Point of Reference

I didn't get as much done this weekend school-wise as I would have liked, but the box pile has gone down and the apartment is now sparkling (and my roommate felt guilty enough about not being here to help me clean this weekend that he's promised to do it all by himself next weekend!). I've been trying to make up for my lack of work this evening, but I did take time out to watch "Alias." Verdict? Much better than I expected. I was toying with the idea of abandoning the show this season after the shake-up in the finale, but my faith has been sufficiently restored to keep watching...at least until next week. :)

I spent today (as I spent so many days this past week) working on the apartment. I cleaned, I sorted, I unpacked, I hemmed, and I did laundry, which means that I get to wear the new clothes I picked up last week while shopping for apartment-related items. We also got our kitchen counter replaced, thus eliminating both the burn marks that were on it when we moved in and the leaky faucet in one fell swoop. It's good to know that the current property managers are a little faster with repairs than my old landlords (who promised certain upgrades before we moved in and still hadn't done them sixteen months later when we moved out). The only bad part was that the tradesman showed up at 8:30 this morning, which meant that I was scrambling into my clothes as he was coming up in the elevator. At least they called to warn me that he was on his way.

I picked up my new office key yesterday. The office is nice, if a little cramped, with lovely, large windows that provide enough sunlight to keep both people and plants happy. Alas, there's no view since we face a brick wall, but it's still a slight improvement over the skylight in my previous office. I share it with two other people, one of whom I met only briefly. The other is a woman in my cohort who I've been corresponding with for a few months; I expect we'll be able to hang out and commiserate about our coursework. Now I just need to buy a notebook computer so that I can actually work in my office rather than spending all of my time in the windowless computer lab across the hall.

My new bed is due to arrive tomorrow. I'm quite excited because that means I'll get to use all my new bedding, and I might finally be able to figure out how to organize my room. It's surprisingly difficult to do that when you're missing a major piece of furniture. And since I got the rest of the apartment stuff done today, I should have lots of time to work before dinner. If I don't have another impromptu firedrill tomorrow morning thanks to our malfunctioning alarm system (nineteen flights of stairs at 6:30 in the morning is not my idea of fun), it should be quite a good day.

Gacked, as requested, from semiotic_trader.

1. Kant (100%)
2. John Stuart Mill (93%)
3. Jean-Paul Sartre (83%)
4. Jeremy Bentham (74%)
5. Stoics (71%)
6. Aquinas (65%)
7. Ayn Rand (65%)
8. Aristotle (59%)
9. Spinoza (58%)
10. Prescriptivism (53%)
11. David Hume (48%)
12. Nel Noddings (48%)
13. Nietzsche (38%)
14. Plato (37%)
15. St. Augustine (37%)
16. Epicureans (36%)
17. Ockham (30%)
18. Cynics (24%)
19. Thomas Hobbes (24%)

I see I've been classified as yet another Kantian. Interestingly, I think I came closer to a_just_society than semiotic_trader, although we all seem pretty compatible. Like my brother, I'm a little surprised at how high my affinity is for Ayn Rand. Must have been my emphasis on rationality, but if you're going to reject a spiritual basis for morality, what's left? Well, compassion, of course, which I suspect explains the 35% difference.

The quiz is here if you want to see how you're classified.

You are Raisin Bran, a steadfast perfectionist who
nonetheless can let your hair down once in a
while. After all, nobody wants to just be
flakes, and raisins are exciting. You have a
generous nature, and you'd give everyone
*three* scoops of raisins if you could.


What kind of cereal are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

How did I accumulate so much stuff?!

I'm dismantling my computer now. I'll be offline until after the move.

as a madman shakes a dead geranium

Wow. I started as an undergraduate at this school in September 1996. In one week, I leave. Unbelievable.

I just took a walk around and it seems that I'm the last person here. Everyone else has gone home for the day, escaping to cooler environments or at least rooms with windows. I'm a little sad that the graduate secretary left without saying goodbye. She's on vacation next week and I move next weekend, so I won't see her again until I return to defend. She was consulting us on Wednesday about what types of food we want at the orientation supper for the new students, and I felt a pang at realizing that I won't be here to meet the new students. I feel a bit cheated because last year we only got one new student and she was an undergrad here, so I already knew her. This year we're getting eleven new students and I won't be here to meet any of them. Instead, I'll be meeting a whole department of new people and going through my own orientation, which I don't think will be nearly as much fun. I like to be exposed to new people gradually, not all at once. At least I've managed to set up an email correspondence with one of the other new students, so I won't be going in completely alone, even if I haven't yet met her face-to-face.

Speaking of orientation, I took a look this afternoon at the requirements for the PhD program I'm entering. I'd like to know what vicious person decided that it would be reasonable to require new PhD students to have their thesis supervisor selected within six months of starting and have their working topic submitted by nine months. Well, okay, if you're good they'll extend it to nine and twelve months respectively, but that still seems a bit demanding, especially since they also require us to finish eight half-courses in that time (they prefer those to be done in nine months as well, though they'll permit us to extend it to twelve). Yes, I did know the requirements when I applied. That doesn't make them any more reasonable. Most of the PhD students I know don't have their thesis topic selected until two years into their programs, after they finish their coursework and comps. It's nice to choose early and tailor your coursework to your topic, of course, but who the hell manages to figure out what reasonable and researchable topic interests them enough spend to two solid years on it nine months after they start the program? Well, apart from a few freaks, of course. ;)

This whole entry is really nothing more than a way of delaying returning to my work on Tönnies, but since it's almost supper time and since I've sworn that I won't leave here until I finish this section, I should get back to it.

Budget promised to call me back in ten minute to confirm my booking. That was almost ninety minutes ago, and I'm still waiting. Who knew that it took over two hours to book a truck?

I found out last night that yet another friend of mine is buying a house. She's the fifth or sixth one to do so in the past year. Apparently we're getting to that age, except that I'm not, because buying a house on a graduate student non-income shares a difficulty rating with breathing on the moon or persuading President Bush to admit that humans contribute to global warming. It's times like this that I question my decision to leave my life in a holding pattern for at least another four years, but then I listen to my working friends bitch about their jobs while I amble outside with a book and a cold drink on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, or remember that I get to spend my days charting my own course doing work that I love, and it seems like a good decision again. And hey, my new apartment building has a swimming pool. ;-)

Now if only Budget would call so that I could go to campus. If they call in the next twenty minutes, I can still get there in time for lunch. :D

Gacked (as suggested) from villagechick.

Instructions: You fill this out in the comments, then post a blank one in your LJ (if you feel so inclined). If you've already completed it on somebody else's journal, a link to the answers would be neat.

Age:
Reason for LJ username:
AIM/MSN/IRC/other chat screename:
Reason for AIM/MSN/IRC/ other chat screename:
Why do you enjoy reading my LJ:
Interesting fact about you:
Weird fact about you:
Quote:
Name a website worth visiting:
Will you post this in your LJ:
If you see me out in the streets would you say hi:
Will you have gay sex with me? Describe: