I can't do it. I can't bloody do it.
Maybe I'm too dumb, too illiterate, or both. Maybe I should have taken the full-semester course rather than the short summer course. Maybe I would do better if we were reading the novels; The Stranger and The Seducer's Diary and whatnot.
All I know for sure is that trying to read Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Camus fills me with a deep, unrelenting loathing that makes me feel nauseous and makes me want to hurl the book across the room, preferably into a fire. And based on this I'm pretty sure Sartre and Hiedegger will make me feel the same way.
The study drug doesn't help. All it does is give me the ability to peruse multiple pages of nonsense before giving up in disgust, rather than a single paragraph. Even the lectures, which used to be my only way of understanding anything, are failing to penetrate my thick skull. All I see is page after page of shit, horrible bullshit that means nothing to me and is worth even less. It's so much fucking noise, and only Nietzsche comes close to being tolerable because at least he seemed to have a notion of what a joke the whole venture is.
What truly burns me though is the knowledge that by taking this class and paying tuition, I am supporting an institution which exists for precisely one purpose. That purpose is allowing airheaded rhetoriticians to make a living by writing 200-page treatises on subjcts of exponentially increaing irrelevance using poorly defined terms and inexcusably vague generalities, and babble on with other such airheads on these subjects in a neverending game of trying to prove to each other how clever they are while drinking coffee in the morning, liquor in the afternoon, and smoking cigarettes.
Like I said: probably just too stupid or too unprepared for the class.
Quote from: Cainad on June 17, 2010, 05:19:35 PM
I can't do it. I can't bloody do it.
Maybe I'm too dumb, too illiterate, or both. Maybe I should have taken the full-semester course rather than the short summer course. Maybe I would do better if we were reading the novels; The Stranger and The Seducer's Diary and whatnot.
All I know for sure is that trying to read Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Camus fills me with a deep, unrelenting loathing that makes me feel nauseous and makes me want to hurl the book across the room, preferably into a fire. And based on this I'm pretty sure Sartre and Hiedegger will make me feel the same way.
The study drug doesn't help. All it does is give me the ability to peruse multiple pages of nonsense before giving up in disgust, rather than a single paragraph. Even the lectures, which used to be my only way of understanding anything, are failing to penetrate my thick skull. All I see is page after page of shit, horrible bullshit that means nothing to me and is worth even less. It's so much fucking noise, and only Nietzsche comes close to being tolerable because at least he seemed to have a notion of what a joke the whole venture is.
What truly burns me though is the knowledge that by taking this class and paying tuition, I am supporting an institution which exists for precisely one purpose. That purpose is allowing airheaded rhetoriticians to make a living by writing 200-page treatises on subjcts of exponentially increaing irrelevance using poorly defined terms and inexcusably vague generalities, and babble on with other such airheads on these subjects in a neverending game of trying to prove to each other how clever they are while drinking coffee in the morning, liquor in the afternoon, and smoking cigarettes.
Like I said: probably just too stupid or too unprepared for the class.
Maybe make a joke out of each concept? Even if it doesn't help you remember, it might make it more tolerable.
Well, Cainad, you know what you have to do now, right? You have to gather in as muc h of this crap as you can stand, and then go to those fucking hipsters, Calmly show them the book you were last reading, carefully tear a few pages out, and forcefully shove it down their throats. Then you must record whether or not they think it really happened, or whatever, for SCIENCE!
Unfortunately, the alternative is a low-wage job or worse...suck it up, dude. I know that sounds bitchy, but there are other classes out there, and this, too, shall end. Sooner than you think.
That's my little pep talk about classes, their content, and the assholes that teach them.
(thing about authority figures in general: most of them are full of their own shit and don't think their breath smells anything but minty-fresh, whether you're in the Ivory Tower, on Wall Street, work for the gummament or the private sector...learn to get the lulz while you can before you implode by 25...)
Quote from: Jenne on June 17, 2010, 07:19:38 PM
Unfortunately, the alternative is a low-wage job or worse...suck it up, dude. I know that sounds bitchy, but there are other classes out there, and this, too, shall end. Sooner than you think.
That's my little pep talk about classes, their content, and the assholes that teach them.
(thing about authority figures in general: most of them are full of their own shit and don't think their breath smells anything but minty-fresh, whether you're in the Ivory Tower, on Wall Street, work for the gummament or the private sector...learn to get the lulz while you can before you implode by 25...)
I could have not taken this class and still get my degree; a passing grade is all I'm holding out for at this point. But you're right; by the end of this week I'll be halfway done with the class.
I feel like I blew my load with intellectual masturbation already, and this stuff is just chafing and unpleasant.
