Old College Notebooks

While continuing the process of removing excess possessions from my life, I came across five of my old college notebooks. Having not used them a single time since graduation, I knew they were destined for the recycle bin, but before throwing them out I took an hour to reread much of my old writings. Each notebook contained notes and other things I had jotted down from at least two different college courses, with half of them being classes I took in the business school and the other half from miscellaneous other subjects. The vast majority of my notes were on things I’ve never used outside of college, like calculating single liability immunization and creating Value at Risk models, and as I was reading through them I started wondering how much of the information within the notebooks is now outdated, incorrect, or no longer viewed as acceptable by the current regimes in academia and student bodies. Some of my astronomy notes might have been overtaken by scientific advances in the last decade and who knows what is being taught these days in ethics courses. In two of my classes I was clearly bored out of my mind, as can be seen in the remarks I’d write on the pages, such as “Why do I bother showing up to this?” and “Maybe I’ll take some notes today.” One day I showed up ten minutes late for a class. The reason: Metroid Prime 3. There were also many amusing quotes and nuggets of wisdom that I wrote in the margins, which you can read below. Anything in quotes is a direct quotation from a professor of mine.

* Never commit a felony on tape
* If you make an error, you should try to catch it
* Always thoroughly inspect the terms of the mortgage provided by your broker
* Bermuda is a good place to hide wealth
* “Screaming hordes of Canadians”
* God invented wars to defend property rights
* “If you kids voted, then pot would be legal”
* Bank presidents wear suits and sail around in their yachts
* Q: What’s the difference between a bond and a snowboarder? A: The bond will eventually mature and earn money.
* Q: Tell me your weaknesses. A: I don’t respond to stupid interview questions.
* “Do you need to study the articles as opposed to read the articles? I don’t know what that means.”
* “Did you set your calculator to euros?”
* You can break the law and get away with it
* “Because I said so.”
* (Student) “How are you going to grade the projects?” (Professor) “Completely unfairly.”
* If you want to grow a bunch of weed, wear golf shirts
* You can only prevent conflict between two people if one of them is dead, and even then it might not be possible
* “This is something you were shown in 8th grade - millions and millions of beers and tubes ago.”