Philosopher Party

Yup, another one.  The beginning of school is always full of gatherings and other fun times.  Tonight was the departmental to-do at the chair's house.  Graduate students, faculty, and various significant others, plus a general sprinkling of knee-biters.  The chair, let me say, has a very nice house.  It's the sort of thing that gives you hope while you're busy juggling a grad student's budget.  At least someone is doing well in academia.  There's at least a slim chance we might be those people someday.

I got a look at the sign-up sheet in the department where everyone was putting their RSVP and saying what they would bring for the pot-luck.  It's amazing how many items on the list were alcoholic.  Primarily a few million kinds of beer.  Now, I'm not a beer drinker.  The closest I get is Smirnoff Ice (green apple being my favorite flavor).  But, boy, do these philosophers know their beer.  I don't know what they're talking about half the time, but apparently what makes for a good beer is a hotly contested issue.  In any case, judging from what I saw when we put my Smirnoff in the cooler, they had plenty to choose from tonight.

I like these gatherings.  They're fairly low-key.  Everyone just hangs out and you get a chance to talk more than you do at the department (not that we don't do plenty of chatting at the department) without anyone having to rush off for meetings or classes or what-have-you.  You just get to be around everyone, talking about everything under the sun (and trust me, there isn't anything in the world that isn't of interest to philosophers).

First week of class - done!

So, the day after I promise to try to post every day, I forget to make a post.  My bad.  Can I plead first week of school exhaustion?  Yeah, that's the ticket.

Anywho.  I have now attended all of my classes at least once (the Philosophy Writing Workshop only meets on Thursdays).  I've even done some homework already.  I've got all my file folders labelled to keep my papers from the different classes straight.  And, later tonight, I'm going to go through and put all the due dates and stuff into a calendar format so I don't get too confused about what's due and when.  Yay for me, right?

I'm getting a little nervous about the sheer amount of work that I'm going to have to do this semester.  That's partially the reason for the calendar, which isn't something I always use.  The amount of reading and writing is a bit daunting, mostly in light of the fact that these are the first real philosophy papers I'm having to write and I'm anxious to do a good job on them.  That means that my previous method of tossing off papers for English Comp the night before isn't going to cut it anymore.  But I knew that was coming, and I've kissed that freedom goodbye already.

I'm excited about the things that I'm going to learn this year.  And I'm feeling pretty good about my native intelligence.  I had two professors this week (neither of whom are actually teaching me) compliment my intelligence and the types of comments that I tend to make.  So that made me feel pretty good.  I just know that organization is going to be key this semester, and even though that's one of my strongest talents, I worry.  Maybe that's because my other strongest talent is procrastination.  I hear that perfectionists are prone to that, and I am a bit of a perfectionist, in heart if not always in execution.  Sometimes if I think I'm not going to be able to do the job I want to do on something I get depressed and just half-ass it to get it over with.

Here's to not doing that this semester, huh?  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

First Day Fun

So I made it through the first day.  I got home earlier tonight than I usually will on Tuesdays because my Global Horror professor cut the class portion short and got straight to showing the film (Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau, 1922).  It's not too long, so off we went.

All in all, I'm very pleased with how this semester looks like it's going to go.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm going to be working my happy little butt off.  I'm going to have a ton of reading and a ton of writing.  Two papers for the major philosophy classes (one short and one long each), and the papers for the film class (again one short and one long) are actually even longer than the philosophy papers.  So it's not like I'm expecting to be able to coast along here.  I'm going to have to make very good use of all the free days I've carved out of my week in order to keep up with all of this.  Time for Kimmy's organizational OCD to kick in, and thank goodness for it.

But the courses look like they're going to be a lot of fun.  Ancient Philosophy isn't really my area, but I get that it's the bedrock of the discipline, and besides my professor seems like he's going to be fantastic.  Phil Lit is just flat going to be great, I think.  The focus is on death, dying, death anxiety and such things.  The ethics course looks like it's going to cover everything I need for a basic understanding in a really interesting way.  And the film course is going to be an absolute bonanza of stuff I've always wanted to see and some really cool-sounding things I've never heard of (Bollywood musical horror, anyone?).  Especially considering that I think I may be looking at working in philosophy of film (focus on horror), the combination of the Phil Lit course and the Global Horror course is going to be absolute dynamite.

After all those long slogs through dreadful gen-ed courses taught by indifferent grad students, this semester looks like it's going to be intellectual heaven.  Yippee!!

Big day tomorrow

At 10:30 am tomorrow, I officially begin my first day of the new school year.  Of course, I'll be on campus at least a half an hour before that, if not a full hour.  It's not like I'm going to get any sleep tonight anyway (though we did finally get that new bed we've been needing - yay!).  First day jitters are a curse I've suffered for a long time.  But I've bought some cool new t-shirts (one featuring zombies and the other featuring 80s nostalgia kitsch), so at least I know I'll look the way I want.  And I've got all my books and a new notebook and a whole box of new pens.  Plus I've got a new backpack on order that should arrive by next weekend (shipping slightly delayed).  So I'm really all set.

