this world falls on me / hopes of immortality

[raven]

Have given up on International Relations on grounds am congenitally incapable of knowing stuff. Paper rubric is all about examples and details and Knowledge of Stuff Wot Happened Since 1990, er, no. My conception of history is currently "end of Cold War! First Gulf War! Bad Stuff In Yugoslavia! Even Worse Stuff In Kosovo! Millennium Bug Fails To End Everyone! September 11th 2001! Iraq!"

(Somehow am doubtful will be awarded any marks for knowing bad things happened on September 11th 2001. Yeah, er, I read newspapers. I do, and everything. Why do I know nothing that's happened, ever?)

History of Philosophy. Know nothing about Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant. Not so bad, as have not studied any of them. Know nothing about Descartes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. This possibly bad? Not sure how one contests "bad" in empiricist perspective other than "oh god oh god we're all going to die", and this unimpressive for empiricists, because, er, we are all going to die.

(Still vague on the difference between porphyry and porphyria. Memory of being shouted at for same still disturbingly clear. Discovered recently am not the only person who thinks my logic tutor is actually Severus Snape. Very comforting thought.)

Cold War. Er. It happened? Possibly ended? Nobody got nuked, Khruschev and Mao spent time in swimming pools, history is written by the victors, we are all still here, the end.

Aesthetics. Plato threw the poets out of the Republic. Keep meeting random PPEists who tell me I need to let go of my random neuroses, omg, I need to have beliefs about art, omg, it's about intuition and functionalism and aesthetic satisfaction. For the last time: PHILOSOPHY IS NOT LITERARY CRITICISM. YOU ARE ALL WRONG AND I AM NOT BEING IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT IRRATIONAL.

(srsly. Aesthetic satisfaction? Y halo thar infinite reductionist regress oh ye gods I hate everything.)

Mind. Forgit what did. (Consciousness quite handy. Don't know what I did with mine.)

Politics of South Asia. Pakistan Not Very Nice. India slightly better. hum bharat ki nari hain, phool nahin chingari hain, etc., etc.

Political Theory. Egaliatarianism poss. good and poss. bad. Why would we blind sighted people? Know nothing about feminism or liberalism or rights. Nozick = wankerish bastard. Poss. also should have gone to G. A. Cohen's valedictory lecture on "Wild Political Philosophers I Have Known".

Ethics. Am not a good person. Er.

In conclusion: with one week to go, I don't know any stuff. Possibly could redress this, but cannot do work. How are people revising, I ask as a genuine enquiry? I am walking around my room eating ginger cake and bouncing off the walls like a five-year-old with ADD. Even with people here to shout at me I get distracted by dust motes.

...yeah. other people go, "ooh, shiny!" I go, "ooh, matte!"

Also persistent feeling that have done no work. Like, ever. Because I can't remember doing any. I mean, haven't done any today, and have sat at my desk a lot recently, but, yeah, work? Not so much.

Every time the Indigo Girls' World Falls comes up on shuffle, I misread it as "World Fails".


...yeah.

edited to add: slasheuse and I are moving to the Dominican Republic and running a cocktail bar. On the beach. With maraschino cherries and sangria. Yesyes.

Comments

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

I am looking at lots of books and articles enough to be able to remember one key point the author has said so as to be able to throw in names and look as if I know stuff. Also need to learn Yugoslavia timeline and lots of equations. Yeah...

Want to come over? Want me to come over?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Please do, please do. Am going out again at six, briefly, but otherwise am here. Caveat emptor: am quite possibly being insufferably distracting to have around.

love you. <3

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

OK, will finish making notes on environment and come round with IR books in tow circa 4. Need food? I have maternal cake and the last mango.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Also pasta sauce and the rest of the noodles/veg if you want to do dinner.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

CAKE. And noodles and veg! Have only pasta sauce and am getting somewhat sick of it. We could combine stuff? Have no other food except chocolate, but have LOTS of that.

Do you want to set up camp over here tonight, then? I'll only be out half an hour or so at six, and then back to Berkeley and Locke.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

That sounds good :) I will bring noodles/veg/blistering Szechuan sauce.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

<3 <3 you are win.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

ok, will be another ~20 minutes, need to download citations...

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Microeconomics: People aren't as rational as you think.
Macroeconomics: But they don't fuck up as much as governments.
IR: And when governments get together, oh man.

Etc.

I could continue, but it might make me want to jump off something.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

IR in the Cold War: oh, man, those are some BIG H-bombs.
Ethics: but don't press the button!
Political theory: oh, but if you're justified...
History of Philosophy: Justification! It's just a word! Words DON"T MEAN ANYTHING!

...ohgodhelpme.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Gmail ads is telling me to join MI6. ARGH.

[slasheuse.livejournal.com]

I am revising by sitting in my room making enormous Word documents and pretending everything's Shakespeare, and by stuffing my face. And trying really really hard to stay awake and going insane from lack of human contact.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

you are win. Just so you know. I would be happy to spend many years misspelling "caipirinha" on a Dominican beach with you.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Er. That was actually me. We are not actually the same person.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I am totally going to start using "ooh, matte!" as a term of approval.

