Hi, I'm Jeff...
What up, cruel world? It's JBP, back again. Yo.
If I could pin the failure to update on just one thing, I'd say it's the fact that life couldn't rock more hardcore right now. No joke...I have nothing bad to say about Life. Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are falling a little behind -- but Life is really the ring-leader of that show, anyways.
I could attempt to rehash the basic gist of the past month or so, but something tells me my only moral obligation is for the cliff-notes version. So here it is: Classes started up and are going great. I've got a course in Philosophy of Science and one in Metaphysics & Ethics (this one, thankfully, covers my ass on ethics distribution...too much intuition pumping for me). Both classes are going well, as is the course I'm TA'ing for with Prof. Sidelle. I'm in love with the teaching responsibilities this job has. I have so much fun directing class discussions...and I think, just now, I realized why. I make a handful of jokes in class, but I just realized that my enjoyment of the teaching gig is probably, at least in part, due to the fact that my sense of humor -- half dry, half sardonic, half observational -- is perfectly suited for the academic atmosphere. The students laugh and I get plenty of opportunities to be creative with the melding and sculpting of ideas. No, really...the students laugh. I'm funny. Screw you.
As a segway between academia and social life, I should say my classmates are great. I'm quite literally the only single one of them all, but several are in variable-length-distance relationships, so they still come out quite a bit. And that's the problem. I'll explain by way of anecdote: I called up one of the posse a couple days back and, as it turns out, they were all gathered over at someone's house for "a night in from the bars." Fair...but as the night progresses, everyone comes to the understanding that this is, in fact, a pleasant change from the bar scene and we should do it as a regular thing. Thus comes the scheduling conflict. It goes back and forth between, "How about Tuesday nights?"..."No, that's Kareokee."..."Thursdays?"..."That's the night we can actually get everyone from the department out to the bars."..."Wednesdays?"..."No, that's the girls' night/guys' night out"...."Friday?"..."We can't stay in on the weekends."...and it went on from there. Quite literally, since I arrived in Madtown, I've been out at least 4 nights a week. That may sound acceptable, but keep in mind I work three nights a week, two of which I often close past bartime. I almost feel like I'm back at Tulane with the insouciant stops by JMD's room and peaceful nights on the balcony.
How may a man do this, you ask? A PhD program's workload, teaching responsibilities, and a life?!? Simple: give up sleep. You all (unless I've recently acquired new readers up from up here) know my philosophy on sleeping, and how I put that into practice during my Tulane years. Unfortunately, that faded at NIU, where I probably averaged around 7 hours or so a night. Perhaps it was boredom or a general, lackadaisical end-goal, but I just couldn't keep myself occupied enough to motivate less sleep. But up here, I'm back to the 4.5 a night -- and I'm feeling great. So, at least at this point, I'm more than keeping up on all my responsibilities, pulling 9-5's at the office (literally, though they sometimes go to 5:45 or 6 if I'm towards the end of a particularly difficult text), enjoying a couple hours of downtime and general life-upkeep, followed by a healthy dose of social interaction, leading to a well-balanced JBP and a peaceful night's sleep to be repeated ad infinitum.
There are a couple interesting projects on the horizon I'll talk about soon, including updating the whole working situation and (lack of a) love life, but this "update" has already taken up too much of your time. Thanks for all the messages I got berating me in loving kindness to tell tales about my life up here. I know it's the only way I consistently keep up with my friends, outside the occasional, random phone call. I'll try to write again soon and get back into the habit of DW. Till then...
Namaste'.
If I could pin the failure to update on just one thing, I'd say it's the fact that life couldn't rock more hardcore right now. No joke...I have nothing bad to say about Life. Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are falling a little behind -- but Life is really the ring-leader of that show, anyways.
I could attempt to rehash the basic gist of the past month or so, but something tells me my only moral obligation is for the cliff-notes version. So here it is: Classes started up and are going great. I've got a course in Philosophy of Science and one in Metaphysics & Ethics (this one, thankfully, covers my ass on ethics distribution...too much intuition pumping for me). Both classes are going well, as is the course I'm TA'ing for with Prof. Sidelle. I'm in love with the teaching responsibilities this job has. I have so much fun directing class discussions...and I think, just now, I realized why. I make a handful of jokes in class, but I just realized that my enjoyment of the teaching gig is probably, at least in part, due to the fact that my sense of humor -- half dry, half sardonic, half observational -- is perfectly suited for the academic atmosphere. The students laugh and I get plenty of opportunities to be creative with the melding and sculpting of ideas. No, really...the students laugh. I'm funny. Screw you.
As a segway between academia and social life, I should say my classmates are great. I'm quite literally the only single one of them all, but several are in variable-length-distance relationships, so they still come out quite a bit. And that's the problem. I'll explain by way of anecdote: I called up one of the posse a couple days back and, as it turns out, they were all gathered over at someone's house for "a night in from the bars." Fair...but as the night progresses, everyone comes to the understanding that this is, in fact, a pleasant change from the bar scene and we should do it as a regular thing. Thus comes the scheduling conflict. It goes back and forth between, "How about Tuesday nights?"..."No, that's Kareokee."..."Thursdays?"..."That's the night we can actually get everyone from the department out to the bars."..."Wednesdays?"..."No, that's the girls' night/guys' night out"...."Friday?"..."We can't stay in on the weekends."...and it went on from there. Quite literally, since I arrived in Madtown, I've been out at least 4 nights a week. That may sound acceptable, but keep in mind I work three nights a week, two of which I often close past bartime. I almost feel like I'm back at Tulane with the insouciant stops by JMD's room and peaceful nights on the balcony.
How may a man do this, you ask? A PhD program's workload, teaching responsibilities, and a life?!? Simple: give up sleep. You all (unless I've recently acquired new readers up from up here) know my philosophy on sleeping, and how I put that into practice during my Tulane years. Unfortunately, that faded at NIU, where I probably averaged around 7 hours or so a night. Perhaps it was boredom or a general, lackadaisical end-goal, but I just couldn't keep myself occupied enough to motivate less sleep. But up here, I'm back to the 4.5 a night -- and I'm feeling great. So, at least at this point, I'm more than keeping up on all my responsibilities, pulling 9-5's at the office (literally, though they sometimes go to 5:45 or 6 if I'm towards the end of a particularly difficult text), enjoying a couple hours of downtime and general life-upkeep, followed by a healthy dose of social interaction, leading to a well-balanced JBP and a peaceful night's sleep to be repeated ad infinitum.
There are a couple interesting projects on the horizon I'll talk about soon, including updating the whole working situation and (lack of a) love life, but this "update" has already taken up too much of your time. Thanks for all the messages I got berating me in loving kindness to tell tales about my life up here. I know it's the only way I consistently keep up with my friends, outside the occasional, random phone call. I'll try to write again soon and get back into the habit of DW. Till then...
Namaste'.
posted by J.B.P. at 11:42 AM
3 Comments:
I will leave you with two thoughts I have espoused time and again and which you are proving the principles still hold true to this day, even for us old guys.
"You can sleep when you are dead"
-JMD
Life is composed of three things: work(school), Fun, and Sleep. In order to be great, you can only choose two of these. I usually drop sleep.
-JMD
Good to see you doing well. Hopefully we can play another game of scrabble and I will catch you one of these nights to talk and play some backgammon or chess. We haven't caught up in a while and need to pronto.
He lives!!!
Sounds like you are right where you need to be! I'm happy for you!
em
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