But there's one last thing that's going to happen first.  See, on the first day of the semester all the philosophy graduate students get together for a meeting with the chair and the grad director.  They go over some stuff (I don't know what, exactly, I'm not in the meeting), then the pre-existing grad students all go off for some drinks while the new crop starts the pro-seminar.  I don't get to go to the meeting, but I do get to hang around the office and go for the drinks afterwards.

Now, I'm not going to drink too much because I'm not 23 anymore and I can't handle that like I used to and I have to get up early.  But I'm going to have enough to lubricate a bit.  Which means I stand a good chance of acting like a complete twit in front of my ethics teacher for the semester and one or more TAs who will be working my classes.  I've been told that I'm quite amusing drunk (I can't tell, because...drunk).  So maybe it won't be so bad.  And like I said, I'm going to moderate the alcohol intake.  Still, I'm hoping it will provide a nice loosening for my attitude so my first day isn't quite so tense.  Besides, it's not like my ethics teacher has never seen me drunk before.  Partying with philosophy grad students is so much fun.

Student. Adult. Whatever.

So here's an interesting thing about my college experience.  I met most of my philosophy professors before I was a college student.  My boyfriend was already in the grad program finishing his masters before heading on to the Ph.D., so I attended the social functions.  I hung out in the department lounge (quite the hopping joint during the semester) when I didn't have anywhere else to be.  And I didn't meet them from the perspective of a student.  I met them from the perspective of an adult.  Which means I was introduced to them by first name on a more or less even footing.  I wasn't even planning on a philosophy major at the time, so it didn't seem like much of an issue.

Now that I am an enrolled major, though, things have gotten a bit odd.  I still call them by first name when I'm hanging out in the lounge.  I'm an adult, after all, the same as them, and it just seems odd to call them by their last names.  Hell, it took me most of my freshman year to learn their last names, since the grad students I hang out with almost exclusively use first names for the professors (and because I'm not very good at remembering names in general).  And in a graduate class it's okay to refer to the professors by first name.  Grad students are treated something like junior colleagues, so they have that level of familiarity.

What gets weird is when I'm in a class with these folks.  'Cause, see, I'm an undergraduate.  Undergrads generally don't use that level of familiarity with professors unless specifically granted the privilege.  For example, several of the grad student teachers allow their classes to use their first names.  For the professors, though, that's far less common.  So I'm in a situation where my first impulse is to unthinkingly call my teachers by their first names when everyone else around me is using "Dr. _________" to talk to them.  I have to consciously tell myself what to call them.

My solution?  I tend not to use names at all in class.  I just wait until things are quiet before talking so I don't have to specifically attract attention.  Is it the coward's way out?  Most likely.  But it prevents embarrassing mistakes, and that's really all I ask for.

18 Again (Or Something Like It)

So, as I mentioned, I'm going to be thirty-one next month and I'm starting my sophomore year in college.  Me and a few thousand other people, especially with the economy being as it is.  Lots of adults are going back to college to get degrees for new lines of work, or for advancement in their existing lines of work.  But there's a difference between me and them.  Most of them are working either part or full time, and many of them have spouses and/or children.

I, on the other hand, am intentionally unemployed for the first time since I was seventeen.  I'm unemployed and in school.  I have no real responsibilities beyond my homework.  I spend my free time playing video games or watching DVDs with my boyfriend (who is, as I've mentioned, ever so kindly footing the bills).  My life at this exact moment is not concretely different than the lives of my fellow sophomores.

That's what's so odd about this.  I've worked all my life, trying to pay my own way as much as I could.  I didn't want to go to college right out of high school, because I didn't think I needed it.  Then, once I realized that I did, it seemed like it was too late.  So I kept working.  I kept working, and getting more and more miserable until everything seemed like it was about to explode.

Changing times

Actually, my main problem is that my times aren't changing much.  See, my classes start at 10:30 am this semester.  Which means I have to get to bed at something resembling a halfway decent hour in order to be awake and alert for my first class (which is, coincidentally, one of the harder ones).  Have a look at the time stamp on this post and tell me how you think that's going.

*sigh*

I suck at getting to bed on time.  I'm too much of a night owl.  I've got to do something about this.

Sophomore year approaches

Next Tuesday will be my first day of school for my sophomore year at university.  You would think I would be less nervous.  See, I'm going to be thirty-one next month.  I have years of life experience that I can draw on.  I'm auto-didactic enough to be well-read in a variety of areas.  I've held jobs with enormous value and pressure (if never enormous prestige and salary).  Hell, I've even taught training classes before, sometimes to people with actual authority over me.  Why should I be nervous?

Beats me, but I am.  I always get nervous before starting anything new.  And although college itself isn't new this year, the classes are.  I'm finally getting into some of the meat of my new discipline (philosophy), and it's going to be time to put up or shut up.  That's a bit nerve wracking, I think.  Plus, one of my classes is being taught by the chair of the department.  I really want to impress him (or least not impress him as being foolish).  But hey, no pressure, right?

I watch the kids on campus and I just know that they all think their troubles will be over once they're real live adults.  If only they knew.  I think most of us are just pretending anyway.  I've been married.  I've had real jobs in corporate America.  I've held my own with bills and creditors and budget planning and all the stuff you're supposed to do when you grow up.  I hated it.  I hated the marriage, I hated the job, I hated trying to stretch the pathetic salary far enough to keep the electricity on and still have a little fun.