Lots and lots of luck, and I hope you have the mattest exams evah!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, love. Afterwards I will sit back and bask in my very own neologism. :)

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

Poets! Republic! <----- The only thing I understood.

♥ ♥ ♥

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I don't understand any of it EITHER, and I have to TAKE FINALS ARGH ANGST WOE.

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Good luck with your revision!! AS revision seems like a bitch, but not as bad as what you seem to have to do! You'll do great I'm sure :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

thank you, dear. <3

Ping-Pong

[triptogenetica.livejournal.com]

Nixon solved the US-China thing with table tennis. Now everyone in the world loves eachother. The end.

Hope this helps!

Re: Ping-Pong

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Grraaaargh. Don't like politics any more. Should maybe have thought of this three years ago.

[thecapitalc.livejournal.com]

"Forgit what did" <3s What Katy Did. :D

I assume you took that from Dorry's journal, right?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yep! I loved that. Particularly loved how it turned into a diary of all the food he ate...

[tau_sigma]

Leibniz did things with differentials. Unless there's another Leibniz.

I would like to visit your cocktail bar.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Nope, that's him. All I know about him is the feud he had with Newton.

Pull up a chair and have a pina colada. *pets* In a glass the size of your head, with an umbrella big enough to cover, er, um. Connecticut. Really big.

[tau_sigma]

Oh yes. Was it him who Newton nicked calculus off? I failed to remember Leibniz formula for my exam today, anyway.

With lots of ice? AWESOME.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think so! Or, at least, they invented it independently and Newton published first. We do have Leibniz to thank for not having to call it "fluxions", though. :)

LOTS OF ICE. yes.

[ladyfalcon.livejournal.com]

If the Dominican Republic doesn't work out, you can share in my mid-finals fantasy of running away to Africa and joining an elephant preserve, where it will be my job to wash the elephants and buff them to a mirror shine.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, woooooow. I like this idea a LOT. Please can I come? I'll follow you around carrying your sponges.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

You know more than you think you do, promise.

For starters, there is an essay in that rant about Why Aesthetic Satisfaction Is Bollocks In A Philosophical Model. About which you have strong feelings, and will therefore be able to write like an overcocky public school boy.

Don't tell me you know nothing about feminism. You've campaigned on reproductive rights, haven't you?

It's often helpful to write big, messy lists/mindmaps of everything you know on a topic. Don't let yourself stop until you've thought of five things. Then five things more. Then five more things. You'll be surprised at how much is stored up in your subconscious brain waiting for you to force yourself to write it down. Remember, it's not just about making stuff go in, it's about making stuff come out.

Big Dates and Facts like september 11th I suspect for you is like writing about Famous Books for literature students. You can do it, if you have a really really clever point to make. Spice it up with one or two facts that other people won't have thought of, and that's even better. You have facts, from your unique world view and perspective. (For starters, don't forget that anything learned through the medium of Everything I Know About The World I Learned It From Fandom is valid.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to reply to this comment, and flailing, and going, Jessie-you-are-great-let-me-cling-to-you-forever.

*pause*

*flails*

*clings to you forever*

You are great. Thank you. :)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

*stroke*
*pet*
*hold*

[tmpe5t.livejournal.com]

We were all so optimistic for abour five minutes in 1988. The berlin wall had fallen, and there was AIDS but we all knew about condoms, we knew about global warming and the ozone layer but we had plenty of time to fix it and the future was going to be all sunshine and mountain bikes and acid house, baywatch lifestyle on the north sea coast...

Then it all went shit and instead we invented grunge to piss everyone else of as well...

You're right, the 90s were shit...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Huh? Me? I'm not right, I don't know anything about anything to be right about...

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

PHILOSOPHY IS NOT LITERARY CRITICISM
Also vice versa. This is why I'm not in a PhD program.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

They are just not co-referential. Academic departments of the world, you fail at basic distinctions.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

COME AND JOIN MY CIRCUS/BOOKSHOP/COFFEE SHOP.

All are invited. It'll be great. We'll have BOOKS and TRAPEZE ARTISTS and COFFEE. And tea. WE CAN BE AFFILIATED TO YOUR COCKTAIL BAR!

(My exams start in six days and I just flung my Scottish history book on the floor. LALALA.)

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Best place for it.

Scottish History encapsulated: "Dear god, did we fuck that one up." [Repeat until about 1600; then alternate with] "It's not our fault. A big boy did it and ran away!"

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

YES PLEASE OHGOD YES. I want giant comedy pina coladas. And amusingly-shaped vegetables as garnishes.

*pets you, gingerly* You are great, y'know? Can possibly not say the same about Scottish history. But you are great.

[me-ves-y-sufres.livejournal.com]

Am writing an essay on why literary critics are not ethicists or moral philosophers and thinking of you.