People are Strange
I do not have a key to my old apartment, and 3 out of the 4 days I have been here I have ended up outside in the parking lot for 3-5 hours. I am so ready to go back to Sweden. I have a test today and I am tired. I have a massive stomachache too, and I am not prepared.
I have noticed something odd, but kind of good. Swedish people do not seem to speak English as well as Danes. This is good cause it makes learning the language a little easier. They all seem to speak English, especially younger people in the cities...but they are not comfortable speaking English. I met someone from Sweden yesterday while I was trying to pass the time waiting to get into my apartment and even here in London she was not comfortable speaking English (to be fair not that many people speak English in London).
One funny thing people do when they realize that you speak a little bit of their language is they get this semi-devious, semi-entertained smile and tell you to "Start saying things in Swedish." Do people not understand that language does not really work that way...start saying what? Its a bit like someone finding out that you like to run from time to time and then they suspend you in mid-air, smile, and say "let's see you do some running." Language has a complex and multidirectional substrate...take a lot of that away and then demand that someone start crawling around linguistically and you will find a problem.
There is a guy in here who I think lives here (I am in the library). I see him here every single time I come here no matter when it is. He is in my department and I don't like him at all. Usually I start out not liking people in my department and see if it turns out that they are not bad...students are generally not very fun...especially when they are becoming "academics." The stereotype of superabundant self-love is fairly accurate. This guy is even worse though. He is about 50 so his standard intellectual self-importance is amplified by thinking that being old is also a philosophical quality. My question is how do you work so long in philosophy and still not get a bit of it. Philosophy is really funny...it is a lot like the old Socratic saw of needing to first admit that you know nothing (and usually ending in aporia!)...but it doesn't happen methodologically.
"Ok, time to read Being and Time....wait...'I do not know anything'...alright now I am ready."
Its more a state you fall reluctantly into I think...then you know you are done. People work in these two levels alongside each other. The people who have not yet allowed themselves to be carried off by what we do, and those who have...It is really terrible to have to sit in a class with the former. This guy falls into that category...not a wit of curiousity and not even an eye turned toward authenticity...just joyless plagiarism. I got so sick of hearing him talk at some point that I wanted to drop the class.
They suck you into their debased level of doing philosophy though too. I never talk in class anymore...I am really tired of going to them and I find your best use of time is to just sit in the corner and read while the circus goes on in the near-distance. This guy was almost enough to get you to talk though, but it would be on that level. I remember thinking at one point while he was spouting off on what was wrong with what we had read the night before (they always have some dogma too that provides their spin on everything....you can usually sub out "I think..." for "Hegel thinks," or "Adam Smith thinks," etc...) So he was carrying on one day and all I could think was that this would not even be interesting if it were right...the guy had clearly not even read the book, and if the book he was offering his daft critique of even existed then both it and the criticism would be a waste of my time...so it was a "waste of time" and a "meta-waste of time" in one package...he is also ugly.
I do not have a key to my old apartment, and 3 out of the 4 days I have been here I have ended up outside in the parking lot for 3-5 hours. I am so ready to go back to Sweden. I have a test today and I am tired. I have a massive stomachache too, and I am not prepared.
I have noticed something odd, but kind of good. Swedish people do not seem to speak English as well as Danes. This is good cause it makes learning the language a little easier. They all seem to speak English, especially younger people in the cities...but they are not comfortable speaking English. I met someone from Sweden yesterday while I was trying to pass the time waiting to get into my apartment and even here in London she was not comfortable speaking English (to be fair not that many people speak English in London).
One funny thing people do when they realize that you speak a little bit of their language is they get this semi-devious, semi-entertained smile and tell you to "Start saying things in Swedish." Do people not understand that language does not really work that way...start saying what? Its a bit like someone finding out that you like to run from time to time and then they suspend you in mid-air, smile, and say "let's see you do some running." Language has a complex and multidirectional substrate...take a lot of that away and then demand that someone start crawling around linguistically and you will find a problem.
There is a guy in here who I think lives here (I am in the library). I see him here every single time I come here no matter when it is. He is in my department and I don't like him at all. Usually I start out not liking people in my department and see if it turns out that they are not bad...students are generally not very fun...especially when they are becoming "academics." The stereotype of superabundant self-love is fairly accurate. This guy is even worse though. He is about 50 so his standard intellectual self-importance is amplified by thinking that being old is also a philosophical quality. My question is how do you work so long in philosophy and still not get a bit of it. Philosophy is really funny...it is a lot like the old Socratic saw of needing to first admit that you know nothing (and usually ending in aporia!)...but it doesn't happen methodologically.
"Ok, time to read Being and Time....wait...'I do not know anything'...alright now I am ready."
Its more a state you fall reluctantly into I think...then you know you are done. People work in these two levels alongside each other. The people who have not yet allowed themselves to be carried off by what we do, and those who have...It is really terrible to have to sit in a class with the former. This guy falls into that category...not a wit of curiousity and not even an eye turned toward authenticity...just joyless plagiarism. I got so sick of hearing him talk at some point that I wanted to drop the class.
They suck you into their debased level of doing philosophy though too. I never talk in class anymore...I am really tired of going to them and I find your best use of time is to just sit in the corner and read while the circus goes on in the near-distance. This guy was almost enough to get you to talk though, but it would be on that level. I remember thinking at one point while he was spouting off on what was wrong with what we had read the night before (they always have some dogma too that provides their spin on everything....you can usually sub out "I think..." for "Hegel thinks," or "Adam Smith thinks," etc...) So he was carrying on one day and all I could think was that this would not even be interesting if it were right...the guy had clearly not even read the book, and if the book he was offering his daft critique of even existed then both it and the criticism would be a waste of my time...so it was a "waste of time" and a "meta-waste of time" in one package...he is also ugly.
posted by Lenin | 9:42 fm
2 Comments:
this is a historic moment: except for the quote (i dont do quotes...)I read it all.. and not just the first sentence and the last!
this was going to be a mean email blaming you for leaving me in london, removing my social life, and making me stay at home on a friday. instead i snapped out of it, and invited the guy next to me out for a drink.
londons growing on me, and unlike you, im quite sad to leave. i extended my stay for another month, and am currently playing with the thought of coming back here in january.
nothing interesting happening, except might be an extra in an music video in a few weeks. after getting three more of those bogan cards in covent garden, and considering my very low cash flow, i decided to shelf some of my feminist principles and join one of the agencies.
off for that drink. hope to see you this fall, and you are very invited to budapest!
trude x
erm... that post was supposed to be a comment to your swedish coffee rant.
talk soon
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