, Righteous, and Well-Learnéd Doctors. They catalyzed some reaction in me.

When I went to college -- one after another, -- all I found was lumpen lead.

It seemed better to me, rather than to plumb those puddles and ingest that poison, to stop, drop, and roll -- to pursue my interests, education, and inspiration outside of those stables' walls. Which I did, thank God.

Later, before I was less better crystallized, and thus was more malleable to the words and wills of others, I did finish my 2-year, and my 4-year, degrees (of course, using math more amenable to me).

In that time, I wrote a lot, mostly under duress, mostly in the form of theses nailed to the stables' gates.

Here's some of it.

Don't worry; most of it's got way more flavor than most of what those mills churn out, and it's definitely better for you.