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Sep. 21st, 2004 03:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indecisionwinsEven though posting in LJ may not be the best idea when I seem to be too tired to think coherently (although not necessarily falling-asleep tired enough that I could actually fall asleep right away if I went to bed...), I guess I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway, since there's a few things that have been bothering me lately that I want to rant about.
The central one...I'm really wishing right now that I had decided to live in ML. I notice that when I'm hanging out in ML, almost no matter what, I end up happy. Usually, it's because Jonathan and/or Susan is around to hang out with, but even more, ML just exudes fun and happiness... On the other hand, whenever I'm in my room here, I end up just feeling sort of lethargic, not wanting to do work and without any fun to really have here.
I think one reason is that because of the way this dorm was built, and especally because the doors on all of the rooms automatically close, it just feels too quiet. Even though I actually do know a few people on my hall well enough to have a short conversation with them, there's noone that I would necessarily hang out with for very long. But still...even last year, in Parrish, the loud sounds of rugby players going through the paper thin walls of Parrish at least made it feel sort of alive, even though I really didn't talk to any of them. Of course, another reason why my room this year seems worse than last year might be because this year, I keep this glorified image of ML in my mind where everyone is always happy, and that I would be too, which I didn't have last year. And, maybe it's also that the fact that there are so many people on my hall who I sort of know, but aren't really friends with, makes things worse, not better.
The other thing is that I also haven't felt like doing much work when I'm in my room. I'll have something that I want to do, and then as soon as I'm in my room, I won't do it. Since the bed's lofted, I can't sit down on the bed, so I always sit at the computer, and then don't get off even when I get bored. I've always done that when I sit down at the computer, but since the computer chair is the only place to sit down, I do it anyway. Which means I need to unloft the bed, I guess, but that involves convincing people to come up here to help do it... But then, for some reason, when I do go on my bed, I really can't do ANY reading without falling asleep. Which maybe isn't new, but it seems even worse this year than in the past. I think at least part of this not being able to work is the room, since when I'm at my computer in the afternoon, the sun is shining right in the window at the computer at a bad angle, where it's hard to concentrate. The afternoon is usually when I'm most able to concentrate, so that's sort of a problem. Then, at night, the lighting isn't necessarily the best for working either. I think the room light may actually be better than the lamp I've been using (and Jonathan suggested I start using that, which I have been doing more), but I'm still not sure that it's perfect.
And the other thing is my course schedule. Because last week, too, I was really bored at the beginning of the week, and then I was burned out from having so many deadlines at the end of the week, because I had things due Weds., Thurs., and Fri. Not major things, but there's still always the stress of a due date. The only class that I've had to do substantial amounts of work for is animal behavior, but there's been way too much tedious, annoying "busy work" that seems to be doing more to show us HOW to do things than to really let us get into interesting information. I still think Julie is a good professor in some ways, but in other ways, her class is really annoying. A big part of that is probably that it's geared more towards sophomores, so since I've taken a lot of bio classes already, I already know (or at least think I know or think I should know) a lot of that stuff. And, I guess I know for sure that I don't really like the process of field biology, which is something I knew from like middle school when I really hated doing things like watching eagles at a wetland, but I sort of ignored when I decided to take this class. Well, I think animal behvaior is still interesting and relevant enough to stuff that I'm interested in, and was probably still the best way to fill a requirement in psychobio that I had to fill. But still...that's probably the class that I've spent the most time on so far, even though the work isn't difficult, but just tedious. And when there's nothing interesting to engage my brain, I guess I get...like this. There is more interesting stuff that I could and maybe should be doing for my classes, including actually doing the reading for animal behavior. But since I never end up being motivated to do stuff until I have to even when it would be interesting, and most of the interesting stuff isn't stuff that I have to do (including the animal behavior reading...), I haven't done it.
