I've been speaking up in class of late.
Either I'm understanding a lot of what's going on,
or I'm becoming so disillusioned that I feel
like it doesn't matter at all.
Whenever Prof. Chambers teaches us something new,
I feel inspired. Today, discussing Nietzsche, and even
in tutorial dissecting Marx,
I felt that there was something
to embrace in each thinker's thoughts.
Something to embrace personally, if not on
a broader scale of "goals in the world".
I think I even "got" what we discussed in ML and
Algorithms today. ML was about anonymous functions,
pattern matching, and the word "and" for mutual recursion.
Algorithms began discussion of Network Flow problems,
and since it was only the first lecture,
I wasn't yet confused by the end.
I guess I almost feel okay.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
back on track?
This semester is slightly different.
Instead of just singing, I'm working too. That is on the other page when it's discussed at all. Within these confines I'll be focusing on school and music.
School, for the newcomer, consists both of Computer Science and Political Science. In the former category, the current semester includes the repetition of a course which proved overambitious of me to attempt to salvage last semester: Programming Languages. In that capacity, however, I've managed to complete the first assignment and midterm with a reasonable expectation of having done medium-well to well.
This semester also sees me biting off courses in Algorithm Design and Databases. Both are a bit sticky so far. More on those in the coming week or so.
Musically, I'm down one choir. No longer able to stretch myself as thinly on campus, I've dropped my commitment to the Varsity Jews and focused on my tenure with Onoscatopoeia. What this means is that I'll only be spending Monday nights until 7:00pm, and not Thursdays as well, wearing my vocal cords threadbare. For love.
Politically, I'm looking around. I don't think anyone I know will be surprised to know that I'm disenchanted both with Israeli political orthodoxy and with the Canadian Liberal Party, and that I'm trying to figure out where I fit in the spectrum; while I espouse the viewpoints and goals, in general, of the two aforementioned entities (ie. I believe that Israel should exist, and should attempt to end the all-but-declared war within and without, and I believe in socially progressive but financially restrained government) I don't think that their current incarnations can continue to command my loyalties, which means either I try to change them or I try to find a better fit for myself.
I was fairly outraged at the behaviour of the students and guests in attendance at the Hart House Debate tonight, with apology to co-ordinator J. I'm glad I went, but the jerkiness of all in attendance, except for the debaters, speaker and judge themselves, was in full force, with the Arab Student Coalition boorishly turning their chairs around when the guest speaker (Israeli Ambassador Baker) spoke, and the Hillel crowd laughing loudly scornfully at those students.
I'm considering (and I've already come up with an acronym, "SHED" -- students for hopeful, earnest discussion) some kind of initiative to have this debate take place on campus without so much bullshit. Both sides are unwilling to tell anything resembling the truth.
Janice Stein's lecture on Humanitarian Intervention (I'm taking a class with Janice Stein) was wrenching today. It was painful and hopeful and inspiring and depressing. We spoke of Rwanda, Srebrinica, and Somalia. We learned of the roles of Canadian soldiers, generals, and politicians in those affairs, and how we seem to make some difference even with the paucity of our government's commitment to maintaining our military as an instrument of statecraft. (Sometimes I really, really like school.)
Instead of just singing, I'm working too. That is on the other page when it's discussed at all. Within these confines I'll be focusing on school and music.
School, for the newcomer, consists both of Computer Science and Political Science. In the former category, the current semester includes the repetition of a course which proved overambitious of me to attempt to salvage last semester: Programming Languages. In that capacity, however, I've managed to complete the first assignment and midterm with a reasonable expectation of having done medium-well to well.
This semester also sees me biting off courses in Algorithm Design and Databases. Both are a bit sticky so far. More on those in the coming week or so.
Musically, I'm down one choir. No longer able to stretch myself as thinly on campus, I've dropped my commitment to the Varsity Jews and focused on my tenure with Onoscatopoeia. What this means is that I'll only be spending Monday nights until 7:00pm, and not Thursdays as well, wearing my vocal cords threadbare. For love.
Politically, I'm looking around. I don't think anyone I know will be surprised to know that I'm disenchanted both with Israeli political orthodoxy and with the Canadian Liberal Party, and that I'm trying to figure out where I fit in the spectrum; while I espouse the viewpoints and goals, in general, of the two aforementioned entities (ie. I believe that Israel should exist, and should attempt to end the all-but-declared war within and without, and I believe in socially progressive but financially restrained government) I don't think that their current incarnations can continue to command my loyalties, which means either I try to change them or I try to find a better fit for myself.
I was fairly outraged at the behaviour of the students and guests in attendance at the Hart House Debate tonight, with apology to co-ordinator J. I'm glad I went, but the jerkiness of all in attendance, except for the debaters, speaker and judge themselves, was in full force, with the Arab Student Coalition boorishly turning their chairs around when the guest speaker (Israeli Ambassador Baker) spoke, and the Hillel crowd laughing loudly scornfully at those students.
I'm considering (and I've already come up with an acronym, "SHED" -- students for hopeful, earnest discussion) some kind of initiative to have this debate take place on campus without so much bullshit. Both sides are unwilling to tell anything resembling the truth.
Janice Stein's lecture on Humanitarian Intervention (I'm taking a class with Janice Stein) was wrenching today. It was painful and hopeful and inspiring and depressing. We spoke of Rwanda, Srebrinica, and Somalia. We learned of the roles of Canadian soldiers, generals, and politicians in those affairs, and how we seem to make some difference even with the paucity of our government's commitment to maintaining our military as an instrument of statecraft. (Sometimes I really, really like school.)
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