So our teachers already introduced the format of the fourth and final quarter today, which inevitably means I've start hitting the panic button. And it's also a little early for me to be getting into references, but this is one I can't resist:
For the love of God, will someone please watch after 3:45 so that I can reference this bit more often? The whole clip is worth watching (and so is the entirety of Undercover Brother), but I have to fight the urge to say "let's see what this so-called 'button' does" on a regular basis.
Anyway, even though we are only into our 3rd week of the 3rd quarter, I'm starting to feel that the end is nigh. That's the weird thing about time; it expands and contracts depending on how you're looking at it. From where I'm sitting right now, it's easier for me to imagine the end of IUC in June than it is to think about struggling over the finish line for this week (still yet another presentation to go and that damn reading class on Friday morning). It also hit me upside the head that it was actually February yesterday, but then I remember how in the weeks previous it would be Tuesday or Wednesday and I would whine, "isn't this week over yet, GOD" when I'd had enough. I'm also having the same problem waiting on replies from the schools I applied to a couple of months ago; I'm thinking once it hits the half-way point through this month the likelihood of hearing back will drastically increase and I can't even imagine getting to February 14th without losing my mind.
And that's another one of my problems this quarter, and possibly just in general: I can't just enjoy what's in front of me. It's never what I can enjoy now, but instead being preoccupied with something that is yet still a dot on the horizon. The way I see it, the situation I'm in right now has two interpretations. The one I'm taking is that I should be riddled with anxiety about the uncertainty of the future and anticipating the day when even just the next 6 months takes on a more distinct form. However, the other (and the one I'd much rather be able to follow) says that this is a point of total freedom; that I don't have to do anything except for the tasks right in front of me. The future is out of my hands, someone else is making the decisions, so I can move about unencumbered by anxieties about what I could and should be doing. It is by necessity a very ephemeral existence, and therefore it's there to be enjoyed before the crush of reality sets back in.
Of course, that really isn't me... well, I take that back. I can do that sometimes, but that's when I've incapacitated myself to the point where figuring out how the hell I can get a Big Mac is too much to contemplate. However, this is not the case in daily life as I am constantly worrying about something. I think it's why when people see me on the street I am rarely smiling; for future reference, please know that I am not angry at you, but rather at myself for testing my limits for self-bullying. It reminds me of the opening chapters of The Unbearable Lightness of Being where Kundera challenges the concept of diametrical opposites and necessary goods and evils by posing "light" and "weight" against each other. A life of "light" is lead in pursuit of unobliging unburdened pleasures and without concern for what may come. However, such a lifestyle becomes so light that it just floats away; that without the binding ties of all things permanent - in particular, human relationships - we cease to have meaning, and therefore cease to exist. In contrast, those who live with the "weight" may find themselves crushed under the burdens they place on themselves in life and love by pursuing those responsibilities that keep them grounded. But in so doing, they give their lives meaning by tying themselves to other people and to lasting experiences. Neither choice is necessarily "good" or "evil," but is a choice nonetheless. I'm far more effective at the latter, and I do envy those who can freely float from one moment to the next.
This is all a really self-important way of saying that I am fighting my own neuroses, but it's been the timbre of the last several weeks. And now that our senseis are impressing upon us that we need to start thinking about at the very least the beginning of March when the fourth quarter kicks into gear, I'm trying to help ease my anxiety by imagining this:
And since I'm not very good about carrying around the very necessary towel around Japan, I am clearly fail at heading the Guide's advice.
Otherwise, the third quarter is moving along fine. As opposed to the first and second quarter that focused on more general topics that all students were learning, the third quarter emphasizes our interests as opposed to the ones our senseis tell us to have for that class period. There are history (w00t), politics and business, and anthropology classes, and a smattering of others in the afternoon. It's great to be getting the subject-related vocabulary I will need to be in any way effective at researching in Japanese, though our history senseis put out an open call for us to submit articles to them for use in class that I have yet to fulfill. I've been getting a heavy dose of Meiji history at this point and there's a lot of classical Japanese grammar that shows up in some of these articles... let's just say that I definitely made the right decision to study postwar Japan.
