kicks in the pants, lighting fires

Feeling somewhat irritable. I want to kick my research group in the pants. I'm envious of the communities that many of you are in. (also: it's pretty ludicrous how much time we at IU spend teaching, being supposed researchers...)

We (hltdi people, also CL/NLP people at Indiana) need to get some momentum and some buzz and some group identity. It would probably help if we could recruit some new students. But I still don't know what my supposed labmates are supposedly working on.

Lindsey suggested that should I air my grievances to people who aren't her; she can't solve hltdi's problems. She's right: I should air my grievances to people actually involved with hltdi. So I'm doing that now. I mean, in addition to bitching about it on livejournal.

I've started letting people know that I'm not happy with our setup; the question is, how much flame should I use when flaming my colleagues? I don't want to spend N years fiddling around in the dark, but I don't want to be a loud demanding jerk either. Maybe a loud, demanding motivating person. (?)

I might hate (many) academics. Lazy schmucks.

(My own work is going OK, though, I suppose...)