Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Nerd Journal: The Rice Paper Dissertation

You know that I'm sick and tired of the multicultural/diversity game on campus, all wrapped up in race/ethnicity/gender/insert-aggrieved-minority-claim-here gyrations of political correctness. Nobody can be offended, ever. We have to make concessions to every ludicrous claim and demand.

Well, I'm tired of it. And being tired makes me evil. OK, more evil than usual -- which is, admittedly, pretty evil. So I've decided to try and beat the diversity dons at their own game.

I just went to the grad college admin and submitted a proposal: I want my dissertation to be printed not on the usual required archival-quality cotton linen paper, but on RICE paper.

I stated, quite plainly, that as an Asian woman, I find rice paper to be much more culturally sensitive and ethnically relevant than cotton linen paper. Besides, cotton is associated with exploitation! with a history of textile mill labor! with a history of slavery in the American South! No, rice paper is much nicer.

The grad admin looked at me oddly, but they didn't say no outright. They really couldn't say no outright. I'd played all the right cards and adopted all the right terms of the grievance game.

I suspect that in all due time, I'll be the proud owner of Nerdworld's first rice paper dissertation.

One more happy coincidence: Rice paper is edible, after all, so if in future my research turns out to be all wrong, I may be literally forced to eat my words!







~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The above post is all nonsense.

APRIL FOOL'S!

1 comment:

lumpy said...

No, this could be good. Get all your friends to do this as well, each one making a very different but perfectly couched demand. Really. Fun fun fun, and plenty of blog-fodder, too.