Latest Hiatus Explained
I've been so leery of blogging for the past six months and more because I'm fearful that another jerk will come along and leave an obnoxious comment, as someone did in October (whose content I was able to delete, although the message's shell remains). That, and I realized that so many of my blog entries were critical and complaining in nature, and I don't want to be perceived as being that kind of person, no matter the extent to which such a perception might be true--which is why I was so stung by the vicious remark left after my last post, which I had deliberately couched in what I believed to be positive, upbeat language.
Let's see what happens this time.
Long-Term Dream
It's not fun getting over this cold that I have right now, and relations are tense on the home front for the first time in months. One bright spot today, however, was the arrival in the mail from amazon.com of my copies of The Essential Peirce, Vol. 2, and John Dewey's Experience and Nature. They had been on my wish list for some time now and were a treat to myself after a larger-than-normal paycheck from Clayton at the middle of the month, and amazon had also conveniently dropped the long-time price on the Peirce from $29.95 to $22.45.
I know that it's probably ridiculous to keep buying philosophy books when I have no place to put them and when it appears increasingly unlikely that I won't be returning to grad school, but it makes me feel good, it gives me a little spot of happiness on days when I need one more than ever before. Moreover, they fill a need in my philosophy library, in the area in which I plan to specialize, should I return to graduate school--but more on that later.
Unfortunately, I haven't read any of my Kant in about a month. Rereading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising Sequence after seeing The Seeker has intruded (but has not been unwelcome) on my extracurricular philosophy reading, as have a spate of large projects in my three education classes, some of which involve working on a team with one or more other students. The good news is that I'm now over the hump as far as coursework for the semester is concerned, I'm still holding down a 4.0 in my coursework at Meramec, I am now a member of the Meramec chapters of Phi Theta Kappa (the international honorary society of the two-year college) and the Student Missouri National Education Association (SMNEA), and an easy-going guy whom I worked with at Camp Lewallen in 1998 (and could work with quite well once again, as his Program Director) has just been named the Camp Director at Swift next summer.
To return to the philosophy books: I now know with certainty that, if and when I write a dissertation, it will be on the philosophy of George Santayana, and as such, my area of specialization would be American philosophy. Therefore, it behooves me to fill out my collection of such other thinkers from the "golden age of pragmatism" at Harvard at the turn of the last century as Peirce, Dewey, and William James. My tentative plan is to return to USF for one year only, in order to write and defend a master's thesis, and then to transfer to SIUC, the best graduate department for American philosophy in the country. If I were to study at SIUC, it would have the added benefit of keeping me close to friends and family in St. Louis. While Dr. Anton back at USF would be a more-than-appropriate advisor for a dissertation on Santayana, his age concerns me (he can't be younger than his late 70's), and I'm not even sure that he would be willing to accept such a responsibility at this point in time, much less in a year or two down the road. Indeed, it may sound shallow and alarmist, but his age was my single biggest motivator last spring in pushing to finish the incomplete from my American Philosophy seminar with him from Spring 2004. Anyhow, I think that, as a realistic plan--or perhaps delusionary pipe-dream--finishing up a Ph.D. at Carbondale is inherently achievable. My thesis committee at USF, all of whose members are still there (and which includes Dr. Anton, for his expertise on Neo-Platonism), was organized to supervise my writing on Augustine. This I may still do, and in fact I'd rather write on his philosophy for the master's and Santayana's for the doctorate; I could then list medieval philosophy as an area of competence on my C.V.
That's enough for now. I have some Thera-Flu to swallow and a litter box to clean out.
More Progress
I'm now officially past the 60% mark in the Critique. I watched Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring this past week, and I would have read more Kant if I hadn't spent so much time reading to catch up in my Educational Psychology class.
Over the Hump; Fave Actors
I've read over twenty-five pages in the Critique today, so I'm now past the half-way mark (boo-yah). I also finished watching Hitchcock's The Paradine Case this evening; it's not hard to see why it's not considered one of his greater works, but it was enjoyable nonetheless--Gregory Peck improves the standing of any movie he's in. On reflection, I'd have to say that while I like both Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart quite a bit as actors (the former is my sister's favorite, the latter that of my brother-in-law and brother), Gregory Peck and Henry Fonda are my favorite classic Hollywood leading men, along with Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck from among the women.
I'm Bored, As Well As Being Boringly Pretentious
So it's really late on Friday night and I'm killing time reading about The Star Wars Holiday Special on wikipedia. First off, I can't believe that I would waste my time reading this tripe (although the idea of Bea Arthur as a barkeeper at a cantina in Mos Eisley is pretty hilarious, you have to admit), but I'm even more appalled that I would venture off and follow some of the links in the entry to other Star Wars-related articles (as if I should even care what's considered C-Canon, G-Canon, or S-Canon!).
Then I reread the title alone of my last post, and I said to myself: "Damn, you're a pretentious jackass...and without even the saving grace of being funny!" So, yeah, I should be reading more of that Critique right now, just so that I can throw out more technical Kantian terminology and give the impression to everyone who isn't a graduate student in philosophy that I know what I'm talking about--but I'm not. Viva late-night infomercials!
Like the Neo-Kantians Said (Somewhat Predictably): "Back to Kant!"