Besides animal behavior, the psych classes have been fairly interesting, but not much work. Well, concepts of the person has reading, which should be really interesting, and sometimes papers, which may be fun, but that's only one day a week. (Yeah, I could spread out the reading, but...that never actually happens...) And decision-making has some assignments, but those seem mostly tedious more than interesting. There is some reading for decision-making that may or may not be interesting, but since it doesn't seem necessary, I haven't actually done it. And the history seminar...I really need to work on that more, since that obviously is really interesting stuff, but since it seems so open-ended and independent, I end up procrastinating even when I don't have any reason to. I think that's what brought this on, actually, since I was going to work on it some this afternoon, and didn't. Then, I was going to work on it tonight, but by the time I got finished with some bird-watching stuff for animal behavior that we had to do in the lab, and fooled around in my room for an hour or two, I was too tired to comprehend anything.
I do still need to figure out exactly what my topic for my history paper will be pretty soon, too... I've found some really fascinating stuff on the history of Swarthmore that I think will be a substantial part of my paper. My original topic was how scientific knowledge has been approached as compared to Biblical knowledge in Jewish cultures, which I think I've narrowed to mostly looking at how early 20th century American Jews (mostly Orthodox Jews) approached teaching scientific knowledge to their children. But I also decided to look up how Swarthmore's fairly strong emphasis on science fit in with Quaker tradition, for comparison. And one thing that I saw was that while Quakers thought science was important because they liked the idea of practical education, science education actually was starting to seem incompatible with Quaker eduation by the late 19th century. That's because modern science required critical thinking, and they really didn't want kids to question Quaker doctrine, and so to make sure of that, they didn't want them to think too much at all. (Well, it's clear that Swarthmore deviated a bit from that ideal... ;) But it is still really interesting, and I need to read more on that to fully understand it.) But anyway, according to one source, Haverford also emphasized science at first. They were founded in 1833, where Swarthmore first held classes in 1869. And when Haverford began to see that science was becoming more critical...they "imperceptibly became more classical in character" (in the words of one of my secondary sources). So, they deemphasized science, but Swarthmore didn't, which is a really interesting distinction.
So I probably could write a whole paper on that, but I'm not sure that I completely want to give up on the Jewish stuff. For one, I really don't know much about the basic Quaker history, and it seems like that would make it hard to do the whole paper on Quakers. And besides, I really was interested in the Jewish topic, even though right now the Swarthmore stuff is getting me more excited than the Judaism sources that I have. But I dunno, I guess I'll have to see how that goes.
So, back to angsty ranting... Between not having all that much work this semester anyway, and trying to avoid going to my room whenever possible anyway, which I've had to do whenever I want to get work done, it looks like some of the advantages of living on campus are sort of reduced. And at the same time, because I'm aware of how much more fun I'd probably have living in ML, the disadvantages of living on campus are looking really big right now. Well, there is always Jon's offer to move to ML second semester. But if![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gerbilicious85 is definitely going to Germany, that'll get rid of a significant amount of the happiness of living in ML. So then it probably wouldn't be worth the schlep of moving. But if I do stay here...hopefully I'll at least get into that seminar that I want to take (Hormones and Behavior), which probably isn't all that likely, since then that will give me something really interesting to be working on. Where this semester, the interesting stuff is too unstructured, and the tedious stuff is very structured. Which leads to not being very happy. Now see, this is what happens when I decide that I won't need to use an add/drop form... (Well OK, I still think this was probably the best schedule I was going to have this semester, so I can't blame it on that. But I do think last semester was a whole lot more stimulating, even though I was really busy, after I had to agonize over what classes to take. Of course, I was also really sleep-deprived, and the semester definitely had its bad moments. But...I think if anything, being very sleep-deprived (ie. 4.5-5.5 hours) is better for me than getting like 6-6.5 hours of sleep, which is what I got last night at least. Sometimes I've actually been getting 8 hours on school nights, which I never, ever got last year (unless I accidentally fell asleep really early or something), but...I haven't even managed it as much as I should have with this schedule. Well, I could have gotten 8 hours of sleep tonight. But that's looking a bit less likely than it did before I decided to write this post. But ah well...
