In the rain, the pavement shines like silver

Let's start off the morning with a depressing little message to any future/current graduate students. For all of you lazy/link phobic readers, the article basically says don't go to graduate school. (With a few exceptions – just go read it.) I was sent the link from my former editor-in-chief, the fabulous Michelle Rindels, and I thought I'd spread the joy. My natural instinct was to come up with a million reasons against it, so I'm going to sit on the idea longer.

The three main reasons I wanted to graduate school were:

1)I don't feel well-educated. Not that I'm completely ignorant, but there is SO much knowledge that I lack.
2)I don't have any other clear direction.
3)School is fun. Well, most of the time.

Since my goals aren't career/financial, maybe the article doesn't apply to me? Of course I could solve my issues much less expensively: self-education, try out another direction...and I'm not worried about "having fun."

Anyways, something to think about.
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In other news, a 41-year-old teacher (of high school sophomores) is in big trouble for sending a boy in her class nude photos (along with some suggestive ideas). He – naturally – emailed the pictures to a few friends and then told his dad (or his dad found out somehow.) I would not be sharing this, except I found the comments on the article quite interesting. The few that I read were (presumably) males, saying things like "I wish I had a teacher like that in high school," and "15 years old? Come on dad, you ruined the fun." "What's her email address?" "Best teacher in 2010 award!"

I was reminded of a comment about the movie "Notes on a Scandal" where either my brother or Ebert said something about how older women preying on high school boys in movies were always portrayed sympathetically, while older men preying on high school girls were condemned. This cinematic discrepancy toward the sexes seems to be a reflection of real life judgments: I can't imagine the same comments on an article about a male teacher sending a 15-year-old girl nude photos of himself.

As a society, we view the older woman in this situation as lonely/pitiable, and we view the man as lustful/despicable. This perspective is completely understandable,(given the undeniable differences between the genders) – but that doesn't excuse the action, and both genders should be prosecuted the same.