“My Resignation…”

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year-old. I want to go to Mr Biggs and think that it’s a four star restaurant. I want to sail paper boats across a fresh muddy stream after a rain and make a sidewalk with rocks. I want to think delicious Gogo sweets are better than money because you can eat them. I want to lie under a big almond tree and run around with nearly no clothes on with my friends on a hot, sunny day. I want to return to a time when life was simple; When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn’t bother you, because you didn’t know what you didn’t know and you didn’t care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset. I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. I want to live simple again. I don’t want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of office work, projects, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, gilts and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making sand castles in the sand. So… here’s my passbook and my bike-keys, keys to my room & shop and my account statements. I am going home to mummy and daddy. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further, you’ll have to catch me first, cause………….. “I’m playing catcher again”

Akinyemi Abiola Aiyekooto

@biola.com

20 Attributes of a Physicist

1. Never answer your mail. 99 per cent of those who write to you are in an inferior position. Why else would they write? However, requests for reprints of your articles should be answered immediately to ensure rapid propagation of your brilliance.
2. When reviewing a book be certain to find at least four errors in judgement or fact. Remember, as a book reviewer your superior position has already been acknowledged – it is your task to justify that trust.
3. Never address an audience without a piece of chalk in hand. The listener’s eyes are glued to this weapon waiting for it to strike.
4. Never give a talk without a mathematical derivation.
5. If anyone in your audience is not taking notes, glare at him unmercifully. the gems of your oral utterances deserve to be recorded for posterity.
6. Learn the music of at least half a dozen early composers, preferably all before Bach.
7. If athletic, tennis is your game. It provides the most frequent interchange of energy and momentum.
8. Under no circumstances dress like a businessman. You are a member of a select group – dress with an appropriate disregard for convention.
9. If ever you appear at work before 10 a.m., your excuse should be that you worked on an experiment all night.
10. When sitting in committee, find fault with all suggestions. After all, ideas are fallible – make that point.
11. If you don’t wear glasses, cover up this inadequacy with an even greater disregard for conventional dress.
12. Develop a taste for Szechuan or Indonesian cooking – a mark of discrimination and worldliness.
13. When delivering a paper at a meeting, snow your audience under with undecipherable slides. A well-designed slide is equally mystifying independent of how the projectionist inserts it.
14. Smoking is out, marriage and children are in.
15. Leave your office blackboard filled with undecipherable mathematics. A “do not erase” sign should be prominantly displayed.
16. Always leave a copy of the PHYSICAL REVIEW on your desk, opened at an article filled with equations.
17. Do not drink the hard stuff. Become familiar with the names of obscure Californian vineyards.
18. Do be a name-dropper. Leave your desk calendar open, indicating a future date with some well-known personage.
19. A neat, tidy desk is a reflection of a blank mind. Periodically move the mess around.
20. When people ring, be certain your secretary always says you’re out. Return only 5 per cent of your calls. Leave a note on your desk signed by your secretary that an important person called TWICE.

So you want to be a physicist,
you’ll be scorned at parties,
peoples eye’s to glaze over you when you speak,
you’ll own lot’s of incomprehensible books that no-one understands,
you’ll wear unfashionable clothes and get away with it,

Well don’t bother.
Just follow these 20 easy steps (above) and everyone will be able to see that you’re a physicist, without you having to do any of that tiresome study.

N.B. Doing the study is actually a rather good idea just ask my friend Oluwakorede Asuni