There is the possibility that i will be excited about next semester.
It bodes ominous that the only class i can think of when i try to remember what i'm registered for next semester is the Garcia Lorca class. I am really excited about that class though i'm also very intimidated. Looking at my piece of my paper, i am also registered for Logic, which will be very useful and for which Marnie dear is TAing, and The Harlem Renaissance with Kevin Quashie whom everyone says everyone should take a class with.
Remember when i was debating about a 4th class? Ann Jones is highly recommended, yes, but i can't deal with another class that's all about gender on the heels of Intro to Women's Studies (which i am likely to get a C in, incidentally, because i don't do good work when i don't care). Good arguments were made for the Body class, and that's what i ultimately decided on. I really want to take both intro econ classes at some point, though, esp. with the knee-jerk "capitalism is evil" [i always get Everclear stuck in my head when i talk about this] in my Women's Studies class, because i want to understand how things work. I considered doing something of a crash course thanks to the library over the summer.
Anyway, today was faculty tea. I didn't invite anyone, because i felt like then i would be obligated to engage/entertain/occupy said professor for the entire time. (Crystal and i were discussing this over lunch at the MFA last weekend. "I adore Michael Thurston." "I know; Jessica told me." Thanks, dear.) Susan and i chatted for a while. I like her. Someone invited a professor neither of us knew and at one point he was sitting by himself so Susan went over to talk to him. Lewis Davis, Economics. I went over, too. He was pretending to write this stuff down as we both English majors were saying things like "Capitalism is not necessarily in and of itself evil." I talked briefly about my saga of possibly taking intro econ. He said i should take one of his classes, that he teaches intro to micro and has his kids read about school vouchers and stuff. I have a less than stellar recommendation from silvermousepad. I should talk to Jelena.
I was thinking just now about how i wanna take Intro for lots of classes, to have at least a base of knowledge in various areas, and the more i think about it the more important i think it is for everyone to have basic knowledge about stuff, but i'm also so glad that Smith doesn't require that everyone take lots of intro classes like so many institutions of higher learning do because, as we've established, i really don't like doing work when i don't care.
E-mail from my father:Did Mommy show you the little article on Dar from the Boston Globe, about how she didn't sign with a big record company and try to be a star, but nurtured things in her own way? I read it and thought, "Isn't capitalism great (no irony)?" Because to me capitalism means being able to do what you want with your property. If you're interested in making certain kinds of music and connecting with your audience in certain ways, you can do it--at least as long as you can make "enough" (and how much is enough is also your own decision). You can try to make as much money as you can or you can try to make pure music or you can try to build a community of listeners or you can try some sort of combination-- no one is more capitalist than any other. It's your life. (that's why economists--usually--talk about maximizing "utility" or a "preference function" rather than maximizing money income.)
Looking at it this way, being able to do what you want with your property becomes just another civil liberty. Thus, q.e.d., all civil libertairians must be capitalists. Of course, lots of people (especially at Smith) don't use the word that way. To them, capitalism means that the capitalists somehow force people to do all sorts of things that they otherwise wouldn't do but that wind up enriching the capitalists. Or it just means people being selfish. But I think the ability of capitalists (or corporations or transnational corporations) to force people to do things is vastly overrated. And there doesn't seem to be any correlation between how an economy is divided between a private sector and a government sector and how selfish people are.
Speaking of caring, we're starting the unit on sexuality in Women's Studies and i have so many problems with some of the articles (from the 1980s) we're reading, so this should be fun. It's exciting to be engaged with the texts again. And i may have (make) time this weekend to rant about various things in the world, or i may not.
Remember when i was debating about a 4th class? Ann Jones is highly recommended, yes, but i can't deal with another class that's all about gender on the heels of Intro to Women's Studies (which i am likely to get a C in, incidentally, because i don't do good work when i don't care). Good arguments were made for the Body class, and that's what i ultimately decided on. I really want to take both intro econ classes at some point, though, esp. with the knee-jerk "capitalism is evil" [i always get Everclear stuck in my head when i talk about this] in my Women's Studies class, because i want to understand how things work. I considered doing something of a crash course thanks to the library over the summer.
Anyway, today was faculty tea. I didn't invite anyone, because i felt like then i would be obligated to engage/entertain/occupy said professor for the entire time. (Crystal and i were discussing this over lunch at the MFA last weekend. "I adore Michael Thurston." "I know; Jessica told me." Thanks, dear.) Susan and i chatted for a while. I like her. Someone invited a professor neither of us knew and at one point he was sitting by himself so Susan went over to talk to him. Lewis Davis, Economics. I went over, too. He was pretending to write this stuff down as we both English majors were saying things like "Capitalism is not necessarily in and of itself evil." I talked briefly about my saga of possibly taking intro econ. He said i should take one of his classes, that he teaches intro to micro and has his kids read about school vouchers and stuff. I have a less than stellar recommendation from silvermousepad. I should talk to Jelena.
I was thinking just now about how i wanna take Intro for lots of classes, to have at least a base of knowledge in various areas, and the more i think about it the more important i think it is for everyone to have basic knowledge about stuff, but i'm also so glad that Smith doesn't require that everyone take lots of intro classes like so many institutions of higher learning do because, as we've established, i really don't like doing work when i don't care.
E-mail from my father:Did Mommy show you the little article on Dar from the Boston Globe, about how she didn't sign with a big record company and try to be a star, but nurtured things in her own way? I read it and thought, "Isn't capitalism great (no irony)?" Because to me capitalism means being able to do what you want with your property. If you're interested in making certain kinds of music and connecting with your audience in certain ways, you can do it--at least as long as you can make "enough" (and how much is enough is also your own decision). You can try to make as much money as you can or you can try to make pure music or you can try to build a community of listeners or you can try some sort of combination-- no one is more capitalist than any other. It's your life. (that's why economists--usually--talk about maximizing "utility" or a "preference function" rather than maximizing money income.)
Looking at it this way, being able to do what you want with your property becomes just another civil liberty. Thus, q.e.d., all civil libertairians must be capitalists. Of course, lots of people (especially at Smith) don't use the word that way. To them, capitalism means that the capitalists somehow force people to do all sorts of things that they otherwise wouldn't do but that wind up enriching the capitalists. Or it just means people being selfish. But I think the ability of capitalists (or corporations or transnational corporations) to force people to do things is vastly overrated. And there doesn't seem to be any correlation between how an economy is divided between a private sector and a government sector and how selfish people are.
Speaking of caring, we're starting the unit on sexuality in Women's Studies and i have so many problems with some of the articles (from the 1980s) we're reading, so this should be fun. It's exciting to be engaged with the texts again. And i may have (make) time this weekend to rant about various things in the world, or i may not.