Oh, and one other thing. From thinking about rationale for education (ie. knowledge vs. practicality) and stuff a lot, as part of my history thing...it really stands out when my mother focuses so much on grades and stuff and NOT necessarily on learning. Like when I was talking to her on the phone complaining about animal behavior, and she was like "well, Julie gave you an A in your independent study, so doesn't that mean she's a good professor?" Well, not necessarily... (Not that I'm saying she's really a bad professor, but that's a separate issue.) But the thing is, for all of her flaws, I think my mother pushing me is at least a part of why I always did all of my work and stuff, and why I did well in school, at least at first. But to see that she really thinking things like grades are the most important thing, and not about actually the idealistic pursuit of interesting and useful knowledge, which is how I ended up taking it.... Well, it's not surprising that my mother thinks that, I guess, since that's the way most of the world sees it and she's not exactly an original thinker, but it's still a little bit troubling.
So, I guess that's enough for now, since this is pretty long even with cuts, and I should really go to sleep...
Edit: Just one more rant to add here... I think some of why I'm all of a sudden feeling this more than before is that I'm fully aware that I only have one more year here, and I really want to make the most of it. And I could be enjoying the company of Jonathan, Susan, and other people in ML, which I won't really be able to do like that after this year, and I would probably still be finishing the work that needs to be done with this fairly easy schedule. But instead, I've been here in the new dorm, sitting at my computer doing nothing, way too often...
The central one...I'm really wishing right now that I had decided to live in ML. I notice that when I'm hanging out in ML, almost no matter what, I end up happy. Usually, it's because Jonathan and/or Susan is around to hang out with, but even more, ML just exudes fun and happiness... On the other hand, whenever I'm in my room here, I end up just feeling sort of lethargic, not wanting to do work and without any fun to really have here.
I think one reason is that because of the way this dorm was built, and especally because the doors on all of the rooms automatically close, it just feels too quiet. Even though I actually do know a few people on my hall well enough to have a short conversation with them, there's noone that I would necessarily hang out with for very long. But still...even last year, in Parrish, the loud sounds of rugby players going through the paper thin walls of Parrish at least made it feel sort of alive, even though I really didn't talk to any of them. Of course, another reason why my room this year seems worse than last year might be because this year, I keep this glorified image of ML in my mind where everyone is always happy, and that I would be too, which I didn't have last year. And, maybe it's also that the fact that there are so many people on my hall who I sort of know, but aren't really friends with, makes things worse, not better.
The other thing is that I also haven't felt like doing much work when I'm in my room. I'll have something that I want to do, and then as soon as I'm in my room, I won't do it. Since the bed's lofted, I can't sit down on the bed, so I always sit at the computer, and then don't get off even when I get bored. I've always done that when I sit down at the computer, but since the computer chair is the only place to sit down, I do it anyway. Which means I need to unloft the bed, I guess, but that involves convincing people to come up here to help do it... But then, for some reason, when I do go on my bed, I really can't do ANY reading without falling asleep. Which maybe isn't new, but it seems even worse this year than in the past. I think at least part of this not being able to work is the room, since when I'm at my computer in the afternoon, the sun is shining right in the window at the computer at a bad angle, where it's hard to concentrate. The afternoon is usually when I'm most able to concentrate, so that's sort of a problem. Then, at night, the lighting isn't necessarily the best for working either. I think the room light may actually be better than the lamp I've been using (and Jonathan suggested I start using that, which I have been doing more), but I'm still not sure that it's perfect.
