parresia

Things could have occured much

Things could have occured much worse. Last night I might have stumbled around on my Frege essay, getting little done, with the hope of not having to work from noon to five the following day (the day the essay is due), and then I could have woke up this morning to find that indeed I DO have to work which means I would have exactly one hour to complete my paper...only to spend the entire day at work kicking myself for not getting more done on the paper when I had the opportunity. Yes, these events would have been much worse. As it is however, God is merciful. Last night, I, for all intents and purposes, completed my paper (the end product reading much better than I would have guessed just days ago) leaving just a little editing and "cleaning up" before I turn it in and draw this quarter to a much desired close. Furthermore, I called Banana this morning and Nooshin (one of my managers) informed me very cooly "you can take this day off Jeremy." Not too shabby by way of events unfolding huh? This leaves me with the next four hours or so to "hone" my essay into something even more presentable. Thank the good Lord for this...providence.

Unfortunately, I cannot keep this sanguine attitude for long; the reality is that I have performed very poorly this quarter, and I have no one to blame but myself. The class I was most involved in, Philosophy of Mind, barely occupied enough of my time to secure an A: it may turn out I am rewarded with a B+. In my Education in Community Service class my team found that we were rushed just trying to find meeting times that suited all seven of us, to the end that most meetings had half attendance, strongly leavning us at a disadvantage to succeed. I completely fell apart in Spanish during the last two weeks-- up to which point I was a strong student. What happened? Well, it was a combination of things. First and foremost, I didn't speak with Spanish speakers on a regular basis (this put my speaking ability far behind), nor did I work as hard on the subject as I should have. Second, the professor's primary language was Russian, so she stumbled through her English let alone teaching us Spanish. And lastly, I saw my hopes of studying abroad (for 4+ months) slipping away to my feeling of responsibility to the band, and my intention to have one year of law firm experience before entering law school. In Philosophy of Language (Class on Frege), as I have said before, I simply had absolutely no interest in the subject matter: it was all too "academic," so from the start of this one I just did what I had to. Lastly, in my Education Course that finds me as a Teacher's Assistant I was reproached for reading the newspaper in the back of class during lecture "more than once" (well, let's see now, I've taken that same course 3 times already; do you think I was interested in the lecture?), but other than that my performance in the class was fine, I graded the papers and led intriquing discussion groups et cetera. The long story short...This mediocre quarter, fed by a mind with mediocre interest, is undeniable. Sad really.

On a more positive note, I do not believe I will find myself in this situation again: I have resolved to take all subsequent quarters only those units enough to give me full time status (this last quarter I was taking 2 units beyond what is even allowed by the university (18 is the maximum units you can enroll into) so this seems to temper my lack of success somewhat, and having completed my requirements for my major I can now take courses that I have interest in. Indeed, the future looks brighter.