I read Jill's blog today... She writes about the men - the ones with all the right answers. It might be my mood today, but yeah, I know who she means. They play the game of dominance because it makes them feel bigger and better to know all these names. I never could remember the names.

I am learning about dyslexia. No, I never had it. However.... I have never been able to remember names. Not faces either, but names is a real problem as an academic. Yeah, I know how to fake it now. I can get around by explaining a thought, a theory, a concept, a connection... but the name just doesn't stick. It's typical of dyslexia, the random pattern which has no connection to the topic doesn't stick - the logical argument which makes sense stays with you. I am wondering if it's something about the brain... That the brains of the people who don't remember all the obscure names aren't the ones flawed... but the brains of those who do. The ones who happen to remember those odd numbers, the words that make no sense, they are the mutants, the rest of us who need to feel that things make sense, we are the really normal and reasonable people.

Academia used to be a refugee for the mutants, where they were allowed to live by their own standards. Now, the rest of us, the sense-making people, enter, read their books and learn in or own patterns.

Well... Ummm... This is not exactly a tested theory. More like an unfounded thesis. But that's how it feels today, like academia is sense-making in the world of aliens or mutants.