Classes at UBC started today. I didn't have any classes today, but I did have a few errands to run on campus, so I got to take in the new school vibes floating around. Honestly, I don't like this part of the term because I know that my schedule has yet to solidify, so I have no perspective on my free time. Half of my TA hours go to invigilating exams in the computer labs, and I won't know what hours are up for grabs until next week or so. This week, I only have one seminar since the other takes place on Mondays, and I have to go to my TA class on Friday. With the lab hours, I hope to put them on either Tuesday or Thursday to keep my Mondays and Wednesdays short. I wanted Fridays off, but only having the TA class comes close enough to that for me. Again, hopefully I can avoid lab hours on Friday as well. I'll take just about any hours on Tuesday and Thursday because neither my Monday nor Wednesday classes run late; both classes end at five.
Keeping myself on a regular schedule of mind-expanding work presents problems during the school year. This year, I plan to wake up early enough to leave time for an hour or so of exercises before I leave, and I have learned a few things that should help relieve my tensions afer I get home so that I can relax more effectively. My efforts so far have focused on leaving myself reminders to free my mind on my reminder program and cultivating a more general awareness of my mental/emotional states throughout the day. Hyatt's Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation and Other Devices has some good stuff, and I recommend it to anyone looking to gain more self-awareness and mental freedom. I do not know if it would still read as well without the reading in both RAW and Crowley that I have already done, but at least as a technical manual, I think it stands alone.
This winter, I have to make applications to PhD programs, and I don't think I will apply to UBC. I went for the heavy philosophy of science stuff because of things I had read in RAW, and it took me a year of study at UBC and a summer of reading articles and doing some thinking to realize that I haven't been working with what I wanted to work with in the first place. I think I want to spend more time on issues of consciousness and its nature, as well as philosophy of religion and continental philosophy. From that perspective, I have my area specialization and areas of concentration all laid out. In trying to set myself up at UBC, I still wasn't sure what to do with those. I feel better having a pattern and plan. Currently, I intend to apply to a few schools in Southern California, all of which have a stronger philosophy of mind/continental philosophy focus than UBC, with philosophy of religion having at least one representative. I also want to apply to Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, next door to Vancouver. If I go there, we would likely move to a different neighbourhood in Vancouver because the Commercial Drive area would put us close enough to SFU while putting us in one of the more interesting areas of Vancouver. For a back-up, I intend to apply to Tulane which Philosophical Gourmet ranks lower than the other schools on my list, and I feel more likely to get in there because I have a local undergraduate degree. I had some fears that they might not be open or something for next year, but now that I hear they intend to re-open for the spring term, I have hopes that they might need to rebuild their departments next year after possibly losing some students in the shuffling around post-Katrina. My hope may turn out no more substantial than that, but I prefer hope over pessimism.
Keeping myself on a regular schedule of mind-expanding work presents problems during the school year. This year, I plan to wake up early enough to leave time for an hour or so of exercises before I leave, and I have learned a few things that should help relieve my tensions afer I get home so that I can relax more effectively. My efforts so far have focused on leaving myself reminders to free my mind on my reminder program and cultivating a more general awareness of my mental/emotional states throughout the day. Hyatt's Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation and Other Devices has some good stuff, and I recommend it to anyone looking to gain more self-awareness and mental freedom. I do not know if it would still read as well without the reading in both RAW and Crowley that I have already done, but at least as a technical manual, I think it stands alone.
This winter, I have to make applications to PhD programs, and I don't think I will apply to UBC. I went for the heavy philosophy of science stuff because of things I had read in RAW, and it took me a year of study at UBC and a summer of reading articles and doing some thinking to realize that I haven't been working with what I wanted to work with in the first place. I think I want to spend more time on issues of consciousness and its nature, as well as philosophy of religion and continental philosophy. From that perspective, I have my area specialization and areas of concentration all laid out. In trying to set myself up at UBC, I still wasn't sure what to do with those. I feel better having a pattern and plan. Currently, I intend to apply to a few schools in Southern California, all of which have a stronger philosophy of mind/continental philosophy focus than UBC, with philosophy of religion having at least one representative. I also want to apply to Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, next door to Vancouver. If I go there, we would likely move to a different neighbourhood in Vancouver because the Commercial Drive area would put us close enough to SFU while putting us in one of the more interesting areas of Vancouver. For a back-up, I intend to apply to Tulane which Philosophical Gourmet ranks lower than the other schools on my list, and I feel more likely to get in there because I have a local undergraduate degree. I had some fears that they might not be open or something for next year, but now that I hear they intend to re-open for the spring term, I have hopes that they might need to rebuild their departments next year after possibly losing some students in the shuffling around post-Katrina. My hope may turn out no more substantial than that, but I prefer hope over pessimism.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
that made my night