Furry face

“You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion” wrote G.K. Chesterton. 

I have used that line plenty of times in my classes.  Like a few days ago too, when I told the class that writing a paper is not something that they should do at the last minute.  If they did, it will be as futile as trying to grow a beard in a moment of passion.

I said that while stroking my bearded chin ;)

It is yet another no-shave November.  Most young men who try to grow one will look at me in envy.  One of those rare moments in life when I will serve as a model ;)

When I am asked about growing a beard, I use the same lines that a late great-uncle did.  He was a bearded man himself.  If people asked him about his beard, he would reply with a snort, "I don't grow a beard.  I simply stopped shaving."

Which is why I like this approach to no-shave November--it is clear that the beard is a result of not shaving.  It is as simple as that.

As a bearded professor, I have more than a passing intellectual interest in beards though.  My curiosity knows no bounds after all.  Like, if only I could recall that exact moment in graduate school when I decided that I would grow one--a beard, that is.  Try as I might, I don't recall.  The few photos are evidence that I have consistently had a beard since sometime in my third year in graduate school.  But, when was that first attempt, and what was my thought process?

Those are the many moments that I seem to have forgotten.  Just like I don't really remember when it was that the first hair on my chest showed up.  When did that happen?  And when did they start turning grey?  Or on the legs?   For that matter, when did the first pubic hair appear?

I wish somebody had told me to remember those historic events in my own life; instead of remembering some random and trivial events of world history! ;)

Source

Remember, Remember, the Month of Movember

I love November because that is when all of a sudden a few students look up to me with great respect.

For once!

No, it is not that I become any wiser in November.  Not any funnier either.  And definitely not because I look like George Clooney come November.

It is all because of my beard.

With every passing year, it seems like more and more students sign on to the "No Shave November" idea.  While it might have begun in order to highlight men's health issues, especially prostate cancer awareness, I would think that quite a few males merely wait for an opportunity to neglect that five-o-clock shadow and let it grow into a month-long shadow.  We men are lazy and we know it, and we are not going to waste an opportunity to be lazy.

And thus some students embark on growing facial hair.  Perhaps even for the first time in their lives.

Which is when many find out that not all are born lucky to have hair growing into a beard.  A couple of years ago, a student told me "not all of us can have a beard like you, Dr. Khe."

And I worried that I could never be a role model for students!  Ha!!!

A year or two prior to this student's appreciation for my beard, a student had included in the free-response part of the faculty evaluation form "He has a cool beard."  Apparently she (I have this nagging suspicion it was a she--the evaluations are anonymous) couldn't care whether the class was good or bad because of my intellectual abilities or how good or awful I was in the classroom.  Or, perhaps she was merely employing the old wisdom not to say anything if there is nothing good to say, which is why she didn't comment on my teaching!

Anyway, I worry that women will think that they too want to participate in no-shave-November and will stop shaving.  Their legs, of course.  hehehe ;)  It really doesn't take much to amuse me!

These are interesting and strange times.  Women might stop shaving their legs for the month.  And then, like men posting photos of their beards and mustaches, they will post photos of their hairy legs that can compete with my hairy leg.  Imagine Facebook posts of female friends proudly showing off their unshaven hairy legs!

And you thought all the scary tricks ended with Halloween!

Perhaps it is with the No-Shave-November that some will come to understand what GK Chesterton humorously said decades ago: "You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion."  Beards, like all good things in life, take time.  But, worth all the time and the effort, of course.

In time for November and this post on no-shave, a gift arrived from my daughter.  She knows the open secret that beards are more than facial hair--these are serious philosophical and religious statements ;)

Poem for a cold November night. Cold day too!

Frosty has arrived on the rooftops and on the grass.  Two consecutive mornings of feeling blasted by the cold air when I ventured out to the front porch to get the newspaper.

The car's thermometer display said 27 degrees (not in Celsius!) when I left home yesterday for work.  This morning, it feels that the overnight temperature might have been down to 20 or even the high teens.  Way, way below the normal for this time of the year.  I suppose old man winter is poking his head early through the couple of leaves left on the trees.

It is this cold because it has not rained for a while.  The sky is clear--plenty of sunlight during the day, and moonlight streams in through the windows in the night.  Makes me fondly miss the grey, overcast, and rainy conditions because if we had those rains, the temperature would never dip this low.

Back in India, in high school physics, we learnt about how cloudy nights are warmer.  That was one of the many "theoretical" ideas that made me wonder why we didn't have more local, contextual examples to work with.  I recall another situation too, which was also about heat.  In that word problem, a guy orders coffee for himself and his friend, who is expected to join him in five minutes.  He adds cream to his cup of coffee, while the friend's coffee is black.  The question asked us to think about which cup would be the warmer of the two when the friend arrives after five minutes.

I had no problems working out the physics of cooling.  But, I could not understand why they made coffee that way--after all, I was only used to the traditional பில்ட்டர் காபி, which is something like the latte we drink here.  Perhaps it was me and my limited imagination, but back then I thought the whole coffee by itself was pretty darn stupid.  Even more confusing was the "cream" part; what the heck was that!

All because the book used examples from a cultural context that was alien to me.  Alien then.  Not strange anymore.  Now, I routinely drink black coffee, and buy cream or milk only if I have to take care of a visiting friend.

Back as a kid, "the weather outside is freezing" was also nothing but a theoretical understanding.  Now, I experience it, a lot more than I would like to.  It is almost as if I came here to this part of the world to do the practicals, as we referred to the lab work then, in order to understand the theory.

I scanned the web for poems that would tell the story of a cold night in November. I lucked out; here is one:

November Night
by Adelaide Crapsey
Listen. . .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.