Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: Academics

Classes and coursework.

Comcast Sucks

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!

So, I got home to find Comcast prompting for installation of software, which I take issue with, having successfully used the service nearly two years now and not needing to do that. Of course, I couldn’t find any actual open number to call for help, so I’m sitting in Bauhaus catching up on paperwork, and trying to be committed to the idea of typing in this thing every evening. (Technically, I acknowledge I’ve already posted here today, but habit is habit.)

I’ve spent the last hour getting a message board together for 390, sending out information about the focus group, modifying the mailing list, and posting a few different items to said message board. I’m always surprised at how much additional work PFing* is; it’s not just doing the readings to the point that you can discuss them confidently, it’s the grading and the communicating and the… ohyeah, I’d wanted to create a smaller mailing list for “my” students. Gotta remember to do that before heading home.

But, oddly, I’m on top of things right now, which is an odd feeling. Then again, Phillip and I sat down today and knocked out a reading list for the next two quarters, and I have authors like Locke, Bentham, Mill, Spinoza, Deleuze, Hayles, Massumi, Serres, and so on starring at me. Being the glutton for punishment I am, I’m starting chronologically; this will be the quarter of philosophical backgrounds to autonomy. Thankfully, I can combine at least one reading with my intellectual history class, so that’ll be a small load off.

Where was I? Oh right. Comcast sucks. And because they suck, I don’t have my course reader for 390 with me, which means I won’t be posting my thoughts on Geertz, exoticization, eroticization, The Other and positionality. Perhaps tomorrow, when I’m tired of beating my head against a computer screen at work.

*PFing – shorthand for Peer Facillitating, which is basically an undergraduate student functioning as a teacher’s assistant. We create lesson plans, lead discussions, grade papers, and give feedback to the prof. It’s just that instead of being paid, we pay for the privilege. But it’s great experience; this is the third time I’ve done it, and I’m hoping for at least one more course this year. It’s weird, but it’s something I really and truly love to do.

Weir’s Semiotics 101

Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!

So, in the grand tradition of my own adviser, I’m offering 101 short courses during my teaching time. Today I’m planning on Semiotics 101, since Geertz uses the word a few times in the course of the readings assigned for this week, and Tuesday’s class suggested that most of the students hadn’t encountered the term in any sort of “need to know” sense before.

I am nothing if not thorough when about to get in front of a group of students and teach them something they’ll remember for the rest of their academic careers (well, if I do it right), so I opted to spend a few minutes refreshing my own familiarity with semiotics, referrents, signs and signifiers. For a lark, I punched “Semiotics 101” into Google, and it spit back Robert Weir’s “Semiotics 101 for Freshmen” post at Inside Higher Ed. His message sent/heard interpretations are remarkably accurate, and well worth the read. I particularly liked:

Messege Sent:
“I work full-time, care for small children, and am involved in community charity groups. It’s hard to find time to juggle all of this.”

Message Heard:
“I work full-time, care for small children, and am involved in community charity groups. It’s hard to find time to juggle all of this.”

“Unlike slothful bums like you who just show up to class, put in an occasional office hour, and then bugger off to drink coffee, and nap in the faculty lounge.”

He ends the article saying

I could go on, but these humble examples should suffice to make first-year students realize that all utterances are texts and that they cannot privilege their interpretations over those of their professors.

I know I’m eyeballs deep in this right now, and it’s probably making it funnier than it is, but given that I’ve already had two students not hand in papers because “they didn’t realize they were due today”, I find Weir’s essay just damned funny.

Blink and Begin

Autumn 05, CHID 491, Thesis

You blink once, and suddenly you’re a week into the fall quarter and up to your eyeballs in everything.

Well, okay, I’m actually caught up right now. I know, I know, miracles apparently do occur. I’m hoping to get back into the swing of this blogging thing by typing up thoughts, notes, commentary and such on a daily (nightly) basis – we’ll see how well it goes.

The first thing I’d like to get out of the way, post-wise, is what I just sent Karen (who’s functioning as Thesis Guardian Angel this quarter), which is basically a summation of my thesis:

Iin broad strokes, I’m interested in the conflict and confluence of science and religion in our medical ethical decision making, and especially the fallacy of autonomy within that. I can see pulling in phenomenology, the history of medical ethics, the Enlightenment, and modern religious thought, agency, affect and autonomy.

I think in a large part I’m going to be arguing for affect (affect-ive ? Heh) ethics, where we stop looking at the individual as an autonomous being and instead see them as situated within webs of connectivity.

Author-wise, I’m looking at Appadurai, Barabasi, Latour, Thurtle (heh), Caplan, Moreno, and a few others.

It’s going to be a long year. 🙂

Absent

...and everything else, Summer 05, Summer Institute

Well, I’m largely done with the Summer Institute. As usual, I didn’t write here as much as I wanted to. Seemed my voice always got stuck in my throat (or would that be my fingers?). Regardless,…

Anyhow, I’ll get the stuff from the SI up soon (my project, that is). I also need to finish the MHE class, as well as CHID 390. But til school starts again, I’m going to give this a rest, unless something brilliant crosses my mind, or eyes.

See ya Sept 30th, whence once again I shall try to comment daily on the life of a student.

trust/time relation

Summer 05, Summer Institute

trust and time are intimately linked. one cannot exist without the other.

time is a construct. all that exists is now, the present. we are always in the present, passing through it. we never reach the future, and the past is always behind us.

we build trust, and make the decision to trust, based on experiences – events – from our past. these singular events allow us to look at the seemingly endless options in front of us and narrow them down; trust becomes a filter that allows us to make decisions. in the network of life, trust gives us a way of managing what would be incomprehensible.

when trust is broken, our options become limitless, and we are paralized, not in fear, but in choice. we have no way of narrowing down the potentiality of an event/situation without the ability to trust. but we trust – or not – based on prior events, and to override those prior events that taught us that we cannot believe our instincts is something that can only be done on faith.

without the ability to trust, we are everpresent in the now, unable to pass through the present. we become stuck.