, and presented anachronistically.
So I found out today that my TA job this term is stupid-easy. No office hours at all. I have to invigilate a 90 minute mid term, which I do not have to mark. I have to invigilate and mark the final exam. That's literally all I have to do, and I get paid for 130 hours. It will take probably 20. That's pretty pretty sweet. It also means that I have absolutely no excuse for not getting super scholastic and basically true-ing my way to clarity. I probably won't though.
I also got my grades back today, more good news. Despite my horrible performance in my Hume class I got a respectable A. About which I am very surprised. I still haven't gotten back either of my papers; it must be a pity-A.
For something that is supposed to be the focus of my life, school sure is a small part of it. I only have 6 hours a week of actual school time. More like 5 really. I spend more time on the bus than I do thinking. I rarely think on the bus. I rarely think.
I've got a crazeoh headache today, all day, since I woke up. It might have something to do with listening to Metallica for like 3 hours yesterday.
I'm back at my base-personality level, things seemed to have evened out. I think I'll just get super library this month and read a lot of books for a change. I have nothing else to think about, so I might as well think about my dissertation. Unless some dames happen upon me, in which case I'll switch to plan B. (Which is really plan A).
I've only learned a few things from science fiction novels. Two in particular come to mind.
A man wrapping a woman in a fluffy towel just as she steps out of the shower rarely fails to be suitably rewarded. (This from Robert Heinlein, who I quite liked when I was 9 or 10, or even 12, but now find largely forgettable).
And: in politics, we have to take the long views or we get nowhere, and we do it in misery. (This from Frank Herbert, who I still find perceptive today).
Though I'm unlikely to have to worry too much about the latter, I would like to be in a position to worry about the former. I had a dream last night that I was in love and I woke up feeling great, even though hungover a bit. I feel pretty good about things today, despite having done little to nothing with my time.
I did manage to translate some Heidegger. Without the apparatus of the classroom, I'm finding the German much tougher.
I've been thinking about my theory (not really mine, but in these terms anyway) that for us meaning is largely (almost exclusively) determined in relation to the axes of erotics and economics. Funnily, finding myself in the grind between economic deprivation and erotic emptiness, I still don't have any really convincing ideas about what could fill the void. You'd think faced with nothing I'd see something behind it, but really I haven't yet. This isn't really a depressing thought at the moment, just a bit surprising. I guess lack intensifies things, because when I'm satiated I don't concern myself with these things. That's one of the most obvious things I've ever said.
So I have a crush on a girl named **** that I met once, she is friends with Etienne. I would like to get to know her, as she seems like the kind of pensive, concerned hater I like and she also happens to be beautiful and funny. Thereby fulfilling almost all of my criteria, actually all of the real ones. The problem is that she lives in Toronto and I'll probably never see her again in my life. So I'm relegated to reading her blog and being a weird internet lurker. That's how it goes sometimes I guess. Impossible opportunities.
Anyway, I'm thinking of going to Toronto and Montreal both, sometime soon. I might go to Montreal this weekend, even, if I find out what my schedule is like.
I'm hung over today.
I wish I could get drunk and take photos of myself showing my tits in front of parliament and post them on the internet.
I hope Iran gets their nuclear program up and running so I don't have to hear about it anymore.
I hope the war in Iran doesn't affect my caviar supply too much.
I should have slept in today. But I didn't.
Earl is all hyper and faux-depressed, huge liars all of us.
"Today is the first day of the end of my life"
"What if nothing ever happens again?"
Maybe I thought too much of you.
Maybe you thought too little of me.
I'm not sure who ended up worse.
But sometimes I feel pretty certain it isn't you.
Good weekend.
Went to New York state, ate candy, drank a too-much worth of whisky, saw King Kong.
Still not altogether devoid of malice.
Last night, stuporously drunk, I had a dream (one of those rare gems) where I fucked all the girls I shouldn't have. I've been mulling over the idea of making this blog an excruciatingly detailed catalogue of my "erotic" self-dialogue. But then I thought how much I find it annoying when other people do that. So instead, I won't.
Instead I leave you with some German. Since I'm 2lazy, I'm not putting in the est-sets and umlauts. You can imagine them.
