Truths and Lies in the Ivory Tower

Truth is strange as fiction. And no where else do lies and truths inextricably comingle than in the hallowed halls of academe. Big thanks to super Vispoetess and prose spinner Melissa, aka Windspirit Girl, who honored me with the Bald-faced Liar Award. You can tell six outrageous lies and one truth, or six outrageous truths and one lie. I'm mixing it up a bit -- all seven are truths, but six belong to myself -- or to Dr. Benjamin Carandini, my PURE MC. You might remember him -- he's the dude whose mice commit hari-kari after ingesting investigational drug JM-25. Can you pin the truths on the right academic?

1/ The day before my wedding, a graduate student presents me with a bouquet of roses -- thorns picked off. Later that night I find a large serrated knife buried among the stems.

2/ Three fellow graduate students die in a single year -- two from the same rare cancer and the third from self-inflicted gunshot.

3/ A colleague hurls epithets and a textbook at me at a faculty meeting.

4/ Not one but two graduate student friends get 'A's and pregnant by the same (married) professor.

5/ The day the World Trade Towers collapse, a colleague says with a smile, "At last, the chickens have come home to roost."

6/ A supervisor fails to give me a raise because I am "too happy" every morning when I "sing coming out of the elevator."

7/ A 'mentor' refuses to provide a letter of reference for a grant proposal unless I switch advisors and sleep with the mentor.

I'll drop by a few blogs and pay it forward later this week -- seems everyone's gotten dubbed.

And from Paige in Paradise Valley, warm fuzzies. Send some her way -- she needs some extra loving... damn economy.

Live hard, write harder... Peace, Linda