BF2S Forums Paper I wrote about my time in Iraq

Cell phones were still a luxury item

Well it's not like you missed the big time, unless you were going to be groomed to be a yacht club pharaoh.

Jay wrote:

Cell phones were still a luxury item

a yacht club without a phoneline? that's some luxury hamptons shit

what about horse messengers?

i must say jay, even though there are some grade-a lines in that little tale, i'm glad you did it. i'm sure it was good for you. it sounds like a good little thing to do in review of a difficult period in your life, and to bring closure

Not going to lie though, I am actually interested to see what Jay had been up to in Iraq, but I cba reading 17 pages of it.

Summarise it for me pl0x

Kampframmer wrote:

Here I was all insecure about the quality of one of my essays and just like that Jay makes me feel all better.
You started a paper with Offspring lyrics.... Scholarly stuff man, you should consider teaching a new generation once you're done with your prestigious engineering career and yacht clubs.

You would lick your own balls if given the choice. Kampf, please refrain from criticizing others until you get your latent homosexuality in order.

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Jay wrote:

It was better than therapy, yeah.

not sure if you're taking my post sincerely (as it was), or if you're being sarcastic here and trying to imply i've had therapy (i haven't).

a marxist under therapy

Nope, 100% sincere. They're all faded memories at this point though. I've been home for eight years and that paper was written over seven years ago. It's hardly pertinent to my current life.

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

Jay wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

not sure if you're taking my post sincerely (as it was), or if you're being sarcastic here and trying to imply i've had therapy (i haven't).

a marxist under therapy

Nope, 100% sincere. They're all faded memories at this point though. I've been home for eight years and that paper was written over seven years ago. It's hardly pertinent to my current life.

oh okay cool. cause yeah i'm glad you did it. writing can be therapeutic. i honestly did read all of it and i didn't laugh at any of it, after the first page of laughing about your offspring quotations/simple writing style etc. and that was only in the context of you freshly saying yesterday that you could "write my essays better than me".

Everything takes practice.

that's pretty simplistic and reductive. to an extent i agree that anyone has potential to go into any field - it's a matter of education, training, personal motivation and application, etc. but then again i don't believe everyone can do quantum physics, even if offered the training. i don't think everyone could do engineering. i don't think everyone could do analytic philosophy/logic. i don't think everyone could do post-structuralist literary theory. i don't think everyone could do heideggerian ontology. these things are capital-d Difficult. so yes, i agree, if you had chosen humanities-type courses at pre-college level, and gone on to do a humanities course, you probably could write decent essays, and it's reasonable to guess you could graduate from a mid-tier decent college. oxford doctorate level though? that's a bit of a leap. same with me: i'm sure if i chose a bunch of science/maths subjects (which i was also getting A*'s/A's in, pre-uni), i could have gone on to do a science degree, and been decently equipped. could i have made it into MIT though? i'm not so arrogant to say that. probably not. my passion lies with literature/philosophy, yours lies in engineering. that passion makes up a lot of intellectual ground and basic effort.

to be honest i thought people lost the illusion that they could "do anything to a highest level if only they cared to try" at about age 16. by that stage you learn to identify your particular strengths/weaknesses, and hone in, most importantly, on your personal interests. everyone must specialize. it honestly sounds as if you still entertain that illusion (more like now a delusion) that you could match someone in another discipline, if only you deigned to give it the time and effort. that's kind of silly tbh. either you massively over-estimate yourself, arrogantly, or you hugely underestimate other disciplines you haven't experienced, ignorantly. there's a remark early on in your 'iraq report' that says you were the best at everything in school, and the military recruiters were in "disbelief" that you were joining. i'm not sure how much of that is youthful spunk and how much of it is a genuine god complex. most people grow out of that sort of thinking. you're not the only unique snowflake that passed all school-level exams with top marks. it's called 'being a big fish in a small pond'.  that aptitude doesn't translate to high-level university stuff. especially doctoral difficulty study. you're not a polymath, jay.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-05-24 04:30:20)

i thought colombia was renowned as the hipster chic-dressing ivy league school that all the beautiful new yorkers go to.