17 - fin.

While there is a good chance that out of the millions of people that use the internet, zero or so will read this, I would like to say.... just, don't even look at this anymore. Suppose I were skilled at html. I would make it so that if a person stumbled upon this blog, they would be immediately redirected here. I update Tumblr very slightly more often than I ever bothered with this thing.

An Open Letter to My Philosophy Professor

"You can go under 10 or over 15 pages, but be reasonable. It is difficult to do justice to the authors' arguments in less than 10 pages (that would be about 3 pages per chapter, a ratio of about 10/1) but too much over 15 pages would make the exposition more than a focus on essentials."

Really Dr. Piscitelli? Has it truly ever been a concern of yours that a student in your Intro to Philosophy class at a community college might exceed fifteen pages on this assignment? You also express that we must be succinct. Perhaps my inclination toward brevity in essays is simply superior and I know no better, but I find it terribly challenging to be both succinct and breach the ten-page minimum you request. I absolutely respect the amount and quality of education you have received, but has it occurred to you that there are a few instances in which you need to dumb down the material to the bare bones basics to reach an audience that has only extremely rudimentary, or nonexistent, prior knowledge of the subject matter? I appreciate being lectured to as if I walk the halls of one of the institutions you attended, but it is discouraging to be expected to perform at at that level or risk failure. I have spoken with several of my classmates and I highly doubt more than half the class is capable of writing a paper that is up to snuff. Your lectures were not designed to help the student become more competent at understanding the language used in philosophy prose and gain a greater understanding of philosophical and epistemological concepts in independent study. They were themselves concept-based and while exposure to these concepts as they were meant to be presented (not in layman's terms) has given me a marginally better grasp on classical philosophy, I still find writing a lengthy expository essay on a text we have not even briefly discussed in class to be a struggle.

To all the people who have ever looked at the password field and thought, hm, good question.

I don't even know why I have this. I don't think it has ever been viewed by eyes that are not mine and I don't make much of a case against that.

I have not been up to much. I have become a full-fledged slacker, if you discount the fact I have a fairly secure job. I like to think of myself as special kind of slacker, though. I skipped class last Friday and went to the library to study for a little over two hours. A week prior to that I had a philosophy paper returned to me with the word "pathetic" written on it and sank into a mild depression that I have not yet fully recovered from.

While at the library, I started my speech (topic: why college isn't for everyone - I had to choose from a list of options like "bowling injuries" and "fifty ways to leave your lover"), and it eventually turned into an autobiographical tale that was simultaneously self-deprecating and self-justifying. Between that time and the due date (today) I became distracted with work, other school assignments, and general slacker bullshit. So, I have elected to skip class and refine this piece of shit and present it next week, when the other half of the students are supposed to present anyway. I have two white lies to choose from: I was too sick to read a speech (I am sick, but really not too sick to do anything except not be sick), or, I was called into work and didn't want to make a bad impression my first week in a new department. I know they need extra people at work, but they never asked me to come in. Anyway, I've already justified skipping to myself. I know people who go to schools that cost 5x what mine does (I go to community college) and they just sleep through their classes, all the time. Second, I'm going to go Panera and work on my speech while I'd usually be in class. I have to get out of the house since my parents think I'll be going to class.

Oh yeah, also, if I don't get my shit together in terms of pulling my weight around the house, I'm probably getting kicked out. My ADD (I really, really hate calling it that but I can never think of an acceptable euphemism) is at an all time low (read: really bad) and I can't function from one day to the next without it obviously affecting me. I need to find a pill-happy psychiatrist who will prescribe me Adderall without all the holistic try this try that first bullshit.

On the bright side, my new department is awesome. I break up loads and put shit on shelves all day, which is exactly the kind of manual labor with visible progress I get gratification from. I get my own fucking box-cutter and work gloves. Like, I take them home with me every day, I don't have to turn them in at the end of every shift. It's like they are part of my uniform. I get to take my breaks and lunches whenever I want.

Well this is getting really long and while I shouldn't let this bother me as no one is reading, I personally don't want to go back and proofread any more than this.

13

You know how there's French toast? Which is delicious?
I have improved upon it. I cannot tell you what I have done, though. I still haven't ruled out marketing my masterpiece.
That is all. I wish you a good evening.

I can't remember if I wrote about my experience at the chiropractor in my post yesterday, and I am far too lazy to check. I have a disability certificate, as it were.

So we go in and sit down. There is this lady who is clearly in training to be a cougar at the desk bitching about bloating and driving on the right side of the street ever since she got back to the States from somewhere. I'm clearly in pain, holding my beck, and she keeps on bitching.

Wow suddenly I really don't feel like writing anymore. I'm going to finish this later.

11

I come to you today from my MacBook Pro, which I procured about two weeks ago. Perhaps to the day. This is less important than my dead neck.

Yesterday around 9:30 AM, as I sat on the toilet, I turned my head to the left, not really with any spectacular speed, heard a grinding/crunching sound, and there you go. My range of motion is severely limited. I did not go to work. I got about three hours of sleep last night. Today I am either going to see a massage therapist or a chiropractor. Oh, it's also extremely painful. I think "dead" implies "numb," which is so not the case.

Now I am sitting here watching Drive Thru: (Episode says "Leaving Panama;" I know I am not watching Caribbean, and I don't know where else Panama could be) at an angle and the coffee brewing smells strongly of pee. I am sick and tired of drinking my coffee with soymilk, but it lasts so much longer than dairy milk. It's also vastly more disgusting.

I'm really not looking forward to transferring all of my iTunes files over to this new machine. It was much easier last time because I was able to use SharePod. Totally free, no file limit. All of its Mac-compatible counterparts cost money in one way or another. It's crap. The method in which you enable disk use in the iPod sounds really confusing and seems to open up the possibility of corrupting the files or the device and I'd really like to go get my neck fixed now.

Fro yo, fro yo.

Because I live in Northern Virginia, I am deprived of PinkBerry and therefore can't really compare any of its successors to it. Because I live in Northern Virginia, I was in Georgetown one day and I ambled into an IceBerry. This establishment sells nonfat frozen yogurt mixed with crack. I'm getting the shakes and I'm not diggin' on driving to any of the there somewhat local locations. I go when I'm with my friend who lives in Springfield. She is my enabler. I may suck it up and go to TCBY, because it's the only other frozen yogurt shop within fifteen miles of my house. It's not the same, though. Not whatsoever.