I'm reading my Critique of Pure Reason again, and over the past four days, I've read about forty pp., to the point at which I'm almost out of the entangling thickets of the Transcendental Analytic (whoopee!). I recall blogging here sometime last year about my accomplishment of pulling an all-nighter to complete the Transcendental Deduction (part of the Trans. Analytic; the main thrust of which I can't recall at this point without looking at the text, but who cares? it has nothing to do with my eventual Kant Seminar research paper topic) and enjoying a cigar afterward, so I may end up celebrating a similar ritual tonight--I only have about seven pages left to go. Once I'm in the Transcendental Dialectic, it should be (relatively) smooth reading from there on out; Kant's dense exposition of his metaphysical and epistemological framework is confined to roughly the first third of the work--the rest is mostly his application thereof--and I'm past the 40% mark (yes, I do compute these things; it keeps me sane when reading a book as lengthy and difficult as this one).
I'm motivated to delve into it again, partly because none of my classes right now are stimulating me intellectually, partly because I want to clean up my USF transcript before applying to wherever this spring (I don't expect to have all of my incompletes finished by then, but two, maybe three fewer would make things look considerably better), and partly because I've held off from beginning any other major philosophy works before I get the first Critique out of the way, and I've been dying to get into Kierkegaard, Locke, Hume, Popper, or Santayana. I'm not unmindful of the possibility of returning to grad school at some point soon, either; with my credit card debt paid off, I could actually meet my monthly expenses on a teaching assistant's paycheck once again, and that was really more of a hindrance from me pursuing my studies further than my raft of incompletes was.
Mom and I took Katie to the vet yesterday for evaluation to have the growth on her head surgically removed. Before that operation is even possible, we have to treat bad infections she has in each of her ears, so the two of us attempt to administer six drops of medicine into each ear, twice a day. It's my job to wrap Katie in a towel and try keeping her immobile, and Mom does the rest, but it's doubtful that we manage to get a full six drops into either ear any time we try this routine; even at her advanced age, she puts up quite a struggle. As Katie is seventeen now, has a Stage 3 heart murmur, and her kidneys aren't working as well as they should, the vet will perform blood work to gauge the strength of Katie's system to safely process the anaesthetic before we decide whether or not to risk the operation (the surgery itself should be fairly simple, the vet told us; the growth is restricted to the surface of her skin--the question is really whether or not Katie would survive anaesthesia). We'll take her back to the vet's office in about two weeks, to see whether the ear infections have cleared up. The estimates on the surgery itself range from about $320-$485.
I made the mistake of teaching Mom how to play Phase 10 Friday night. Tonight was our second game, and she edged me out in a close match. I also finished reading Balthazar this morning and began Mountolive, and this past weekend I completed watching Show Boat, as well as Fiddler on the Roof, The Goodbye Girl, Smiles of a Summer Night, and The Sheik over the past week.
Woudl anyone that reads this blog please leave a comment, any comment? I'd really like to get the comments left over from this spring's flame war off the page, but I'd rather not have to delete them if I can help it. Thanks!
What's New
So I lost much of the desire to blog after the flame war(s) this spring, and then I went to camp for ten weeks. Well, I've now been home for about four weeks now, and am already two weeks into classes. I increased my courseload this fall to fifteen hours from twelve, thinking that this way I could definitely be finished in only four more semesters, and I wouldn't have to take courses next summer to be done with the program and applying for jobs in May 2009 (this was also enabled by my father's large monetary gift to me from his share of my grandmother's estate). Now, however, I'm questioning the wisdom of my decision, as I'll be taking courses for two-and-a-half years for only a teaching certificate, not even a second bachelor's, much less a master's. On that note, I've begun looking into some of the master's programs that lead to a certificate at the private universities in town. I've also joined a Sea Scout ship here in town; I finally did what I've been saying I'd do for the past two summers at Swift, join a Venturing unit in my district, and I'm actually learning quite a bit about sailing in the process.
My courses this fall are Regional Geography: Geography of the Eastern World (like I really need this one), Structures of Mathematical Systems II, Foundations of American Education, Technology for Teachers, and Educational Psychology. Amusingly enough, I realized immediately upon walking into the first meeting of Ed. Psych. that it's being taught by my former assistant principal, although thus far, she hasn't recognized me from my earlier days; let's just hope that it stays that way. The professor for my Foundations class has grudgingly allowed me to turn in one of my assignments early (a report on a school board meeting I've attended, not due until Nov. 6), but is almost sure to say no to my second request for her to accept a paper before its due date (on philosophy of education, no less; as if I really need to research this one); I guess she's concerned about having a student who's turned in assignments worth nearly two-thirds of the final grade by the third week of classes.
I really should be cleaning the house right now, in preparation for my brother and sister-in-law's arrival...at some indeterminate time tomorrow that keeps being pushed back...but I don't really feel like it just at the moment. I'm on the second volume of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, Balthazar, and I waited in line at the DMV (for the second time in a week) to get my tags renewed today, as well as having accomplished a fair amount of straightening-up already, so I feel that I've earned some Pete's-needs-come-first time. I finished watching Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet's The Verdict last night, and today I began watching Show Boat. "Old Man River just keeps rollin' along..."
Irksome Catchphrases in Danger of Becoming Cliched Memes
My nominee is: 'carbon footprint.'
I have no problem with the notion of conceptualizing the quantity of carbon dioxide we're adding to the atmosphere--I'm as alarmed by global warming as anyone else out there--but this metaphor, for some inexplicable reason, is really starting to get on my nerves.
