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Crazy Old Bats and Other Things
Aug. 26th, 2004 10:52 pmI have a feeling that, as November draws closer, I will be spending less and less time at home, and more time going my studying in the library, or on campus somewhere, or whatever. Not at home. Because it's really hard to concentrate on reading and learning languages when my dad is being a fucktard and bellowing about politics. (The Swift Boat guys are full of shit, and at the least, Kerry isn't horribly disingenuous the way Bush is. Maybe he's said some appaling things, but they weren't the sort of horrible lies Bush spouts on a daily basis. Arg.)
Ethics today was annoying. The reading for today was ten pages. And these pages are in a small book (something like four or five inches wide and six inches tall - I'm terrible at estimating distances), and the text is by no means densely packed. Before class I wondered if we could possibly spend the entire hour and a half of class time discussing such a tiny reading. And the answer turned out to be yes. Because the discussion kept getting held up. There's a guy in the class, much older, who rambles on and on in a slow manner, but doesn't say much that is relevant to the discussion. Okay, right, so if he'd been born 100 years earlier than he actually was, he would have been a slave. What the hell does that have to do with morality being possible without god? But he wasn't the only one either. Most people seemed to get sidetracked by other issues, like whether there is a god or not, or the rightness/wrongness of specific examples. Not. The. POINT. The question was if morality is dependent on god or not. Can we all just assume a god for the sake of argument? Philosophy classes were not designed so that you could espouse your opinions. They are for asking certain questions, examining ideas, evaluating arguments, that sort of thing. Disciplined thinking. Not for opining and talking past each other and avoiding the question at hand.
I spent my entire break between classes sitting at the MSSA Welcome Back Days table. (Ack, atrocious phrasing there.) Our spot was nice and shady most of the time I was there, being under a tree and all. We got about a dozen new people on the mailing list. And a few others took an events calendar without getting on the list. We also had a crazy old bat wander by. That's the only way to describe her. First she stopped at the table and said something totally inaudible that might have included the word "prejudice." And I think it was a question, but I really couldn't hear her and she wouldn't speak up. Then she did the same at the table next to us. And then came back to ours and insisted that we'd spelled "medieval" wrong. "[It's m-e-d-i-e-v]-i-l." (Most of that is in brackets because I didn't actually hear anything until the "i-l" part, which was the only thing she ever said loud enough to hear clearly.) Then she muttered something about being in those times now, and something about "real" and finally went away.
This semester, for the first time at this school, I have a class with freshmen. This would be the acting class, which is getting bigger with overflow from the 160 class. And of course, they are definitely not like Reed freshmen, who can't display the same brand of silliness as one of the girls in the class. She strikes me as overeager and not especially bright. And I do wonder if she'll last in the department. She seems very eager to please but doesn't seem to have a knack for professionalism or for paying attention. (A nightmare to direct, I would imagine, having to be reminded of a lot of things. Like getting off book, to name one example.) As for the rest of the class, a couple people seem capable of professionalism, yet still have fun with things. The sort of people for whom the theater is a natural place for them to be. The rest, however, I don't know about yet. I guess I would say that there are several who seem to be in theater not for the love of it but for some other reason. Vanity, maybe. Perhaps a half-baked dream. Who knows. I shouldn't presume to. But I do perceive a difference in approach. Maybe several differences. It's hard to tell, though, because we've had some personnel changes, and so I haven't had a chance to observe everyone as much as some. I just hope I can honestly count myself among those who do theater simply for the love of it.
Ethics today was annoying. The reading for today was ten pages. And these pages are in a small book (something like four or five inches wide and six inches tall - I'm terrible at estimating distances), and the text is by no means densely packed. Before class I wondered if we could possibly spend the entire hour and a half of class time discussing such a tiny reading. And the answer turned out to be yes. Because the discussion kept getting held up. There's a guy in the class, much older, who rambles on and on in a slow manner, but doesn't say much that is relevant to the discussion. Okay, right, so if he'd been born 100 years earlier than he actually was, he would have been a slave. What the hell does that have to do with morality being possible without god? But he wasn't the only one either. Most people seemed to get sidetracked by other issues, like whether there is a god or not, or the rightness/wrongness of specific examples. Not. The. POINT. The question was if morality is dependent on god or not. Can we all just assume a god for the sake of argument? Philosophy classes were not designed so that you could espouse your opinions. They are for asking certain questions, examining ideas, evaluating arguments, that sort of thing. Disciplined thinking. Not for opining and talking past each other and avoiding the question at hand.
I spent my entire break between classes sitting at the MSSA Welcome Back Days table. (Ack, atrocious phrasing there.) Our spot was nice and shady most of the time I was there, being under a tree and all. We got about a dozen new people on the mailing list. And a few others took an events calendar without getting on the list. We also had a crazy old bat wander by. That's the only way to describe her. First she stopped at the table and said something totally inaudible that might have included the word "prejudice." And I think it was a question, but I really couldn't hear her and she wouldn't speak up. Then she did the same at the table next to us. And then came back to ours and insisted that we'd spelled "medieval" wrong. "[It's m-e-d-i-e-v]-i-l." (Most of that is in brackets because I didn't actually hear anything until the "i-l" part, which was the only thing she ever said loud enough to hear clearly.) Then she muttered something about being in those times now, and something about "real" and finally went away.
This semester, for the first time at this school, I have a class with freshmen. This would be the acting class, which is getting bigger with overflow from the 160 class. And of course, they are definitely not like Reed freshmen, who can't display the same brand of silliness as one of the girls in the class. She strikes me as overeager and not especially bright. And I do wonder if she'll last in the department. She seems very eager to please but doesn't seem to have a knack for professionalism or for paying attention. (A nightmare to direct, I would imagine, having to be reminded of a lot of things. Like getting off book, to name one example.) As for the rest of the class, a couple people seem capable of professionalism, yet still have fun with things. The sort of people for whom the theater is a natural place for them to be. The rest, however, I don't know about yet. I guess I would say that there are several who seem to be in theater not for the love of it but for some other reason. Vanity, maybe. Perhaps a half-baked dream. Who knows. I shouldn't presume to. But I do perceive a difference in approach. Maybe several differences. It's hard to tell, though, because we've had some personnel changes, and so I haven't had a chance to observe everyone as much as some. I just hope I can honestly count myself among those who do theater simply for the love of it.