"Das Leben....geheimnisvoller--von jenem Tage an, wo der grosse Befreier uber mich kam, jener Gedanke, dass das Leben ein Experiment des Erkennenden sein durfe"
urry boddy
yo everybody but me all in a tizzy.
I'm back in the saddle.
Fuck the bureaucrats keeping me down, shit'll work out: it always do.
Fuck bein poor when bein rich aint shit: money comes money goes.
Fuck a broad who ruins my life: I'll outlast.
Fuck a school when it ain't mean shit: I learn what I want, however slow.
I was enjoying philosophy not two days ago, fuck, if I can't maintain in the face of minor bureaucratic obstacles I should get out of the business. Same with girls. I think life is over? Fuck that, what did I have before? I don't have much less now. Serious. And we all know money ain't shit, so fuck economic ambition too.
I got my mind correct for the oh six, game tight and alla that. I don't give a fuck, I'll do fifteen years in prison for epimeleia heautou. Fuck Delphi and fuck what you heard.
This years the year of the ends.
Out of mind, out of hand
Alright, I'm getting a bit too retarded here. Shit ain't that hard. Jeez.
So I can't get into that Carleton class, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to register at all. Concordia is slow as usual. This is all good evidence not to get your hopes up, Pyrrho was right. Life is boring, plans don't work out. End it all. Takin' a nosedive here.
I can't take this. I can't even listen to The Cure and die inside because my fucking cure CD is fucking crackling and skipping...
Here's a catalogue of contention.
You know what I did today, dear anonymous unknown? I sat in the shower for a half an hour and tried to stave off despair. It didn't work, and I'm barely cleaner. And for the first time thinking of Lee Hazlewood didn't help. You know when he says someday that day will come, but that day isn't today. I'm starting to lose faith in the first clause and it's killing me.
Fuck, today is one of those days where I'd like to dive into study. But I can't do that because none of the books I'm supposed to be studying are here.
I need a job. I don't care if I fail out of school, this time to myself is killing me. I'm not smart enough to deal with myself. I need something else (someone else--it'll never happen, I can't trust anyone anymore). Fuck.
I should sink myself into liquor. I never get drunk anymore, at least some numbness will make me feel less-worse, if not better.
And despite all that, I'm still sympathetic. You never really were very sympathetic. So we're both doomed. At least I can't sink myself into you. At least my fucking Scarub CD doesn't fucking skip.
Whiling a day away with my man 143 is just about the most best shit to do, you ain't even gotta have nothing to do and its the fun shit to do.
Peru's dad is the man. I hope both Peru's parents are happier in Peru, though despite all the stuff Peru tells me, they still seem pretty happy here. I'd like to go out for a night on the town with the whole Dyer posse sometime, that'd be funny as shit.
So all my financial and registration woes are still in the air, much to my chagrin. I'd like to be wasting my days playing Battlefield 2 and smoking weed by myself in the dark. Instead, I'm reading Husserl's Logical Investigations cold sober by myself in the dark.
I've become re-enamoured with philosophy lately. I realized that my negative reasons for joining the philosophical cadre (i.e., because all other options seem worse) is a positive reason. Philosophy isn't the least worst option, it's the most desirable. At least for me, and at this point. I'm pretty interested in writing about education and all the problems surrounding it, maybe because I find the idea of being educated a troubling one (and, given my billion years of schooling, close to my own life).
So I'm probably going to take 2 classes on Hegel and one on Frege, and also try and translate the first volume of Heidegger's book on Nietzsche into English this semester. Maybe a heavy order, but it might pay off. Also, I might get a job if I find one that suits my schedule. Maybe when someone asks me what I'm doing with my days, my nights, and my life, I'll have an answer I can stand behind for a change. I'm a bit sick of being outdone by people who work at banks or stores; that shit is worth about as much as you are.
I really am going to try being nicer. I didn't hate on very much today. Well, less than usual. I was more polite than I normally am, I kept my cool in the bureacracy mill even when it turns out that all my woes are the result of a missing "c" in my email address which has been corrected 6 times, with 6 different people. Fuck it, I think I passed my own fucking test.
No one owes me shit, of course, but a bit of unexpected kindness might do me some good. I'm still in high spirits but, again, you can tell it won't last.
