Poetry night.

The thing about poetry readings is that it's really hard to tell if someone's poetry is good or not. It seems so arbitrary. Everyone gets the same applause, but you don't really know if that's politeness or actual appreciation. Certainly, there is appreciation of the courage to get on stage and read your personal thoughts. But that doesn't make it good.  I'm not claiming to be an authority, but part of me really wants a rubric for good poetry.  In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter. Just like pretty much everything else, and you like it or don't and it's all subjective.

I read last night. And it was awkward. Probably because I didn't read actual poetry but random shit I wrote including a screenplay (very short) and a short story (very short). And a one liner. And a rambling mess of ideas about truth.

Then someone gave me a jesus card.
I said, "Thank you."
We went our separate ways.

Racquetball Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu!

I am actually too lazy to draw the comic in whatever paint program I have on this Mac, if any. It's also not that interesting. Had racquetball reserved for 4pm, got started at 4:15, left at 4:30.  Next time we're planning ahead. People in Boulder apparently really really enjoy racquetball. They're all soooo lame.  I mean...  You know... Not me and my friends... Just them...

The problem with forgetting to bring an extra pair of underwear to the gym is that you only have three options: 1) Wear gross, sweaty underwear. 2) Go straight home and revise your plans for the day. 3) Go commando.

I chose option 3 and while pulling up my shorts, the button popped off. Awesome! I mean, I've got the belt and all but it's still awkward just knowing the button is missing and feeling like it might affect the status of your shorts.  And riding a bike without underwear just feels wrong.  But it's not. There's no right answer when it comes to what you're wearing while riding your bike.

Academic or high?

"How do words relate to the world? How is it possible that when a speaker stands before a hearer and emits an acoustic blast such remarkable things occur as: the speaker means something; the sounds he emits mean something; the hearer understands what is meant; the speaker makes a statement, asks a question, or gives an order? How is it possible, for example, that when I say "Jones went home", which after all is in one way just a string of noises, what I mean is: Jones went home. What is the difference between saying something and meaning it and saying it without meaning it? And what is involved in meaning just one particular thing and not some other thing? For example, how does it happen that when people say, "Jones went home" they almost always mean Jones went home and not, say, Brown went to the party or Green got drunk. And what is the relation between what I mean when I say something and what it means whether anybody says it or not? How do words stand for things? What is the difference between a meaningful string of words and a meaningless one?"
-John Searle, Speech Acts


This is a serious academic problematizing human communication. 


But it also sounds like a conversation with someone who is high.


It's all starting to make sense now...

Premises can't be valid or invalid, asshole

It's becoming my ritual to write here in between procrastination on the interwebs and completing my reading or writing assignments.  It's my on/off switch. If I don't write here, I can't really do anything else or stop what I was doing a minute ago.  Makes sense, I think. I have to unload whatever it is in my brain that is preventing me from working before I can move on.

Also, NOFX is still my favorite writing music. Has been since the dorm room in college my first summer when it took me 10 hours to write a two page philosophy paper. Got the only A in the class for that paper. My premises were fucking SOLID.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a badass

Got pretty much his whole history in Readings in Rhetoric yesterday.  No one knew what the fuck our professor was talking about until the end of the story, but it was a great story nonetheless.  Clearly, we understood what he was saying, what the story was, and found it interesting but I don't think anyone really understood how it connected to the class until he told us that we would be reading a letter of his through the eyes of four major rhetoricians and writing papers analyzing that letter from the respective perspectives.  This revelation also made me way less nervous about the papers because just looking at the syllabus told me nothing.  Aristotle is gonna tear that shit apart, sonnnnn.

What?

In case you don't know, Bonhoeffer was part of the plot to assassinate Hitler and helped German Jews escape to Switzerland AND rebelled against the Lutheran church to start his own when they wouldn't oppose the Nazi government.  Badass.

Communicative Explanations for Steve Slater

We all got our panties and pantaloons in a bunch over that one.  I sometimes get the feeling that no one knows what they're talking about, including myself. Especially myself. I also sometimes get the feeling that everyone knows exactly what they're talking about and are absolutely right. Like absolute truth. Wait, Truth. Capital T. 

But really it seems to me that everyone really wants to know what they're talking about and the whole process of grad school and academia is striving towards that goal and no matter how far along you go, it's still a searching process.  I would really like to know how many people feel "I've made it. I now know what I've sought to know." I think I would not get along with those people.  THOSE people. I'd perhaps think of them as liars and frauds and egotists.  Ok maybe I wouldn't go that far but I'd be skeptical.