And the other thing is my course schedule. Because last week, too, I was really bored at the beginning of the week, and then I was burned out from having so many deadlines at the end of the week, because I had things due Weds., Thurs., and Fri. Not major things, but there's still always the stress of a due date. The only class that I've had to do substantial amounts of work for is animal behavior, but there's been way too much tedious, annoying "busy work" that seems to be doing more to show us HOW to do things than to really let us get into interesting information. I still think Julie is a good professor in some ways, but in other ways, her class is really annoying. A big part of that is probably that it's geared more towards sophomores, so since I've taken a lot of bio classes already, I already know (or at least think I know or think I should know) a lot of that stuff. And, I guess I know for sure that I don't really like the process of field biology, which is something I knew from like middle school when I really hated doing things like watching eagles at a wetland, but I sort of ignored when I decided to take this class. Well, I think animal behvaior is still interesting and relevant enough to stuff that I'm interested in, and was probably still the best way to fill a requirement in psychobio that I had to fill. But still...that's probably the class that I've spent the most time on so far, even though the work isn't difficult, but just tedious. And when there's nothing interesting to engage my brain, I guess I get...like this. There is more interesting stuff that I could and maybe should be doing for my classes, including actually doing the reading for animal behavior. But since I never end up being motivated to do stuff until I have to even when it would be interesting, and most of the interesting stuff isn't stuff that I have to do (including the animal behavior reading...), I haven't done it.
Besides animal behavior, the psych classes have been fairly interesting, but not much work. Well, concepts of the person has reading, which should be really interesting, and sometimes papers, which may be fun, but that's only one day a week. (Yeah, I could spread out the reading, but...that never actually happens...) And decision-making has some assignments, but those seem mostly tedious more than interesting. There is some reading for decision-making that may or may not be interesting, but since it doesn't seem necessary, I haven't actually done it. And the history seminar...I really need to work on that more, since that obviously is really interesting stuff, but since it seems so open-ended and independent, I end up procrastinating even when I don't have any reason to. I think that's what brought this on, actually, since I was going to work on it some this afternoon, and didn't. Then, I was going to work on it tonight, but by the time I got finished with some bird-watching stuff for animal behavior that we had to do in the lab, and fooled around in my room for an hour or two, I was too tired to comprehend anything.
I do still need to figure out exactly what my topic for my history paper will be pretty soon, too... I've found some really fascinating stuff on the history of Swarthmore that I think will be a substantial part of my paper. My original topic was how scientific knowledge has been approached as compared to Biblical knowledge in Jewish cultures, which I think I've narrowed to mostly looking at how early 20th century American Jews (mostly Orthodox Jews) approached teaching scientific knowledge to their children. But I also decided to look up how Swarthmore's fairly strong emphasis on science fit in with Quaker tradition, for comparison. And one thing that I saw was that while Quakers thought science was important because they liked the idea of practical education, science education actually was starting to seem incompatible with Quaker eduation by the late 19th century. That's because modern science required critical thinking, and they really didn't want kids to question Quaker doctrine, and so to make sure of that, they didn't want them to think too much at all. (Well, it's clear that Swarthmore deviated a bit from that ideal... ;) But it is still really interesting, and I need to read more on that to fully understand it.) But anyway, according to one source, Haverford also emphasized science at first. They were founded in 1833, where Swarthmore first held classes in 1869. And when Haverford began to see that science was becoming more critical...they "imperceptibly became more classical in character" (in the words of one of my secondary sources). So, they deemphasized science, but Swarthmore didn't, which is a really interesting distinction.
So I probably could write a whole paper on that, but I'm not sure that I completely want to give up on the Jewish stuff. For one, I really don't know much about the basic Quaker history, and it seems like that would make it hard to do the whole paper on Quakers. And besides, I really was interested in the Jewish topic, even though right now the Swarthmore stuff is getting me more excited than the Judaism sources that I have. But I dunno, I guess I'll have to see how that goes.
