Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Professor Chaos and the Case of the Missing Brain

As school came to a close, I - like many of the professoriate - became excited about all the time I would have to work on the things that have languished during the school year. Writing exciting papers, generating interesting grant ideas, reading stacks of cool papers published this past year, these were the things I was salivating to do. After school ended, I sat down at my computer, cracked my knuckles, and opened a document to work on. Imagine my surprise, when after staring blankly at the screen for several minutes, I noticed the following post-it note stuck to the computer display:

Dear Prof Chaos:

On vacation. Be back "soon".

Toodles,

Your Brain

P.S. Don't bother looking for me, you'll never find me.

Shit. For over a week I searched for my brain. I looked in video games, books, and long naps. I even cleaned my office looking for it (though I'm not sure you could tell by the current state of said office). Nada. I don't know where it went, but yesterday it showed back up when I sat down to work on a new paper. Crappy thing didn't even apologize for its long absence. We did, however, make some kick ass progress together on the manuscript. However, this morning when I sat down to finish up one last paragraph, I found the following note:

Dear Prof:

Yesterday was lovely but its beautiful outside today. Gone fishing. See you tomorrow...maybe.

Ciao,

Your Brain.

Shit.

7 comments:

Odyssey said...

My brain does that every summer...

Welcome back - long time between posts.

Patchi said...

I wish my brain left notes too... It takes a while to notice it has wondered off...

Unknown said...

Damn. Mine's been doing that too lately. Do you suppose there's some kind of brain summer camp going on somewhere that the rest of ourselves hasn't been invited too?

I don't know who originally wrote this, but it seems appropriate:

"I have gone out to find myself. If I should return while I am gone, please ask me to wait."

Professor in Training said...

Glad to see I'm not the only one. Not sure where my brain is vacationing but I hope it's having a good time while I struggle to work without it.

Hope all is well :)

Arlenna said...

Ahhhhhh! I feel the same way!! How do we motivate them to stay functional? Coffee doesn't seem to be helping right now.

Comrade PhysioProf said...

Where the fucking fuck have you been!?!?!?!?

Candid Engineer said...

Haha, funny. Hope you catch up with your brain soon.