Also, in 45 minutes of racquetball I scored a total of two points.  Two points I was damn proud of.  

Fuckin' Sophists

It feels strange reading 30 pages and realizing not only did you forget most of it, but you also don't really understand most of it.  I'm choosing to be OK with that for now.  If it persists, I might worry.  I might worry myself into a little ball o' fetal position and suck my thumb. No. That's ridiculous. Who does that?? Babies. That's who.

I bet babies wouldn't understand what I just read either. They don't even know what a symbol is, let alone a series of symbols lined up in rows upon rows for the purpose of conveying meaning. They don't even know what (or why, for that matter) their poop is. And they don't know that it is frowned upon to end your sentences with prepositions, but if I've learned anything in my recent readings on writing, it is that in the modern evolution of the English languages, it is acceptable to end sentences in prepositions, just because. Because what? I don't know, but I don't think it is acceptable to end sentences in conjunctions.

In other news, there's nothing like the blank stares of freshmen at 8am to start off a productive day.

Summer's Eve

There is always an alternative to what needs to be done. And what should be done. And sometimes, despite all your best efforts to concentrate, you have to just go get a haircut instead because you don't want to look like a scruffy freshman douche. For those of you who don't understand the term "douche" it is at once a tool used by women to clean (some say this is dangerous!) their vaginas and a term used to describe people who are idiots or just all around people you don't like.  One douche will call another douche a douche on a regular basis. For instance, the hypothetical scruffy freshman might see me walking down the street with all my grace and class and think, "wow, look at that douchebag*! I would love to punch him right in his jaw!"  And he would be correct in his assumption that I am a douche because once the determination is made by at least one person, it becomes the reality of that person and perhaps to the people in the immediate vicinity.

I'm sure there are some serious gender issues going on here.  If you would like to discuss them, please leave a comment.  I'm in grad school now so things like this must be considered.  However, I would like to note that the term "penis pump" could be used as a synonym for the term "douche" or "douchebag." They are interchangeable.

*A variation of the term "douche"

Day 1

Holy shit! They're everywhere!

Readings in Coffee Shops

Oh, dear God.  The people at the table next to me are studying accounting and I'm getting horrible, stressed out flashbacks to College Part 1.  They are huddled around the computer, staring at balance sheets, debating where the debits and credits should go. If I had to take all the decisions I've made in my life and order them from best to worst, leaving accounting would probably be first on the list. A close second is probably the choice not to kill that man in St. Augustine, which would have begun the most perplexing serial killing spree the police, the feds, and the CIA have ever attempted to solve.  Yeah, leaving accounting was better than that.

Last night of freedom

The sexual harassment policy was widely ignored last night.  I don't mean that everyone was banging everyone else. I mean that awkward stories were shared, often centering around sexual topics.  Guess who doesn't get to hear those stories. You!

There are repercussions, of course. Like how my stomach feels like a dog bored its head in there and vomited a lil bit.  Aesop Rock is playing at the coffee shop so at least my brain is happy.

To the readings!

Welcome Letter

Congratulations! You've been accepted to view the blog of incoming graduate student Adam! Though there are millions of people on the internet, only a select few will find their way to this corner of the blogosphere. We're very pleased to have you here!

Let us begin with an explanation...

There is no us. Just me. And you, of course, decoding my messages rolling down the information superhighway. Remember that term?  Zoooooom!

So this blog is my attempt to remain sane and grounded as I navigate academia after a 5 year hiatus.  Though I'm actually interested in what I'm studying this time around, there is a lot to get used to and I will be ridiculously busy.  If you know me at all, you know that I can only maintain intelligent discourse for a limited amount of time before I have to crack a joke, make an awkward comment, or embarrass myself in some way.  In fact, if you're one of my former bosses reading this, you've probably had to talk to me about this whether you wanted to or not.  But I digress (this is how you say you've gotten off track or that you are rambling in grad school).  

Really, I just need an outlet to write and dump the various things clanging around in my brain onto a virtual sheet of paper and mess it up a bit.  And not always have good grammar. Or worry about how this will be judged or if I'm going to pass or fail miserably.  You certainly can feel free to judge me and leave a comment judging me.  

I will try to refrain from personal issues with fellow grad students and faculty simply because that could cause problems in the future and is just plain not nice.  I may make really vague references that people who know me really well will understand but no one else will. Maybe not. I don't really know what's going to happen here just yet.  (Disclaimer: I don't actually have any issues with fellow grad students or faculty at this point, but who knows what will happen)

BUT I DIGRESS.

Enjoy. Or don't. I'm just going to write some shit.