The guy was
sharp on the phone and not very eager to do much, even when I gave him freedom
of speech (as we always do, having a magazine called FREE!… 2+2…). He gave me
some excuses saying that he has to be tomorrow in Estonia, and that he could not be
reached by phone, and obviously was not going to check the mail there. The way
he talked about Tallinn,
I could have thought that he was flying to Nepal or to Mars… I happened to have lived in Estonia during
6 months last year…and I appreciate among other nice features of our beloved
Baltic neighbour the great access they have to wi-fi connections in every
corner of the city and every café.
I chose the
option of just sending a quick mail at 13:00
in the afternoon, was asking for a very general opinion about the theory I am
interested in reporting, and the guy had a perfectly clear idea that he was
going to receive an e-mail mail in the next hours. It is almost 01:00 at night. No answer.
I don’t know
if it is by chance, but in the short history of FREE! Magazine, it does not
happen to be the first bad encounter with university professors. When preparing
our first issues, we had negotiations with a famous academic from the History
department, about the possibility of having a monthly column in FREE! He agreed
once and again, promised to send the material, the deadline came closer and
closer…and we never had farther news from him.
Not exactly
that University teachers are in the “top 10 of beloved professions”, I would
say, quite the opposite. Obviously not still at same level that my personal “number
ones”, the transport tickets inspectors, famous for their “friendly attitude”
and “exquisite courtesy”… With these attitudes, professors are climbing fast
in the ranking as well.
I encourage
to the nice professors and people from academic world in Finland (they
really exist my friends, keep the faith) to participate and collaborate with
FREE! Help us to spread the knowledge not only inside the classrooms, but
everywhere else!