By the way, I was testing the new toy (comment text search) and found this which I believe will be very useful for you:

http://community.livejournal.com/learn_russian/407758.html?thread=6109134&format=light#t6109134

In short, I don't recommend you to use Russian obscenities (including, but not limited to, мат) in anything official (writing papers, speaking to your professors) at all because you don't feel the level of obscenity (yet; hopefully you will get it eventually) and will sound either offending or ridiculous.