OK, real big update, ready?
The trip to Providence was a blast! I spent the first day exploring the city, and I was so grateful to be able to walk to the hotel from the train station. There was a beutiful river park between between the station and the hotel and I really enjoyed it. The Biltmore Hotel is an overwhelming place. It's like a living antique. I ate at the mall because anyplace else would have been terribly expensive, at least every other place I saw looked expensive and I wasn't about to try and find out. The mall was walking distance to the hotel, too.
My second day was the philosophy conference. I caught a bus to the conference which was very reasonable by New Jersey standards, and got to the college early enough for the breakfast they had laid out for us. There were five sets of panals with four speakers per time slot, and a guest speaker. The topics were pretty wide, from Nietzsche, to graffitti, to the balance between law and cultural custom. The guest speaker lectured on melencholy and Plato's Phaedo. Having spent some time the Phaedo in my Ancient Greek Philosophy class the semester before, I asked him how the humor in the Phaedo could be related to the melencholy in his paper. He confessed he could not give me an answer on the spot to that, but that he would try to get back to me on it. That didn't end up happening, but I don't mind. At least I brought up something interesting to think about.
My panal was at the end of the day, so there wern't many people there. Nonetheless, we had a good time with my paper, and my respondent certainly pointed out facetsof my paper that I had never thought of. She said that by casting doubt on the universal usefulness of logic, I was threatening philosophy as we know it. I was a bit taken aback by this, but I could see her point, and a lively discussion ensued. It was a great experience for me and I'm glad I got the chance to go. Before I left, they gave me a T-shirt and asked me to come back next year as a respondent.
My last day I was really just there for the morning. I took one last walk around the river park before checking out and heading for the train station and home.
Now, the reason it took so long for me to report all this is that I sliced part of my thumb off on the slicer at my new deli job. I was in the emergency room twice, once when it happened and once when it broke back open and wouldn't stop bleeding. They couldn't graft back the skin I lost so it's slowly growing back on it's own. I got stitches which should come out in another week, but in the meantime typing is awkward. They say that it will all grow back to normal, but I think that my thumb is going to look a bit mishapen for a while even after all the skin grows back. I've considered posting a picture of it since everyone wants to know how big the wound is and how many stitches etc., but it's kinda grusome, so picture showings will be done upon personal request.
I believe that's all the fun and exitement this month. Can't wait to see what the summer will bring.
My second day was the philosophy conference. I caught a bus to the conference which was very reasonable by New Jersey standards, and got to the college early enough for the breakfast they had laid out for us. There were five sets of panals with four speakers per time slot, and a guest speaker. The topics were pretty wide, from Nietzsche, to graffitti, to the balance between law and cultural custom. The guest speaker lectured on melencholy and Plato's Phaedo. Having spent some time the Phaedo in my Ancient Greek Philosophy class the semester before, I asked him how the humor in the Phaedo could be related to the melencholy in his paper. He confessed he could not give me an answer on the spot to that, but that he would try to get back to me on it. That didn't end up happening, but I don't mind. At least I brought up something interesting to think about.
My panal was at the end of the day, so there wern't many people there. Nonetheless, we had a good time with my paper, and my respondent certainly pointed out facetsof my paper that I had never thought of. She said that by casting doubt on the universal usefulness of logic, I was threatening philosophy as we know it. I was a bit taken aback by this, but I could see her point, and a lively discussion ensued. It was a great experience for me and I'm glad I got the chance to go. Before I left, they gave me a T-shirt and asked me to come back next year as a respondent.
My last day I was really just there for the morning. I took one last walk around the river park before checking out and heading for the train station and home.
Now, the reason it took so long for me to report all this is that I sliced part of my thumb off on the slicer at my new deli job. I was in the emergency room twice, once when it happened and once when it broke back open and wouldn't stop bleeding. They couldn't graft back the skin I lost so it's slowly growing back on it's own. I got stitches which should come out in another week, but in the meantime typing is awkward. They say that it will all grow back to normal, but I think that my thumb is going to look a bit mishapen for a while even after all the skin grows back. I've considered posting a picture of it since everyone wants to know how big the wound is and how many stitches etc., but it's kinda grusome, so picture showings will be done upon personal request.
I believe that's all the fun and exitement this month. Can't wait to see what the summer will bring.