Satisfied Falcon

edu

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:29:57 GMT

http://www.smh.com.au/national/good-lord-exams-flummox-students-20091024-hdzz.html

"Like a number of other Catholic schools, we are extremely disappointed with the studies of religion papers. The questions were worded in such a way that students were not able to express their full knowledge on topics. If the examiners are going to change their emphasis, teachers should be made aware."

Translation:

"Rather than trying to educate our students, we just coach them on the exam we think they're going to have to sit. It's a lot easier and it also results in good HSC numbers, which we then use to advertise the school. So it really pisses us off when examiners mess with the formula - how can we tell our students what to memorise if they go around changing it on us? Sure, make token changes if you have to, but let us know in advance, eh?"

hyp

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:42:44 GMT

I've just had my first experience of being hypnotised. I feel a little embarrassed about having arranged to do it, but, the hell with my embarrassment because I feel *amazing*. Like I've been carrying a heavy backpack around without realising it and suddenly after years I've taken it off and remembered what's it's like to not have to carry it.

Yay!

Oh, and current word count: 9223.

pointless rants against things that will never change: a continuing series

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:46:12 GMT

The expression "turning in his grave" is not made more expressive or more evocative by swapping out the sedate verb "turning" for the more violent, dynamic verb "spinning". Metaphorical expressions sometimes follow funny rules, you see.

When you say "Boadicea would be turning in her grave", the operative idea is that something that is happening now might in some way intrude on the eternal rest of the dead (metaphorically, "sleeping") Boadicea, who would be so disturbed by these events that even that profound, final slumber would be unsettled to the extent that she would "turn" in her grave, much as a person who is haunted by bad dreams might "turn" in their sleep.

But no matter how profoundly upsetting your bad dreams might be, they are highly unlikely to provoke the kind of continuous, accelerating "turning" action that will result in you "spinning" in your bed. When I hear people speak of someone "spinning" in their grave, I get an image of a kind of bizarre necromantic subterranean turbine system. This is not really a very good metaphor for anything, I should say.

...

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:22:10 GMT

Hey people. Have a merry Christmas.

senseless butchery of the English language for fun and profit

Sun, 11 May 2008 05:36:20 GMT

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

"Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."

George, George, it's like you're not even trying! Come now:

Inscribed on the interior of a "propietal" apprehension of Hegelian dialectics, we discover the following paradox: for racing (or indeed, to traverse the metaphorical terrain of an undiscovered lexicon of "truth") or its macropolitical antecedents, there is no correct "form" and yet the correction of its formalisms taxes this "larger metonymy" in a Foucauldian sense. We find "swiftness" expressed in a further taxonomy of guilt but it is constantly being both under-written and re-written (in a double sense) through its re-evaluation of its particular epistemological foundations. "Swiftness" hence precedes the discovery of meaning in "race"; to extract from it a "pure" testament to the ahisoricality of our re-envisioning of that selfsame "purity" requires an intervention from the "exterior" of the system which is predicated on the same notion of "purity" being able to transcend the very systematicity on which it depends. The endeavour rejuvenates; by a re-inversion of the paradox of "accidental victory" we discover that there is an insight "maintained" through the expression of "swiftness" as it moulded in the form of the un-won race.

And that's just the first clause - I could probably wring a whole thesis from the sentence itself...

...and now, back to marking. :(

long quote, some thoughts.

Fri, 02 May 2008 06:29:28 GMT

OK, let me see if I can figure out how to put all this stuff under a

Soc. That may very well be, inasmuch as doing injustice is the greatest of evils.

Pol. But is it the greatest? Is not suffering injustice a greater evil?

Soc. Certainly not.

Pol. Then would you rather suffer than do injustice?

Soc. I should not like either, but if I must choose between them, I would rather suffer than do.

Pol. Then you would not wish to be a tyrant?

Soc. Not if you mean by tyranny what I mean.

Pol. I mean, as I said before, the power of doing whatever seems good to you in a state, killing, banishing, doing in all things as you like.