My biggest gripe, though, is with the fact that this mentality of shall we say ゆとり, or doing things at your leisure as your interest dictates, has affected the way in which some students do and don't do their work. Before I get into this rant, I realize I run the risk of alienating some people and let me just say now that if you're worried I'm passive aggressively talking about you, I'm very likely not. The fact you're at all worried attests to your own level of self-awareness. It's like in college when one of my professors, before turning back our tests or research papers, would open with a statement about the importance of making a logical argument and having a basic grasp of English grammar. He'd then add that those students that were sweating bullets at this point are always those that did perfectly well. Such is the price for actually giving a shit.
I understand that IUC wants to treat us as adults, but as I was saying to my mother over the weekend, I think that is a grave overestimation of your average American graduate student. This problem was certainly around in the first half of the year, but has become painfully obvious that some people just do not care. I also understand that this is their decision, but when people show up to class unprepared and sit there unable to answer questions or contribute effectively and relevantly to discussion, I get pissed. Way to waste my time and your money. I always want to do one of these:
Fortunately, a lot of these types have just stopped showing up to class, which takes care of that irritation. However, there are of course the times when they are supposed to give presentations and they just don't show. Add to that that some people feel entitled to mouth off when they feel like it because that somehow makes up for them not prepping for class. Why should I have to listen to what you have to say? Stop wasting my goddamned time. I will let Kanye express my disgust:
This all also begs the question of just what the hell these people are doing if they're not doing homework. Grad students aren't known to have much of a social life, and being a foreigner in the rather isolating environment of a language school, I have no clue what they're doing to wile away their hours.
I bring this up for more than having a bitchfest (I'm sure plenty of you have had enough of me saying this in person), as fun as that is. What frustrates me is that if I do wind up in a Ph.D. program, I will without a doubt run into people like this time and time again. Hell, I already did at the UW and I'm not getting any better at dealing with the sense of entitlement that seeps out of their pores. Regardless of whether they even did the fucking reading let alone understood it, regardless of the guidance provided by the professor, and regardless of where other students have steered the discussion, there is always that grad student who feel like just because they have an idea in their head they should say it. That they somehow know better than everyone else because they can throw in a couple of $5 words and a person's name. I remain unimpressed. Though what was great was when they'd get called on their bullshit and you'd end up with an exchange like this:
I get berated a lot for not speaking more in class, and let me tell you, it's not just because I am reluctant to speak in public. It's also because I listen to people like this and wonder if this is what I sound like. A lot of what I'm doing in a seminar is chewing over my words and ideas to make sure I'm not spitting out some half-baked idea and then dressing it up to make it sound more important. Whether I succeed or not is another issue entirely, but at the very least, I reduce the number of times in a given class period where I'm that asshole.
I assume of course that I will even get into a program (I again have my doubts), and maybe this year is the last time I will have to deal with such a high concentration of this type of person. And naturally, business, NGOs, and federal jobs all have their own type of jerk, and in all likelihood, if I keep this blog going in the future, I will be wind up making another post like this. I know I didn't exactly mince words when I used to talk about some of my coworkers from my jobs right out of college and the memory of one boss in particular gives me PTSD to this day. This is what I wanted to do at the end of many a workday:
This is all a really self-important way of saying that I am fighting my own neuroses, but it's been the timbre of the last several weeks. And now that our senseis are impressing upon us that we need to start thinking about at the very least the beginning of March when the fourth quarter kicks into gear, I'm trying to help ease my anxiety by imagining this:
And since I'm not very good about carrying around the very necessary towel around Japan, I am clearly fail at heading the Guide's advice.
