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).
It's nights like these that make me realize how lucky I am to have such a great community to be a part of, and how lucky I am to get to be a part of it from both the undergraduate and graduate sides. It's like the best of both worlds. These people are, by and large, incredibly cool to be around. There's very little back-biting or hostility among anyone in the department, grad students or faculty. It's an easy-going vibe with a real sense of being part of the same community and working together, not against each other. From what I hear, this is by no means always the case in academia, so I feel very lucky to have this environment to learn in.
Speaking of the cool and unusual, I also had a meeting this afternoon that I had to attend. Attending a meeting isn't, of course, cool and unusual itself. But the nature of the meeting is kind of interesting to me. It's the Graduate Philosophical Association (GPA, groan, I know), which is their student group. I'm actually the secretary. The thinking was that they need someone to take notes, but any graduate student who did so would risk being left out of the discussions while doing so. As an undergrad, I don't get a vote anyway, so I'm not missing anything when I take notes. So they're happy. And I'm happy because I get to hear about everything that's going on. And my boyfriend is happy because I'm better at remembering upcoming events than he is.
I'm also going to join the undergraduate philosophical society. I may end up going for a leadership position in my junior or senior year. Not because I just want to be in charge of things but because (A) good leadership is hard to come by in student organizations and I think I'm capable and (B) it looks good on a graduate school application. I figure I'm going to get two boosts from being an officer in both the undergraduate and graduate philosophical student groups. I mean, really, how many undergrads can say that they've done that? Again, I'm very lucky to have the opportunities that I do, and I'm thrilled to death about it.
I'm off, now. I have reading for four different classes to do this weekend, plus an assignment for the fifth. Busy, busy, busy.
No comments:
Post a Comment