Soc. Well then, illustrious friend, when I have said my say, do you reply to me. Suppose that I go into a crowded Agora, and take a dagger under my arm. Polus, I say to you, I have just acquired rare power, and become a tyrant; for if I think that any of these men whom you see ought to be put to death, the man whom I have a mind to kill is as good as dead; and if I am disposed to break his head or tear his garment, he will have his head broken or his garment torn in an instant. Such is my great power in this city. And if you do not believe me, and I show you the dagger, you would probably reply: Socrates, in that sort of way any one may have great power -- he may burn any house which he pleases, and the docks and triremes of the Athenians, and all their other vessels, whether public or private -- but can you believe that this mere doing as you think best is great power?

Pol. Certainly not such doing as this.

Soc. But can you tell me why you disapprove of such a power?

Pol. I can.

Soc. Why then?

Pol. Why, because he who did as you say would be certain to be punished.

There's more here:
http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y67s02.html

I love this dialogue, and I find it basically very convincing. I agree: it is better to suffer than to do injustice.

But the question which comes to my mind today is, is it better to do injustice or to allow injustice to be done to others? That is, if there is an evil act that you know will occur, or is likely to occur, and you can only certainly prevent it by committing an evil act yourself, is it better to allow a wrong to be committed or to prevent it by committing a wrong act? I think on the whole I am inclined to believe that Socrates' answer still holds, that it is better to allow the wrong than to do wrong, regardless of who the victim is, but it seems... psychologically more difficult to accept.

Hmm.

eed

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 04:14:10 GMT

I've done everything. All the bureaucracy, all the... stuff, it's done. Well, a few tiny things left, but nothing I need to stress over. Graduation happening sometime in april next year or something.

You know what? Freedom is just bloody awesome. :)

pos

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 03:43:37 GMT

I'm not supposed to know this, but of my three markers, one apparently has passed me. This greatly reduces my fear that I will get three fails.

So... I guess an all-lowercase, un-exclamation-pointed, yay, is in order.

ubm

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 07:06:19 GMT

I thought it was probably getting a bit wearing to read updates along the lines of "nearly finished now, just a half-inch left to go", "very nearly finished now, just a quarter-inch left to go", "getting there, unusually rapid progress means a mere ninth of an inch left to the end", &c &c.

So I decided to leave off saying anything about it until I submitted it.

Which I did, today.

I was given a glass paperweight. That seemed like a fair return on my investment. :)

Of course, now I move from anxiously wondering if I'll ever submit to anxiously wondering If I'll pass, but right now at least I don't feel at all anxious. The examining and whatnot all seems to be infinitely far away... I feel free. I think I ought to do something extravagant in order to celebrate, but nothing much comes to mind. Maybe the thing is that... with the weight off my shoulders, everything, even sitting here in this silly little computer lab (where so much of the editing and whatnot happened) feels like a celebration, feels like a bit of extravagance in its own way.

Perhaps a beer with dinner will round out the day best. :)

...

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:20:43 GMT

Someone I love died. The things I worry about seem so trivial right now. I look at the routine of my life and see almost nothing that I care about. I don't want to teach today.

I lost my temper at some students in a lecture on monday. I don't like losing control.

Mostly I think I feel numb. This isn't how...

Jane was an art teacher. I went to her house and drew and painted things, and she would also draw and paint, and we would talk about what I was doing and she would encourage me to try different things. At the time she was the only person in the world that I trusted. I felt that my parents hated me and wanted to destroy me, ditto my school teachers, dittto the other kids at school, ditto ditto. I would sit on the floor of her studio and draw and it seemed as though the world was good, that there was a place it in for me, that there was refuge from the awfulness of life... in an interview for my supervisor's book I said that Jane taught me to be a human being. To whatever extent I am not the emotionally stunted caricature of rage and resentment I was then on track to become, I really believe I owe it to her.

