Comments on: Tea musings while listening to the rain

By: Collie

Collie — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:13:12 +0000

Rick: Why thank you! Alas, I shall not be breeding — you'll have to take care of that for us all. :)

Bob: What, the straw in your coffee wasn't surreal enough? Careful what you wish for, guy! :) Re hyper-rationality: I guess what I really want is logic with heart. I think Lady Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace (1815-1852), the first computer programmer, said it best when she wrote in a letter to her mother (who was adamant about her daughter receiving a hard-science education in a time where women weren't considered intelligent enough to do so), "You will not concede me philosophical poetry. Invert the order! Will you give me poetical philosophy, poetical science?" If that means we allow for more intutive leaps and empathy with our subjects of study, then I think both we and science will benefit thereby.

Re cities: I like visiting them, not living in them. I prefer actually living someplace where I can still hear myself think.

Re criteria for success, I'd vote for the passing grade if we provide brownies for everyone. Heck, I'll even add frosting on top, and we can make a party out of it for our last class! Oh, wait, we already did… and yes, you are correct: I love all the fascinating reading. ;)

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 12:04:24 +0000

Recognizing your innate, if personally distasteful, reactions is what sets you apart from the vast majority of xenophobic/homophobic/racist/intolerant people. We all have an inborn aversion to 'them', but only those who recognize this as a useless throwback to our pre-tribal days will allow us as a species to progress.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 06:00:13 +0000

...clearly I am not a surrealist.

Collie, I think you the type of person least likely to believe we've succumbed to "excessive rational thought," no matter your disdain for overly rigid establishments. Surrealism was, in some ways, supposed to be an anti-magnetic pole to what they saw as hyper-rationalism, creating art and thought so "anti-rational" as to pull people's thinking out of the grip of false rationality, restrictive customs, and coercive structures. While you have trouble with their method, I think you have some sympathy for their aims. I'm reminded of some of the folks I've met that have absolutely fascinating theories and insights and, when you ask them how they came to this understanding, they say something like: Oh, one of my fae incarnations was a kryxtal harmonizer during the Second Atlantean Purge, and I learned it from a future-echo of my spirit guide. ..blink.. OK, how much more surreal, and anti-hyper-rational can it get?

...when I mentioned my shock at having over 30 books to read for this semester...

Which you love, at the same time it makes you crazy. :)

I know, of course, that we're expected as doctoral students to be more proactive regarding our courses of study, but holy cow!

I think they've confused "self direction" with "no direction." At the very least, they should have published some criteria for success. Attendance? X Papers of Y Quality? Brownies for everyone? Are they even telling you what the hurdles are? Other than attendance, what gets you a good grade in these classes? Is it totally subjective?

In some ways it's embarrassing — I'm used to living in a diverse-ethnicity neighborhood, so I guess I'd gotten complacent. ... They were louder than folks where I live, they moved differently than I was used to, I didn't know what to expect from them…

You're also not much of a "city girl" and don't really like the kind of "busy all around" or "bustle" being in the city gives you. There's always somebody (clean, dirty, quiet, loud, whatever) moving around and doing stuff, noise, moving vehicles, etc. It's just different.

Once I figured out I was simply having a classist response and wasn't actually under threat, I was good to go, of course.

Instead of a rational response, you could have done something surreal. :)