Posted by alexandra_k on December 4, 2013, at 14:53:28
In reply to Re: done, posted by baseball55 on December 3, 2013, at 19:47:43
thanks for responding. it does help to know that it is hard... but that people get through it, yeah.
i didn't think it was affecting me, but i had a lot of nightmares last night. today is moving day. it is meant to be an upgrade... into a bigger room... cook top, finally. i just feel a lot of dread... there are certain things about this room that i like very much. the view. the new tv. the rack for stuff in the shower. the water pressure. i just keep dreaming that i hate the new room but everyone thinks i'm supposed to be happier for it.
dreaming about medicine, too. a couple years in. i keep dreaming that i hate it but everyone thinks i'm supposed to be happier for it.
this awful dis-ease.
i think it is mostly that this new room symbolizes a lot. when i first started in Aussie I was determined to think of my life there as being transitional and purposely didn't get lots of stuff. even little things... little things that would have made my life more pleasant. something nice for the walls... a rug, perhaps. stuff like that. even though my time here is shorter... i'm determined to think of it as my home. the little things. i got a nice rubbish bin. a clothes drying rack (just hung things about the place before). trying to reassure myself 'it's okay, alex. you are here now. it is safe now. it is okay'.
the weather these last couple days has been crap. that helps a lot. it isn't too pleasant in my current room when it is rainy outside. i don't sleep all that well in this room because of the road noise. when it is windy the wind fairly whistles into the building. i... i'm fairly over the view, now. it was nice to have it for the novelty before. now... i'm thinking i'll happily trade it for peace and quiet of looking out into an empty courtyard and someplace that is basically warm and cosy to hunker down for the winter. someplace where i can spend much of the day tending a pot of food... pottering away on study... someplace where i feel safely secluded away from it all. this current building will get much noisier... with the shared flats at each end. think it is only as quiet as it is currently in the hallways because it is half empty and currently full of internationals doing short summer courses in how to speak English...
> Which makes me wonder -- why do a thesis in philosophy when you have no plans to continue working in philosophy? Why not spend the time learning math?
Philosophy is perhaps a little bit different from most other fields. We don't have an industry. The idea of a PhD isn't really about getting a ticket to research / work in a university (with little other use). It is more... An induction. That is what you do to get to be a baby philosopher. It feels... A little indulgent that I get to start over again. Okay... A lot indulgent. I need a couple publications or a book for a post-doc now... And, ur... I don't know that I really want one. It is about... Okay, f*ck it... It is about induction into the university. Because in the beginning... There was philosophy. Well, actually, in the beginning there was religion. And then people started to question religion. Some of them. Started to ask *and why should I believe that*? And turning their attention to other things... The natural world. The nature of substance / the building blocks of the natural world. What lay beyond the natural world. Reason itself. Math. Then over time methods were worked out. Ways of inquiring. Ways of knowing. And when enough of that gets up of the ground you have... The birth of a field. And different fields get born / carved off from philosophy. Which is, ur, why chapter 1 of any textbook is the very best part. Because it says 'if we assume this and that and the next thing and then go about things like so then....' (and now we have the rest of the textbook) 'just look what we can do!'
I... Part of me always will be a philosopher. I suspect the more I stray from philosophy the more I'll come to see that that is there at base. Deep down. I know I'll be too busy wrote learning lists of stuff... Or even stuck figuring out conceptual stuff (still re-re-re-re-reading stuff on electron shells / about negative regions / about strength of bonds to benefit)... Too busy caught up in that kind of thing to think philosophically. But one day... I shall return. I know it. One day I'll have something to say.
Everyone says I'm going about things backwards. Do science first. Learn content. Then do philosophy. Learn methodology. Have something to think philosophically ABOUT. But, ur... I'd hazard a guess that scientific findings move faster than philosophical methodology. So, ur... Wouldn't it be better to go about things this way? I'll have the distinct advantage of not making standard first year philosophy student errors that plague many scientists (not naming names). Perhaps...
I think it is more about finishing what I started and also about doing what I owe. Because they gave me quite a lot of funding to do it. Also sending me off to this and that all around the world. I think that is important. Also... This will come up in my med school interview (and in life more generally). Why didn't I finish (if I didn't). I think it... Makes it look like I'm not capable of finishing the things I start. I mean I finished my degree... My independent research projects... My masters... My publication... But all of that pales into nothing without this.
The new room will give me a fresh start.
What is odd... If medicine does work out (and i'm in two minds about it, really) then I'm going to end up back in the town I grew up in. Because we have to spend one year outside Auckland city. Can go up north (ugh, small communities) to Manakau (over-crowded Maaori and Pacific Island communities -- still far too traumatized about that) or... To where I grew up. Which has the (only) benefit of having the largest hospital (largest population service coverage area) in... Australasia, apparently. Hur.
I don't know what to say. Apparently the cleaner has the key so I need to wait... Hopefully I can move early afternoon. Hopefully... I can make a stew today...
Which means... I'll write this evening.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1055254
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20130930/msgs/1055427.html