I feel... something far off. It is so muted and distant that I can't really call it grief. I am anxious that I have sacrificed so much to this stupid fucking thesis that I don't even know... how much I have lost of myself. I want to be able to talk to her again. I keep remembering the way I felt in her studio, the conversation we had the last time I saw her, talking about meditation and healing and religion... she had breast cancer, which she decided not to have treated. My mother's letter said that the doctor frightened and intimidated her and that she didn't want to put her trust someone like that. It made me think of me, angry in the lecture, almost certainly intimidating the poor kids who were... probably just... oh.

I think perhaps in the process of writing that I am realising that this nothingness I feel is the numbness of shock rather than that other numbness.

The last time I saw Jane she talked to me about a trip she had taken to Hawaii, about how beautiful it was there, about the religious ceremonies she had seen there... I was thinking last night that perhaps that is where I should go if I want to... I don't know. Say thankyou.

Here, take a look at one of her paintings.

Last night I was helping a friend with some marking. She was anxious about today - she had to give a lecture - and I tried to comfort her but I felt so distant... from what, I don't know.

ery

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:18:32 GMT

Perhaps every shortcut is a bad shortcut. Shortcuts to writing seem to all have certain bad things in common...

train

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 15:00:01 GMT

Did any of you read that book when you were little with the train, that goes, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..." ?

Was it called "The Little Train that Could"?

Children's books are great.

Sometimes, I like people. I wish it were more often. Also... um. Hmm. Hmmm.

It's weird remembering pieces of my life. It sometimes seems like... the pieces don't really fit together. How on earth does it all connect up? I keep getting flashes of that last trip overseas I did. I can't believe that was two years ago now.

...

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:10:13 GMT

Saw printed copy of full-length thesis for the first time yesterday. Really seems real now.

froge

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:49:14 GMT

I don't want to forget. Having a record helps me stay motivated.

So. Today is the fifth day, technically.

night

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 16:07:03 GMT

Last night, went to see a friend, someone who's finished her PhD, with the same supervisor as me. I said, he said I could finish in 4-6 months. She said, if he said that, you can actually finish in 2 months. It's just a matter of forgetting the fine-tuning and the perfectionist bullshit, and formatting the thing so you can send it out.

Right now, I believe her. I had a great day today. I'm nervous that this heightened sense of possibility will crash down into... something else. But right now, it seems possible. Two months. That, I can really do. In fact, I'm doing it. Put all the chapters together, in one huge document... now just need to sand it down.

I think I have the flu, my brain is all crummy and my typing is way worse than usual. Also, I must work tomorrow and I don't want to. :(

te

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:17:43 GMT

Tiny spiders everywhere. Wish they'd stay off the keyboard, though.

Something might have changed.

looks

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:36:53 GMT

There was a song, on the B-side of "Alice's Restaurant", that I really loved when I was... well, from about the age of nine or ten, I guess, called "Chilling of the Evening". The song was never a hit, I've never heard anyone say that they like it particularly or anything, and so I guess... like many of the tens of thousands of songs written every year, and the smaller (but still enormous) number recorded, it just washed up on the shore and then washed away again...

...but I listened to it again the other day and found I still loved it. There's a line in there, one of those lines that sort of... you could find in any love-song, you think, you know, the random mishmash of accumulated love-song cliches that form the lyrics of most love songs. But... to my ear, anyway, or heart, maybe I should say, it says something more than just... um. It goes:

"Now to leave before I understand just what it is
I know I'm leaving"

...and it seems to be full of that... I don't know. Something. That contradiction between what happens when you love someone and want to give yourself up fully to them, and the... fear of how much you might be giving up, the cowardly non-knowing of your own love so as not to be caught in the full depth of those overwhelming currents. Because of course, he says "before I understand", but this is because he already does understand, or half-knows... hmmm. But unlike most songs about "rats" or whatever, this isn't a condemnation or an attack on the cowardice of this kind of desertion. It's actually a... celebration of that kind of imperfect love for being, in spite of all the heartbreak it causes, love, still. The love that ruins your life is still love, and you wouldn't give it up for the sake of an unruined but loveless life. Well, that's how I take it, anyway.

legend

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:36:28 GMT

Saw supervisor today. Things seem alright. Chapter, miraculously, is nearly there.

