<later>
today i filled out my last paperwork for teaching. my name is not yet on the schedule, but you can be damn sure i'll provide a link when, and if, possible.
i have a paper outline due tomorrow for my moral psychology class, the utterly disappointing graduate seminar i'm in this semester. i did get an A on my transformative knowledge paper, however, where i basically wrote 5 pages about how philosophy isn't what it used to be. and by used to be, i mean, philosophy the way socrates meant it (love of knowledge), to what philosophy is now in academia (love of being right/smart). or, as i put so awesomely in my paper:
"In other words, philosophy for Socrates is not about the possession of knowledge, but about the love of knowledge. Philosophy is not a tool or an accessory to be flaunted for social or academic gain, or to be appease our ever-hungry ego by becoming "better." Philosophy is about something more, something that makes us strive for virtue. The desire to be greater, not to be greater than."
my "date" came and passed with the girl in my class, and there is absolutely nothing interesting to report about it. them's the breaks. back to almost-futile yoga crushes.
i read the book ishmael, over the past couple weeks. and it is pretty much the most amazing book i have ever read. not to hype it up too much (who here is going to read it, anyway?), but good lord. just, such a fascinating concept, and the ending... oh, the ending. i just loved it, the whole possibility that ishmael talks of, the reason why the taker mentality is so bad, because of how it stunts the natural order, the natural progression of what must come next. must isn't the right word, buth how well it illuminated the concept of "HUMANS R SUPERIOR" anthropocentrist elovutionary thought.... MMM. so hot.
i can't wait until i get a chance to teach that book.
my aunt stephanie is getting married, and this is very crazy. she's 28, and the first of "our" generation (my two aunts, 28 and almost-30, me, and my 20-21 siblings) to get hitched. she's just the first "young" person to get married, from the sub-30 perspective. and it's great, her fiance is awesome and i'm so glad they are getting married, but it's kinda crazy.
speaking of crazy, brandon and i have started running together. it's good to have a partner, especially one that i can just be like, "hey jackass, you're not doing anything. come run." i've been struggling with still-not-fucking-healed shoulder, in terms of doing stuff to stay/get in shape, so running is a good medium. i still can't do more than a few pushups, the whole area is just... atrophied. in terms of pain, i have pretty much full mobility--ie, the limits to the movement aren't based on pain at all, i just can't lift it higher than X. but it will go higher if i lift it with the other arm. still no downward facing dog, though.
there's no real point to this post. i'm just not ready to go to bed.
it's late, and when it's late, i go back and reread things i shouldn't. for the longest time, i had this perfect post-secret postcard all planned out, that was going to say something to the effect of, "when my friends ask how i'm doing, if i'm getting over you, i always say, 'yeah, i'm getting there.' but it's always a lie. ... i will never get over you."
i wrote the following, over three years ago:
"it's funny, people always talk about how a person's first Love, how they really do stay with them, in some way or another, forever. and i guess i just never really thought about it. i don't know why i remain so stupidly optimistic about it, always remembering the good memories, thinking about the good that was. but i guess that's just my hopeless-romantic streak. i told myself, about a month ago, that when this happened, i was going to have to get over it. make the choice to let it fade away. and it just feels like this giant failure. where Love doesn't win.
i'm sorry, i'm going on and on and and on, i'm done. i'm sorry. i know someday you'll have a beautiful life. and now, i guess i'm just trying to make it so that's enough. it's foolish and irrational and against your wishes and in no way healthy... but part of me will always be in Love. always, and never."
the strength, passion, of this no longer remains, but at its core, it is still true, that eternal aspect. it's just like, you know, when you're in that bad space, and you just seek out the bad. like these old conversations--just, pure, painful truth.
it doesn't affect me often anymore. but like the injured knee or back--it's never really, fully, truly gone.
i shouldn't post this. but not posting would be censoring, and we don't do that anymore.
in the fall, i am teaching critical thinking on tuesdays and thursdays, from 9:35-10:50. i will be TAing chinese philosophy with the same awesome professor who will, undoubtedly, be one of the chairs for my thesis, and i will be taking an environmental ethics seminar with the professor i'm currently a TA for. and i MIGHT take a creative writing class. next semester will, finally, be 100% of what i want to be doing.
except your mom. because i'm going to want to be doing her too.
"why do you tell me
only things i want to hear?
why don't you tell me
this could just, disappear"
i've been taking dance lessons. i can, more or less, do the basics in the following: the rumba, the waltz, the tango, the cha-cha, and west-coast swing. ... yet i still can't remember how to lindy-hop (what i did in australia).
i have a monster crush on of the students in the class i am TAing, and we MIGHT have a date on saturday. but i have been led astray before.