Optimistic about pessimism.
We roll slants.
The Hegel class was super enlightening today, I felt like I got more out of it than a whole semester on the Phenomenology with Kierans. Which is DEFINITELY no slight against his teaching, just on my level of readiness to imbibe Hegel 3 or 4 years ago. The way this guy teaches Hegel is right up my alley, he's always on the verge of bursting into laughter, you can tell he loves it and is moved by it but catches the absurd in every line. It's word to true.
The tests are almost done, all I have left to do is the final section, which is one page. So 130 pages, plus adding up the grades and putting them on the internet. Shouldn't take over-long, I'll finish tomorrow, and I can start working on the Heidegger translation, even though I should be reading the Republic for my Hegel/Plato class at Carleton on Friday. I'd like to get the [Didn't happen, as it is probably far better than my old ass Penguin Classics one, which has nevertheless served me well.
I thought of a little project for my blog, since I don't really post on E2 anymore. Dave was telling me the other day about how he got into philosophy and the first time he really felt "moved" by it (it was in a class on the Republic). I don't know that I've ever felt changed by philosophy, though I probably have, so my idea for the project was to go through my old transcripts and try and remember which books I read and what they lead me to and so on. Sort of a librarilogical biography of Burkiana. I think I'll start it tonight, though it might take a while to finish. I wonder if you can ask libraries to tell you ALL the books you've checked out of them, that would be so sick. I should look into it.
Anyway, I'll probably put the start of it on here tonight, deal with FYP at least,though I can hardly remember half the books we had to read for that.
I came home tonight and there's the new furniture I was told about sitting in the living room. Looks nice, I feel bad that I wasn't here to help with it, though to be fair Peru and I called Chris a buncha times and even Etienne's house. Anyway, We have weigh 2 much furniture up there now, I guess we'll just junk the fold out couch or something...seems like a waste though. Maybe we can just have a ton of furniture. Why not. Fuck it.
I only thought about her 50 times today, so it was OK. Though Bill Withers almost made me cry, good thing Peru was around and I forced myself to mann it up a bit. Can you believe me? So callous and hard hearted, but crumble like a cookie when "Lovely Day" comes on and I have to think of what I fool myself into thinking I lost.
Anyway, bucked up and buoyed, I'm ready for the year. My resolution is this: don't let every day be worse than the one before it. (I'm realistic and don't ask for much, or only rarely).
How can I be so dumb as to have developed a crush on a long-distance girl yet again? I'm such a fucking retard. Learn to like your surroundings Burkey, learn to live it up.
And to all my friends: I love you even when I hate you.
The following will be of no interest to anyone but me, and possibly Matt. It don't get links.
For now let's just think of some key moments in my "philosophical trajectory" (though calling it that is obviously ridiculous). Off the dome.
- Reading the Republic in Grade 12.
First Year: FYP
- Reading Augustine. Seeing myself in the theft of pears, but not being converted. Beginning to worry that pettiness and solitude were my lot in life.Searching out the historical Ambrose but not being nearly as torn apart or interested as by Augustine.
- Reading Antigone. Finding the idea that a corpse could pose a political problem fascinating; having it expand my very narrow conception of politics considerably, and making me interested in it. (I in fact plan to write another paper on the relationship between death and politics in Hegel's interpretation of Antigone this semester).
- Reading Anselm's ontological argument and being utterly convinced that it was indefeasible. Seeing something profound in logic and language for the first time.
- Reading bits of the Philosophical Investigations at the end of FYP. Being convinced that Wittgenstein was something I'd never encountered before made me realize that I wanted to keep studying philosophy, so I entered CSP. Reading Wittgenstein's bits about Rumpelstiltskin and feeling terrified. To this day, everytime I even think of those parts (and other parts about the Golden Bough) my skin crawls and I get one of those terror-chills. I still don't know anything more frightening. This made me see how thought-laden everything, and especially language, is.
Second Year: CSP 2000, Roman History
- Reading The Post Card, Glas, and Of Grammatology in 2nd year; agreeing with Rorty that Derrida was post-theoretical, ironic 'work on the self'.