I should say - in a moment of weakness I begged mrkgnao to help me with it, and she agreed! Well... I shouldn't have asked, you were excessively kind to accept, but... you're off the hook now, so, you know, you can discard that terrifying 20-page monster. ;) But thankyou!

take

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 04:15:20 GMT

Fry: "Wow, way to tell that guy off! Now what's your secret escape plan?"
Leela: "Uh...I guess to sit here and wait for death."

-

At the current rate of progress, I will take as long to finish chapter 11 as I did to finish the previous ten all put together. Or I could sit and wait for death.

-

I feel like... I don't know. I don't want to start writing anything that's going to take longer than five minutes to write because if I do, I'll get interrupted halfway through, feel frustrated about it, finish off my thoughts with some... hastily thrown-together summary and then stew about it. I hate interruptions. Especially the phone. Some fucker called up today, when I asked if it was a marketing call he told me it was an "information" call.

I suppose, technically, lies are a form of information.

Living in Katoomba was great. Some day when I'm magnificently wealthy, I'll go live in one of those cliff-edge houses. With no phone line. And a robot butler.

mass

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 17:01:36 GMT

I have a great indigestible mass of words sitting in a .doc file. I want to somehow gently massage them, a little cut here and a little addition there, and have this undignified blob turn into a clear, meaningful, structured chapter.

But it's not going to happen.

I really want it to, though.

Do it for me? Please?

:'(

fear and trembling

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:58:20 GMT

I just watched on SBS a film called "Fear and Trembling". Details hither:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fear_and_trembling/

Anyway, just wanted to say, I found it to be awesome - funny, moving, profound, thought-provoking... also, did I mention it's funny? I love this film. I recommend it unreservedly to everyone. And if you don't like it, I'll beat you up.

dear

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 15:14:17 GMT

Dear Self,

Just so you can look back on this and see that you've been around this one before.

Guess what? You can choose to repress your emotions. It's something you learned to do pretty early, and you're pretty good at it. But you don't like living the way you live when the lid is closed. So you try to open the lid a little bit. But you can't control what happens once the lid is open. Some of the things that come out - laughter, spontaneous affection, love, generosity - are straightforwardly good things. And some of the things that come out are mixed blessings - when the lid is closed, you don't say the things that make you cringe later in remembrance, but then, often somehow having said those things works out for the best. But some of the things that come out are downright frightening. There's a reason you keep pushing the lid back down. And there's a reason you keep opening it up again. You've been changing you mind about this for so long now, that it seems unlikely you'll ever make it up firmly one way or the other. Maybe the thing to do is just keep changing, without getting too stressed about it. Who knows?

Love, Old Self.

lamb

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 17:47:21 GMT

Today I feel like a sacrificial lamb. How do you say to someone, yes, I owe you something, but no, not that much?

It'd be a lot easier if it was "I OWE YOU NOTHING!!! NOTHING!!!" with melodramatic flourishes &c.

I think I may be going through some kind of crisis of faith. Questioning not just myself and the thesis, but also, the whole idea of academia. I think I liked it better when I knew less about it. In general, my preference is for things that I like better as I know more about them.

Also, I feel like some kind of self-indulgent hypochondriac every time I think about playing the PKD card, even though I've never actually done it, but, dammnit, shouldn't I, as an official object of pity, be beyond being guilt-tripped at this point? It would seem I'm not. But shouldn't I be?

My future had better have some candy in it.

grrr

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 05:20:44 GMT

Damn, damn, I'm 30 tomorrow, fuck.

Hmm.

It's a lovely day. Early spring and all that. Maybe I should just try to enjoy it.

Thesis is coming along decently. I'm really going to finish it, one of these days.

things

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:55:24 GMT

Three things today:

I won a game of chess.
I did a good deed.
I did a good day's worth of thesis work.

I feel awesome. :)