Land of the Lemmings

It’s not easy to sit in a classroom and just absorb information, knowledge, understanding, crap, bullshit, words on a board.  We try to absorb everything like it’s a sponge.  My desk is hard and unwelcoming, and my elbow rests against the brittle wood.  And all I want to do is stand up and walk out.  I want to leave and write down all the words about the painful boredom of an elite statistics course, a class full of lemmings, a class full of pencils, pens, chalk, crayons, graphite, all scribbling away furiously, writing down meaningless crap that we try to swallow just so we can regurgitate it later for the exam.  Its no wonder that there isn’t a single brilliant mind within.  But there are plenty of heretics.

         Meanwhile, the scratching of knowledge has subsided.  All eyes up front.

         “What is the multiple r-squared?”  It’s a pleasant voice but it lacks conviction, it lacks emotion.

         Blank stares, nothingness.

         A condescending smile from the professor, her blonde hair in a sensible bun tied behind her head, her blue sweater loose around her neck with her white bra peeking through the shoulder, she shrugs off the palpable silence in the room.  She turns back to the board, her sensual round buttocks lined perfectly with the chalkboard ledge, one hand behind her back, her head held back in unobtrusive aloofness.  And then she starts putting chalk to board and words to the vacant air in front of her. 

         “Well, you should have learned in your intro statistics course that multiple r-squared is just the percentage of variability explained by the model.”

         Blank stares, nothingness.  And a condescending smile.  And always, without fail, palpable ignorance.

         There’s something about everyone’s eyes being focused on the person in the front of the room.  It’s the perfect place to control everyone’s mind.  And she’s up front brainwashing us with mindless numbers and diagrams.  Everyone is jotting down everything the professor is saying.  And they wonder why they don’t know anything, having not realized that the effort it took to write words down has dulled their hearing and they register neither what they have written or what the ass at the front has said.  Its no problem for me though.  I write stories when she talks.  I write novels, poems, plays, songs during class.  I know why I don’t know anything.

         “So, given what I just said, would we reject or accept our null hypothesis?”

         It’s a trick question, but all the lemmings are stumped, their leader has fallen off the cliff, the carrot has disappeared from the stick, and the parent has hidden behind hands and the infant is dumbfounded.  The way across the street hasn’t changed, but mother has let go of your hand and she is already halfway across the street.  The only thing to do now is try to cross without her, and it doesn’t matter which lemming chooses to sacrifice himself, only that someone does.

         A timid hand rises in front of me.  “We accept the null hypothesis?”  It’s a question, not an answer.  But either way the lemming is dead, trampled under feet, run over by a car, the carrot is made into a stew, and the lemming is slapped with shit right across his face.

         A condescending smile.

         “Actually, we NEVER accept the null hypothesis, we only fail to reject to the null hypothesis.”

         Blank stares, nothingness.  That wasn’t one of the answers she gave us and aren’t they the same thing?  I fail to reject what was accepted but only because I accepted my false rejection.  The sacrificed lemmings withers, ducks his head, blood rushing up from his chest to his forehead.  Just another lemming with no dignity, just another lemming with no confidence, just another student with absolutely no knowledge, no understanding, and by the end of the day he will be just another confused and scared student, alone, in the world of academia.

         “But if we take a stronger look we can see that the data appears to be a clear cut pathological case, based on our four assumptions.”

         Someone should get that data a psychologist.

         “So let’s check the independence for errors.  We want to know something about these errors being independent from other independent errors.”

         Please, god, set my errors free!

         “But even if they are independent they are variable, can be variable, and we make the assumption that nothing in life is systematic, nor makes sense, except numbers, which are a set of systems with tons of variability and no independence.

         And this lack of independence drew the puritans away from British tyranny.  And we would celebrate July 4th, but it is a number and thus variable, and probably has no independence. 

         Now, when I look up I see a graph on the wall, and she’s pointing at something and I just don’t care.  Her pointing is consistent and systematic.  My boredom is constant and elastic, expanding exponentially.  And I make the assumption that my boredom is independent of her pointing, but I could be wrong because I haven’t been paying attention.