- Finding Charles Taylor engaging but thinking of him as a staid 'conservative' and brushing him off while being impressed by Rorty's seeming radicalism. (If Matt doesn't find this hilarious, I'll be forced to admit I know nothing about him).
- Reading Rorty's stuff on Nabokov in 2nd year.
- Reading Habermas' The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, and getting ARRESTED with it; disagreeing but admiring his opinion of Derrida. Reading Christopher Norris because of Habermas.
- Reading HS 1,2,3; D+P; Order of Things, Foucault's interviews, most of the Foucault Reader (What is Enlightenment? and Nietzsche, Genealogy, History in particular).
- Following up on the tendrils of Derrida's stuff in the early books (the essay ones, I forget all the names, Speech and Phenomena, the one with the Jabes and Mallarme stuf in it): so basically, reading Mallarme, Bataille, Genet, Celine, Jabes, Blanchot in 2nd year.
- Reading Bataille's Nietzsche book, Deleuze's Foucault book, and Foucault's Blanchot book.
- Getting into Nietzsche by way of Foucault: reading everything I could by Nietzsche: Zarathustra, Ecce Homo, Birth of Tragedy, (we read that in CSP 2000), really liking "Attempt at a self-criticism" in Birth of Tragedy, Gay Science, OGM.
- Reading the Rhizome bit in the Deleuze Reader, which freaked me out, so I read everything in Novanet by Deleuze and Guatarri. I think I can safely say that reading 1,000 Plateaus in 2nd year changed most of my opinions about what philosophy could/should be.
Funny that I didn't read or give a fuck about Heidegger in either FYP or Second Year, even though he was assigned in both. Seems a bit odd in retrospect. Though the assigned texts weren't the best selections really. (Though that didn't stop me with Derrida..."Positions"? Come ON!). I also didn't read the Second Critique, or any Kant, really until fourth year. Which is insane to me now...imagine if I had've read the three critiques in second year. I could've saved myself a lot of timewasting on idiocies like "feminist standpoint epistemology" and probably would have read some Hegel and Husserl.
I think in second year I was beginning to get "post modern" in precisely the sense that I hate nowadays. That easy kind of theoretical sophistry that you are only distantly interested in and realize is a kind of game, with soft rules and no eral winning, but one that is entertaining like a solid game of Jenga. Which isn't to say that I didn't read some of this stuff well, but that my writing and my thinking were by and large "clever".
- Taking the Fall of the Roman Republic with Geoffrey Greatrex, now professor at University of Ottawa classics department, and hating it so much that my nascent ambitions of combining CSP with History were utterly abandoned. Much to my chagrin, as if I were taking a class on the Fall of the Roman Republic now I would enjoy it more than almost any philosophy I'm doing. Though, still, Greatrex was at that time a thoroughly awful professor (he may still be, about that I reserve judgment).
I'm gonna work all this over, fill in the gaps, make it more coherent. It's pretty entertaining to relive yourself.
The more I think the less I know.
Who should chase who and how far should one sacrifice (or alter) one's own 'ambitions' (plans is perhaps a better word, at least in my case) for the sake of another. I have no idea, I don't even know what to regret, or how far.
How much nobility in abdication.
(But how much abdication is even possible when ambition isn't part of the picture).
Two things I know: I'm dismayed at how much is willingly sacrificed today, and equally at the resistance to sacrifice of days gone by. From misers to potlach chieftains...we fell pretty fucking far. Still in high spirits, but the deadpool approaches.
I'm gonna try and be nicer, stop the hating. Or at least stem the tide a bit... Brotherly Love for Burke in oh-six..?
Easy to read, hard to open; no one gives me advice on shit.
About a Trill-yon
I read the other day
That Irving Layton wrote
One Hundred Thousand Poems.
Taken aback,
I realized they must be awful.
(Awful poems,
Or awful liars).
Say, how's it goin'?
Seems like I'm back in the place to be. I'm in high spirits lately, despite a minor setback post-Sara sesh in Halifax. I'ma get studious, maybe check out some dimes, live like I'm alive for a change.
Plans: Hegel-a-plenty this semester, get some furniture, get the new computer, download hellof music...
Anyway, I'm in a good mood, even though I had a super boring ass day...test marking sucks. I hope my next TA job is better, or has papers.
Mark Burke out!