Monday, August 24, 2009

I told a friend today I was going to quit blogging...

But I didn't realize I was going to end up at the public library sans the cash necessary to copy out my readings for wednesday. Thus, the heat outside keeps me looking for things to do inside and this will suffice until the back of my neck dries...

I have have mentioned before how uncanny it is to now live in a college town in the mountains. Everything breathes and sighs and moans the University. I enjoy watching it. Sorority girls (shit tons of them, their fathers should be ashamed, and I am not even kidding), a decent college radio station (though the NPR stations play news for 2 hrs in the morning and 2 in the evening), and a main drag of bars that provide for some of the most provocative people watching I have ever experienced. It is a spectacle. I have been trying to wrap my mind around "Game Days" when the town will swell to cheer on the football team. These have always been alien things to me. The town my college was in was a desert and we occupied a terrarium inside of a bell jar inside of it. The City did not seem to care to much what you were studying and prefered it if you got out of it's damn way. It is just so jarring. This is not to say that I don't like. Anything but to be honest. Everythings is within walking distance. The elevation means it is 10degrees cooler here than anywhere else in the state. It is full of life in a way that only a town full of young people can generate. My public library card bears the quote, "In our youth our hears were touched with fire." That is Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr. (This card is red, the blue was a much nicer color but had a T.S. Eliot quote, which I can do without) I suppose this to be the case.
(Rambles somemore)
First class of the day, of the semester, of the school year, of my career at this institution. Since so few of my NSU credits transerred I am, in essence, starting my MA over again. I decided against taking Symbolic Logic (since I know NOTHING about logic and this course would be easy I was told if I was any good at college level math and since I chose philosophy I think we know how that went). So what was my first class? "20th Century Continental Philosophy." I must be quick not to judge or despair. I sat through the entire class maybe taking 3 lines worth of notes, maybe. The topic for today? What is 20th Century Continental Philosophy? I must be quick not to judge or despair. I suppose I decided to play to my strengths. I had no idea that I was truly going to be starting over. I have read everything on the syllabus except the Husserl (which I am only nominally excited about being exposed to). It will be review. Relearning how to read for both myself and others. This summer has been about me. I have torn through many books. I have been working on all the back issues of The New Yorker that have escaped my reading since the spring (even the Fiction). So the idea of having to read for anything other than enjoyment is, well, hrmm, not too exciting. It feels intrusive to me now. Especially since I have formed my own opinions (some more learned than others) about what I have to write about again. This sounds arrogant or repugnant I am sure but its how I feel.
Oh well, cheers.

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