         “And remember, do not violate normality or you might regress.”

         So she’s saying that being weird make us regress, is that like depletion?  I don’t know, her words never make any sense, and I don’t listen anymore.  She isn’t listening to what she is saying anymore either, and when I look around all I see in everyone’s eyes is lemmings jumping off cliffs, under cars, into lions mouths, into this professor’s memory of her palpably ignorant class.

         I wonder if anyone has ever died of boredom.

         “So, you are looking once again for untrue, non-normality and you must fail to reject the independence of a given variable based on the amount of variability in a given population based on the size of the population and the demographic, and you must also have an alpha level of more than the given amount of assumptions made, along with a set amount of virgins present that are capable of both independent thought and action.  All this must be obtained before we can accept our null hypothesis.”

         My hand goes up, I am not even paying attention to myself, to the class even, and I am completely unaware of the question I am about to ask.  I’m just another stupid lemming throwing myself under the tires.  “Didn’t you say we NEVER accept the null hypothesis?”

         “Well, Mr. Beavis, if you were paying attention earlier…”

         I decide to pay attention later.  I am on auto pilot and I’ve completely forgotten the question I asked.

         A condescending smile and I nod to make it look like I’m listening.  She’s a sexy woman, but not enough to keep my attention.  Well, at least my attention on what she is saying.

         “What if the distribution is non-normal,” she’s saying, “will the kurtosis of the distribution result in me pulling out my hair, tearing my skin from my body, and ultimately leave me playing with my lower lip, drooling, spittle everywhere, my eyes imploding, and my brain slowly rotting?”

         My answer to myself is yes, and there comes a deep sigh from the back of the classroom.  Someone needs to answer her question, but someone only sighed.

         A condescending smile.  More than an hour has passed since I seated myself and she says:

         “Well, it looks like you lemmings haven’t heard a word I have said, nor understood it, so…let me start at the beginning again…when time first…”

         Groans, impatience, fear, and loathing emanate from the back of the room.  This is too much to take.  I stand up; the lonely guy in the back with the slumped shoulders, high brass forehead, thick glasses, and a chilling stare.  I keep my eyes pinned to the ground, knowing the professor is looking at me, knowing all the other lemmings are staring at me, in awe.  It takes three seconds to get to the door, and I shuffle briskly even though it feels like quick sand in my shoes and all over the floor.  My hand reaches for the doorknob and I think I’m free, but her words cut through the silence like breaking glass during a moment of remembrance.  I flinch my shoulders.

         “Mr. Beavis, class has not finished, why are you leaving so abruptly?  Do you have someplace better to be than learning about important, arbitrary, and highly ambiguous numbers?”

         The answers to her questions are obvious, but I don’t respond immediately.  I let her words float through the cold icy air.  The class has stopped, all eyes on me, the daring lemming at the door.  My back is still to the class and my hand hasn’t left the door knob.  I can feel the professor waiting for me to answer, her hands placed perfectly on either side of her hips.  I think about just walking out without a sound, but instead I turn slowly, maniacally, from the door and focus my eyes menacingly on my gorgeous professor.  Her pale blue eyes don’t even deter my determination.  Her face flutters for a second, her hands rise to her bosom, and her mouth drops in fear of the insanity in my glare and posture.  I wait until I know I have the full attention of the class before I project across the room.

                   “If anyone else is tired of this high class bullshit, this ambiguous, tenuous, never ending hell inside my mind, this pit of doom, if you can take this sitting down any longer, come with me!”

         Blank stares, but not nothingness.  The gears are finally cranking in their minds.  The professor is dumbfounded, speechless.  And slowly, each student raises from their seats and they follow me outside.

         My new posse.  My new militia.

         I will mold them in my hands and my mind.

         “Lemmings! I am your new leader!”

         Blank stares, nothingness.  But they would follow me over a cliff and never hear I word I am saying.

         And I am left with nothing, nothing but a wry condescending smile aimed at my lemmings