Otherwise, the third quarter is moving along fine. As opposed to the first and second quarter that focused on more general topics that all students were learning, the third quarter emphasizes our interests as opposed to the ones our senseis tell us to have for that class period. There are history (w00t), politics and business, and anthropology classes, and a smattering of others in the afternoon. It's great to be getting the subject-related vocabulary I will need to be in any way effective at researching in Japanese, though our history senseis put out an open call for us to submit articles to them for use in class that I have yet to fulfill. I've been getting a heavy dose of Meiji history at this point and there's a lot of classical Japanese grammar that shows up in some of these articles... let's just say that I definitely made the right decision to study postwar Japan.
My biggest gripe, though, is with the fact that this mentality of shall we say ゆとり, or doing things at your leisure as your interest dictates, has affected the way in which some students do and don't do their work. Before I get into this rant, I realize I run the risk of alienating some people and let me just say now that if you're worried I'm passive aggressively talking about you, I'm very likely not. The fact you're at all worried attests to your own level of self-awareness. It's like in college when one of my professors, before turning back our tests or research papers, would open with a statement about the importance of making a logical argument and having a basic grasp of English grammar. He'd then add that those students that were sweating bullets at this point are always those that did perfectly well. Such is the price for actually giving a shit.
I understand that IUC wants to treat us as adults, but as I was saying to my mother over the weekend, I think that is a grave overestimation of your average American graduate student. This problem was certainly around in the first half of the year, but has become painfully obvious that some people just do not care. I also understand that this is their decision, but when people show up to class unprepared and sit there unable to answer questions or contribute effectively and relevantly to discussion, I get pissed. Way to waste my time and your money. I always want to do one of these:
Fortunately, a lot of these types have just stopped showing up to class, which takes care of that irritation. However, there are of course the times when they are supposed to give presentations and they just don't show. Add to that that some people feel entitled to mouth off when they feel like it because that somehow makes up for them not prepping for class. Why should I have to listen to what you have to say? Stop wasting my goddamned time. I will let Kanye express my disgust:
This all also begs the question of just what the hell these people are doing if they're not doing homework. Grad students aren't known to have much of a social life, and being a foreigner in the rather isolating environment of a language school, I have no clue what they're doing to wile away their hours.
I bring this up for more than having a bitchfest (I'm sure plenty of you have had enough of me saying this in person), as fun as that is. What frustrates me is that if I do wind up in a Ph.D. program, I will without a doubt run into people like this time and time again. Hell, I already did at the UW and I'm not getting any better at dealing with the sense of entitlement that seeps out of their pores. Regardless of whether they even did the fucking reading let alone understood it, regardless of the guidance provided by the professor, and regardless of where other students have steered the discussion, there is always that grad student who feel like just because they have an idea in their head they should say it. That they somehow know better than everyone else because they can throw in a couple of $5 words and a person's name. I remain unimpressed. Though what was great was when they'd get called on their bullshit and you'd end up with an exchange like this:
I get berated a lot for not speaking more in class, and let me tell you, it's not just because I am reluctant to speak in public. It's also because I listen to people like this and wonder if this is what I sound like. A lot of what I'm doing in a seminar is chewing over my words and ideas to make sure I'm not spitting out some half-baked idea and then dressing it up to make it sound more important. Whether I succeed or not is another issue entirely, but at the very least, I reduce the number of times in a given class period where I'm that asshole.
I assume of course that I will even get into a program (I again have my doubts), and maybe this year is the last time I will have to deal with such a high concentration of this type of person. And naturally, business, NGOs, and federal jobs all have their own type of jerk, and in all likelihood, if I keep this blog going in the future, I will be wind up making another post like this. I know I didn't exactly mince words when I used to talk about some of my coworkers from my jobs right out of college and the memory of one boss in particular gives me PTSD to this day. This is what I wanted to do at the end of many a workday:
Now that I've offended my classmates, I will consider my work here done. As a parting gift, I give you my new favorite moving animal gif:
Equilibrium!
ReplyDeleteYou will get into graduate school. I have a crystal ball that is way more accurate than the refresh button on Grad Cafe.