I should really post here more often.
Well, I finally dropped Kanokon and Vampire Knight - the former because it just got unbearably lame by the fourth episode or so, and the latter because I finally realized it was one of those horrible entrapping string-you-along-for-20-episodes-with-the-promise-of-eventually-getting-good series (Blood+ and Black Cat, I'm looking at you) and would never cease to abuse my hopes and trust no matter how long I watched the thing. So as far as what I'm watching this season, that leaves me with: Code Geass the Second (let's hear it for that smarmy loser Suzaku finally turning heel!), Daughter of Twenty Faces (which keeps getting better and better), Macross Frontier (a cover of My Boyfriend is a Pilot is enough all by itself to get me to watch the remaining episodes), Golgo 13 (PERFECT MACHINE OF SNIPE), Kurenai (oh god back to the Red Garden-esque singing), and Soul Eater (maybe - I'm having discontents about this one).
On a completely different topic: in a little more than a month I'll have myself a Master's, and then I'll be doubling up for a Ph.D. For many reasons this is likely not such a good idea. It will probably take me years to finish the thing, for one. And even if I can pull that off, my prospects for actually getting a permanent job are rather poor (for background, I suggest watching this and other videos from the same poster, especially if you yourself are thinking of pursuing the college teaching road). And - I should stress this - I was one of the lucky ones; something like 70% of my fellow applicants didn't get into the doctoral program here. (but then, considering I'll be giving up my 20s and then some for a comparatively mediocre chance at a job, maybe they should be considered more lucky than I).
However, recognizing my situation hasn't been entirely negative. The sheer hopelessness of what I'm trying to do, as it's slowly dawned on me, has actually been rather liberating. When I first started grad school in 2006, my chief worry was whether I was "smart" enough to be there - so I mostly focused then on doing things that would, as it were, demonstrate whatever innate ability I had. This meant, as you might imagine, cozying up to the bigwigs and using a lot of impressive words (parenthetically I should add that I'm not opposed to "difficult" writing or talking - but it should be justified by the difficulty of the topic itself, rather than being garnish for a simple issue). What I've now realized (this is my point) is that it doesn't really matter how "smart" I am. The situation of grad school (and who knows, maybe elsewhere) produces an atmosphere where very often it seems the only hope we have for success is to show off our "brilliance" at every moment, to impress the important people and dazzle our peers. We believe, in some way, that our smart will save us. And it's learning how grim the odds are (even when one manages to do everything right) that's led me to realize that, in the end, brilliance doesn't matter.
It's not important whether I'm "smart" or not. In practice you can take brilliance and divide it through; it just falls out of consideration. This leaves, so far as I see, two possibilities left for what does matter. The first is just those factors leading to whether I get hired or not - whether I've published in an important journal, whether I've gone to the right school, whether I've "networked" with all the right people. Doing all of that will give me a chance for... what, exactly? A hard, long-hours sort of job with a lot of traveling that pays half as well as working as a pharmacist. That's about all. And perhaps that's all some people want, but I've found it's not what I'm in it for. That leaves the second possibility: if smartness isn't important, then what matters is the degree to which I can teach others (as well as myself) - that is, whether I can get folks to learn something.
Real learning is a mysterious thing. It can't be measured by whether one has the right answers on a test - if that were enough, the scantron machines which correct exams would be better students than any actually in a class. Perhaps I can say: learning involves establishing or fortifying a relation to a subject matter (though I'm aware that this definition is inadequate). But at that point learning doesn't come to very much - it makes no money and saves no lives, yet it's what I'm supposed to be encouraging as a teacher. So on the one hand, I want to say that those who are only out for a job are more clever, since they've at least got a calculable goal in mind (while a mugu like myself is there for "education"). On the other, I can't escape the sense that none of us even belong in academia unless we teach - that is, unless we encourage this strange and unmeasurable thing called "learning."
So, in the absence of any great assurance that I'm going to get a job, this is the new metric by which I measure myself: not whether I can display my own brilliance, but whether I can make learning happen. I can be denied every faculty position in the world, I can even be an idiot, and it will not diminish my work as a teacher by an inch - that's what I've come to realize in my slow and confused way. Perhaps this is why I'm becoming increasingly unimpressed with those I know who are extremely charismatic and say a lot of very "smart"-sounding things, yet fail to let me learn anything - that is, who leave many pretty words ringing in my ears but add no greater clarity to the questions involved. "Brilliance" is one thing, teaching is another. This may be why Aristotle does not begin the Metaphysics by saying: "All men, by nature, desire to be impressed by how smart you are."
