must write…

I’m now working at the University cafeteria.  A couple times of week I run the dishes through the huge washing machine and pick up after lazy students.  One time a week I serve beer, coffee and whatever else “customers” are able to find on our assorted list of drinks.

Am I embarrassed to be washing dishes while working on my dissertation?  A little bit.  Every once in a while I run into someone with a marketable area of study (physics, medicine, etc) and they tell me about the abundance of scholarships they have available to them.  They then pretend to sympathize that I have to wear an apron as I hand them their beer.

I’m not taking any courses so, academically, I’m just reading and writing on my own.  I tried to picture a life in Germany where I was only reading and writing, where I spent everyday in the library – leaving only to purchase coffee.  In this life I could briefly brag about my scholarships before crawling back into my hole – slowly beginning to call my dissertation, “my precious”, and losing what little skin tone I have left (man, I’m going to kick you where the sun don’t shine! Where? Germany?)

I’m actually quite satisfied with having to work.  It massages my sanity and makes this country a much less foreign place.

I do, however, have one academic project that pays and it is a translation project.  I took it on figuring I would just struggle through the translation and improve my German along the way.  I’ve never had to do something so frustrating.  I curse the incompatibility of German and English sentence structure as I cry on my keyboard.

I’m hoping to begin posting much more often again so let us not be strangers.

 

personal update

I’m still alive! But I’m working full-time and trying to keep up on my reading (trying but not succeeding). I thought my archaeological career was going to be over with the ending of February but I was asked to work longer. Now that we’re 10 days into the month of March the status of my job is back to being erratic. Will I have work after Wednesday? Nobody knows. Will I have work next week? Maybe. The unfortunate thing about archeology is that the availability of work depends on what turns up after the big machinery turns back the top soil. If there isn’t anything of archaeological significance then there is no work for us shovel bums. On the other hand, if a lot is found then there there is a lot of work to be done. Nobody can tell you what will or will not be found – if there will or will not be work. I would leave and find a different job (one that could tell me if I’m working next week) if I didn’t like my coworkers so much and if I didn’t find the work interesting.

Last weekend I drove up to Cologne with some coworkers to celebrate the birthday of yet another coworker. To begin with I’m not the most outgoing guy – add the embarrassment of a foreign language and I turn into the silent weird guy who won’t leave the proximity of the two people he came with. There are still times when I can’t say what I want to say, there are still conversations I can’t have because the right words don’t come to mind and this has become plain frustrating. One of the guys I work with is from New Zealand and sometimes we take the train together. He recently began talking English to me (although we only speak German at work) and I sometimes forget to speak English and respond in German. My brain has placed German as “default language” in its interior settings and sometimes I have to pause to think about how to say something properly in English. My German is incomplete and my English is taking a nap (although writing is much easier). What’s most frustrating is that I haven’t noticed any improvement in my German in the last couple of months as if I have hit a plateau. I long for the gibe and banter that gets tossed back and forth between my friends in Santa Cruz.

I’m still waiting to hear from some scholarships. They promised to inform me by the end of March but I already check my email first thing after coming home from work. I have little hope of actually being awarded a scholarship but if I don’t receive one I will be stuck (yet again) trying to balance study and work – studying so much as to make progress on my dissertation and working so much as to be able to pay rent and eat. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if I could concentrate on my studies the entire time I was in Germany? I don’t regret having to work in archeology but that job might last just one more week. What comes next will most definitely be not as interesting or as fun. Receiving a scholarship might even make this venture seem plausible.

My head is spinning and sleep is holy.

 

17th month

My third semester here in Germany has come to a close. I’ll be working full-time at the excavation until the end of February. Unfortunately, after a day at work, I am exhausted and my creative powers drop by 95%. I’ll be tuning down my reading for the next couple of weeks for practical concerns. I’ll start working my way through a collection of lyrical and critical essays by Albert Camus and hopefully post a review/response/analysis of the essays I find interesting. I never find it hard to respond to Camus’ work so this should be a feasible goal for the next couple of weeks. Forgive me, however, if I seem to be only working with 5% of my creative powers :)

 

theology on its deathbed?

During this semester two fliers from the Theology department have crossed my hand. One was advertising a colloquium that was to discuss the question, “is Theology on its deathbed?” The second was a typical science versus religion discussion where the theologians were to do battle against the theories of Richard Dawkins (the flier asked the question, “has science finally disproved religion?”).

Here I thought that it was 19th century German philosophy that scooted theology out of the land of academics – but here is 21st century Germany asking if theology is still a healthy academic discipline. I’m amazed until I remember that this is officially a Christian nation.