Quote from: Cainad on June 17, 2010, 07:45:48 PM
Quote from: Jenne on June 17, 2010, 07:19:38 PM
Unfortunately, the alternative is a low-wage job or worse...suck it up, dude. I know that sounds bitchy, but there are other classes out there, and this, too, shall end. Sooner than you think.
That's my little pep talk about classes, their content, and the assholes that teach them.
(thing about authority figures in general: most of them are full of their own shit and don't think their breath smells anything but minty-fresh, whether you're in the Ivory Tower, on Wall Street, work for the gummament or the private sector...learn to get the lulz while you can before you implode by 25...)
I could have not taken this class and still get my degree; a passing grade is all I'm holding out for at this point. But you're right; by the end of this week I'll be halfway done with the class.
I feel like I blew my load with intellectual masturbation already, and this stuff is just chafing and unpleasant.
I get you. Picture this: when I was senior and my last French class that I HAD to take to graduate and get my degree in my major (that I changed 3 times, btw), was in THIRTEENTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH POETRY. And I had to WRITE, speak and read in French to get the grade as well.
I did not mind ATALL ATALL getting a damned B+ (the first B I'd had since my first trimester, mind you) in that fucking class. It was SUCH a pain in my ass. The prof was very upset at me for my senioritis. But it couldn't be helped for chrissakes.
Quote from: Jenne on June 17, 2010, 07:48:50 PM
Quote from: Cainad on June 17, 2010, 07:45:48 PM
Quote from: Jenne on June 17, 2010, 07:19:38 PM
Unfortunately, the alternative is a low-wage job or worse...suck it up, dude. I know that sounds bitchy, but there are other classes out there, and this, too, shall end. Sooner than you think.
That's my little pep talk about classes, their content, and the assholes that teach them.
(thing about authority figures in general: most of them are full of their own shit and don't think their breath smells anything but minty-fresh, whether you're in the Ivory Tower, on Wall Street, work for the gummament or the private sector...learn to get the lulz while you can before you implode by 25...)
I could have not taken this class and still get my degree; a passing grade is all I'm holding out for at this point. But you're right; by the end of this week I'll be halfway done with the class.
I feel like I blew my load with intellectual masturbation already, and this stuff is just chafing and unpleasant.
I get you. Picture this: when I was senior and my last French class that I HAD to take to graduate and get my degree in my major (that I changed 3 times, btw), was in THIRTEENTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH POETRY. And I had to WRITE, speak and read in French to get the grade as well.
I did not mind ATALL ATALL getting a damned B+ (the first B I'd had since my first trimester, mind you) in that fucking class. It was SUCH a pain in my ass. The prof was very upset at me for my senioritis. But it couldn't be helped for chrissakes.
Yeouch :x I like languages, and that sounds painful.
About 20 minutes after writing the OP I bought two books from the campus bookstore: Intro to Nietzsche and Intro to Camus. Significantly less dense than the authors they're made for, and I already feel better than I did this morning.
Nice thing is, these days, you have the interbutts. So you can get all sorts of 2d 3rd and 4th opinions on the assholes of yesteryear. So stock up--read fairy tales with them in it, some plays and authors' commentaries. Jokes, satires, etc. That shit was hard to find in ye old card catalog of my day, but you have the world wide net on your back to help you along with said "Camus for Dummies" or the equivalent. /I'll stop Mommying you now I promise...maybe
Quote from: Cainad on June 17, 2010, 05:19:35 PM
Like I said: probably just too stupid or too unprepared for the class.
No, the emperor really
isn't wearing any clothes. 99% of philosophy is absolute garbage.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 17, 2010, 09:40:48 PM
Quote from: Cainad on June 17, 2010, 05:19:35 PM
Like I said: probably just too stupid or too unprepared for the class.
No, the emperor really isn't wearing any clothes. 99% of philosophy is absolute garbage.
This! You're the perfect philosophy student. You could take over the world with an attitude like that :lulz:
Summer courses drive me batshit, too. Good luck.
Quote from: Cainad on June 17, 2010, 07:53:16 PM
About 20 minutes after writing the OP I bought two books from the campus bookstore: Intro to Nietzsche and Intro to Camus. Significantly less dense than the authors they're made for, and I already feel better than I did this morning.
"Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves." <- coolest thing ever said by Nietzsche. This quote can get you out of (or into) just about anything, paper-wise. (this may be the 1% Dok's referring to...)
I've got nothing for Camus.
It's all mental masturbation.
Here is everything one needs to know about philosophy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_7C0QGkiVo
Quote from: Charley Brown on June 17, 2010, 11:05:41 PM
Here is everything one needs to know about philosophy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_7C0QGkiVo
Oh fuck I love this song!