So, back to angsty ranting... Between not having all that much work this semester anyway, and trying to avoid going to my room whenever possible anyway, which I've had to do whenever I want to get work done, it looks like some of the advantages of living on campus are sort of reduced. And at the same time, because I'm aware of how much more fun I'd probably have living in ML, the disadvantages of living on campus are looking really big right now. Well, there is always Jon's offer to move to ML second semester. But if
gerbilicious85 is definitely going to Germany, that'll get rid of a significant amount of the happiness of living in ML. So then it probably wouldn't be worth the schlep of moving. But if I do stay here...hopefully I'll at least get into that seminar that I want to take (Hormones and Behavior), which probably isn't all that likely, since then that will give me something really interesting to be working on. Where this semester, the interesting stuff is too unstructured, and the tedious stuff is very structured. Which leads to not being very happy. Now see, this is what happens when I decide that I won't need to use an add/drop form... (Well OK, I still think this was probably the best schedule I was going to have this semester, so I can't blame it on that. But I do think last semester was a whole lot more stimulating, even though I was really busy, after I had to agonize over what classes to take. Of course, I was also really sleep-deprived, and the semester definitely had its bad moments. But...I think if anything, being very sleep-deprived (ie. 4.5-5.5 hours) is better for me than getting like 6-6.5 hours of sleep, which is what I got last night at least. Sometimes I've actually been getting 8 hours on school nights, which I never, ever got last year (unless I accidentally fell asleep really early or something), but...I haven't even managed it as much as I should have with this schedule. Well, I could have gotten 8 hours of sleep tonight. But that's looking a bit less likely than it did before I decided to write this post. But ah well...Oh, and one other thing. From thinking about rationale for education (ie. knowledge vs. practicality) and stuff a lot, as part of my history thing...it really stands out when my mother focuses so much on grades and stuff and NOT necessarily on learning. Like when I was talking to her on the phone complaining about animal behavior, and she was like "well, Julie gave you an A in your independent study, so doesn't that mean she's a good professor?" Well, not necessarily... (Not that I'm saying she's really a bad professor, but that's a separate issue.) But the thing is, for all of her flaws, I think my mother pushing me is at least a part of why I always did all of my work and stuff, and why I did well in school, at least at first. But to see that she really thinking things like grades are the most important thing, and not about actually the idealistic pursuit of interesting and useful knowledge, which is how I ended up taking it.... Well, it's not surprising that my mother thinks that, I guess, since that's the way most of the world sees it and she's not exactly an original thinker, but it's still a little bit troubling.
So, I guess that's enough for now, since this is pretty long even with cuts, and I should really go to sleep...
Edit: Just one more rant to add here... I think some of why I'm all of a sudden feeling this more than before is that I'm fully aware that I only have one more year here, and I really want to make the most of it. And I could be enjoying the company of Jonathan, Susan, and other people in ML, which I won't really be able to do like that after this year, and I would probably still be finishing the work that needs to be done with this fairly easy schedule. But instead, I've been here in the new dorm, sitting at my computer doing nothing, way too often...
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 07:23 pm (UTC)What *are* your secondary sources? I'd like to check them out because this sounds mighty suspicious - no matter how reactionary 19th century Quakerism was that's a VERY strong statement.
Assuming your sources are right rather than slanderous, the paper is pretty straight forward. A section on Orthodox Quakerism v/ Hicksite Quakerism, and a section on the importance of individuals - Haverford may well have gone through a small "dark age" between it's founding and the coming of Rufus Jones (1893). And you're done.
But we know how interested in Jewish history I am.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 09:59 pm (UTC)The other good source I have, which I haven't really looked at yet, is a Yale Ph.D. thesis by Homer Babbidge from 1953 that's also in FHL. That seems like it actually does more to compare Swarthmore with general Quaker educational traditions than the other one does, so I'll have to see what he says about the issue. But since that one's like 250 pages and I can't take it out of FHL, I may not get to it for at least a couple weeks... (Especially since before I go back to that, I need to figure out how much I really want to do with the Jewish history stuff.)
I should probably talk to you more about this sometime. And yeah, I would expect you would be more interested in Quaker stuff. But I really don't know much at all about Quaker history, and I know a fair amount about Jewish history, so it seems like it would be a bad idea for me to write the whole paper on Quakers. But since I do know something about the history of science at that time, and I've been reading general stuff about Swarthmore history, maybe it could work... But I think I AM still interested in the Judaism parts, even though the Swarthmore/Quaker stuff seems more interesting at this point. So I'll have to see...
no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 06:06 am (UTC)