Somehow public American Universities got the hint and left the study of Theology out of their course books and instituted Religious Studies (an area of study that doesn’t rise and fall with the interpretation of one book) as a replacement. The true heir to theology, however, thanks to the mighty influence of Hegel, has been philosophy.

Philosophy could also be on its deathbed – at least the late Richard Rorty thought so and at least in the US (Germany is a little behind in sending academic disciplines floating away on their fiery caskets). The scary thing is that I agree with Rorty’s sentiments. Philosophy won’t stop being a subject in the US anymore than theology has stopped being a subject in Germany. But maybe, somewhere, comparative literature departments will consume philosophy more and more, taking what’s necessary and leaving behind what’s stale. Kind of like scraping off the burnt part of toast… Then the people from those departments can pick up fliers from the people over in philosophy and scoff.

 

Rucker is one gnarly guy

Retired math Professor, sometime philosophy Professor, science fiction writer, painter (etc., etc.) Rudy Rucker posted his proof of Panpsychism (everything is conscious) and Hylozoism (every physical object is alive). The argument is there for you to follow step for step with all sources conveniently linked (including his video on “Gnarl”). He stamps his conclusions with a QED…

Everything is conscious and alive? Kind of creepy, no?

That is if we accept all of his premises -

 

the sky outside my window

I have a large window that I hate around 2-4pm because the sun shines in my eyes as I sit at my desk and try to work. I have a large window that I love around 4-6pm because the sun throws wild colors in the air, like last gasps of breath, as it falls beyond eyesight.

The problem is that I stare out my window instead of into my books.

 

absentee

I received my absentee ballot in the mail yesterday! I’m surprised at how fast and efficiently they were able to process my information and mail something back to me (they even mailed it UPS Express). I’m incredibly excited about the elections this year. It isn’t always easy being the representative of the US in a foreign country, especially since the President is an incredibly unpopular man. There are bars in town with pictures of G. Bush photoshopped to look like a terrorist, pictures of the statue of liberty looking evil, etc – needless to say, being anti-America is popular, is cool, feeds the rebellious attitudes of young minds. For a lot of Europeans I’ve met the US represents war mongering and capitalism and I’m eyed suspiciously until I denounce Bush as the child of Satan who is bent on world destruction (then I too become cool!). I’ve been introduced to people with small warnings, “this is Mr. X, he doesn’t like capitalism” to which I have responded, “good thing you told me, now I know not to mention my home country.”

I hope this election shows non-Americans that we are capable of electing a competent President, that we too are fed up with our administration. I’m not as worried about satisfying European sentimentalities as I am waiting for a government I can be proud of.

I’ll put this baby in the mail on Monday.

 

Wolverine and Schopenhauer

When I was still in California a friend of mine mentioned that he thought that the Wolverine character played by Hugh Jackman looked a lot like the philosophy character played by Arthur Schopenhauer.

The similarities are uncanny:

 

Schopenhauer was known to be a sort of rough fellow that didn’t get along with his peers. He even had a rivalry with the leader of philosophy at the time, Cyclops… I mean HEGEL.

 

the first conversation

There are two conversations that I periodically think about. This post is about the first.

It was actually a dialogue that took place in front of me – I was just an innocent bystander listening in. It must have taken place about 8 years ago because I haven’t stayed in close contact (although that has recently changed) with this person since High School. He was one of my football coaches and an English teacher at the High School I attended (which actually describes 3 of my old football coaches). A student was asking him questions:

Student: Wouldn’t it be great to just have everything you wanted?

Coach/Teacher: What do you mean?

S: Money, house, anything – if you could just have it with the snap of your fingers.

C/T: But I’m already a rich man and have everything I could need.

S: As if teachers make enough money for that!

C/T: That’s not important – I’m rich in “relationships”. My wife, my children, my friends, my students, the team, being a part of this community makes me happier than anything else possibly could.

The only thing I actually remember is the “rich in relationships” line and the student asking him about money. I think maybe I torture myself with this conversation because being in Germany is really an experiment in being alone. Not that I don’t have acquaintances and coworkers, just that I left my “community” back in California. On the other hand I think of this conversation as setting a goal for me, that I too want to be rich in relationships and through the relationships, a rich person. Whatever the reason for me keeping this conversation in my head is, it is tucked away in my long-term memory and visits me whenever I kick back and muse.

 

Entertainment

I was thinking this morning about my blog and to what extent I wanted to balance the informative posts with more entertaining posts. The next question in line was: how to entertain (or at least attempt to)? Maybe I’ll start tempering philosophy found in books with philosophy found in daily life. That could possibly be entertaining.

In the meantime here is an entertaining video about philosophers playing soccer (Germans vs. Greeks). It milks the idea that philosophers spend their time inside their heads and have no connection with the real world. I think it appropriate that Nietzsche was carded.