Abandon sageliness and discard knowledge, and the people will benefit a hundredfold.
Abandon humanity and discard righteousness, and the people will return to filial piety and care.
Abandon skill and discard profit, and there will be no thieves or robbers.
These three sayings:
They are are not yet sufficient for forming a pattern,
thus they shall be connected with something.
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness, have less desires,
abandon learning, have no worries.
-The Dao De Jeng Chapter 19
(Special thanks to Dr. Wong.)
Showing posts with label graduate school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graduate school. Show all posts
Penulitmate Blog on Graduate School
I am about to finish college 2.0, and I am remarkably unstressed. That is, I am unstressed at the moment I am writing this. I could be losing my mind tomorrow. But for now, I'm good.
I am, bluntly put, resigned about academia for the time being. I am not expecting any of my papers to be stellar, propel-you-into-PhD, or present-at-conference quality. The learning curve for my Kierkegaard class and my Aristotle class is simply to high for me to accomplish that. My paper for the Pascal class -which I really hoped to do well in- is going to suffer as a consequence. Yes: all my papers will be of "promising start" quality. They will not be superb quality. They will, however, be finished.
For the remaining weeks I plan to dedicate a certain amount of time each day to my writing of these papers. I find that simply petting my iPod timer to something like ninety minutes at a time, ignoring everything else, and just writing takes away a tremendous amount of stress. I will be getting two to three hours of work done each day. That should give me enough time to get the papers done.
After those are done, I simply have to defend a paper in front of three professors. It will be the paper I wrote for my Aquinas class. You know, that preamble to Open Theism I wrote a year ago. I expect that to go evenly. It will be intimidating for sure, but I do not expect a fail.
In the meantime, I am applying for jobs around Los Angeles, renewing my passport, getting materials ready for my applications to Korea, and looking foreward -with great excitement- to my trip to Portland.
I am, bluntly put, resigned about academia for the time being. I am not expecting any of my papers to be stellar, propel-you-into-PhD, or present-at-conference quality. The learning curve for my Kierkegaard class and my Aristotle class is simply to high for me to accomplish that. My paper for the Pascal class -which I really hoped to do well in- is going to suffer as a consequence. Yes: all my papers will be of "promising start" quality. They will not be superb quality. They will, however, be finished.
For the remaining weeks I plan to dedicate a certain amount of time each day to my writing of these papers. I find that simply petting my iPod timer to something like ninety minutes at a time, ignoring everything else, and just writing takes away a tremendous amount of stress. I will be getting two to three hours of work done each day. That should give me enough time to get the papers done.
After those are done, I simply have to defend a paper in front of three professors. It will be the paper I wrote for my Aquinas class. You know, that preamble to Open Theism I wrote a year ago. I expect that to go evenly. It will be intimidating for sure, but I do not expect a fail.
In the meantime, I am applying for jobs around Los Angeles, renewing my passport, getting materials ready for my applications to Korea, and looking foreward -with great excitement- to my trip to Portland.
Loyola Marymount so Far
Loyola Marymount so Far
It should be known to all by now that I live in West Los Angeles and I attend Loyola Marymount University for graduate work.
I am still doing graduate school, despite all the second guessing I’ve had about the subject. I had to turn down two good job offers in order to take out more loans to get a degree that won’t pay for itself. I am also forgoing the opportunity to travel abroad, which is something I still wish to do. I am not in a position to save as much money as I would like to, which is very bad for the time being.
Still, I like LMU. I enjoy academic life enough that I can stick with it. I remember when I attended a class last year (before I decided to go through with it), I felt that I was “home.” I feel utterly comfortable and in the right place when I sit in classes here. Even when the reading gets boring, I enjoy the overall process. I still love studying Latin and brainstorming paper ideas.
I also like the other students I am around. Philosophy students know how to party. We had a party a few nights ago, and we sat around talking. I had two beers! Isn’t it crazy?! Seriously though, it’s great to be around people and talk about literature, the problem of evil, traveling to Germany, etc.
Of course, when Philosophy students do get boring, I have many of my film students. They play beer pong. I also performed a guitar piece for them. I even got to help out in one of the movies. It’s a great serious drama about a student who chases down the tooth-fairy for her money.
Yeah, so that’s Grad school so far. Now will the powers that be PLEASE post this so they know this is not a spam blog?
It should be known to all by now that I live in West Los Angeles and I attend Loyola Marymount University for graduate work.
I am still doing graduate school, despite all the second guessing I’ve had about the subject. I had to turn down two good job offers in order to take out more loans to get a degree that won’t pay for itself. I am also forgoing the opportunity to travel abroad, which is something I still wish to do. I am not in a position to save as much money as I would like to, which is very bad for the time being.
Still, I like LMU. I enjoy academic life enough that I can stick with it. I remember when I attended a class last year (before I decided to go through with it), I felt that I was “home.” I feel utterly comfortable and in the right place when I sit in classes here. Even when the reading gets boring, I enjoy the overall process. I still love studying Latin and brainstorming paper ideas.
I also like the other students I am around. Philosophy students know how to party. We had a party a few nights ago, and we sat around talking. I had two beers! Isn’t it crazy?! Seriously though, it’s great to be around people and talk about literature, the problem of evil, traveling to Germany, etc.
Of course, when Philosophy students do get boring, I have many of my film students. They play beer pong. I also performed a guitar piece for them. I even got to help out in one of the movies. It’s a great serious drama about a student who chases down the tooth-fairy for her money.
Yeah, so that’s Grad school so far. Now will the powers that be PLEASE post this so they know this is not a spam blog?
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