kraigus shmeggus (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kraig) wrote,@ 2007-03-20 01:17:00 |
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Academentia
Normally it's a pejorative term, used to denote scorn for academia.
In this case, I'm feeling demented for continuing to subject myself to it. Not in the job sense, it's about as enjoyable as any job can really be, but in the personal sense.
It's 1am, and I have a paper due tomorrow. The paper is actually finished - I read it over, printed it out, found a stapler that could take its massive 12 pages, and am now drinking the last beer in the fridge - which is a big switch from my usual undergrad career so far. I was late with one paper and received exactly two extensions ever, but I have passed in papers literally at the very last minute - just as the prof was getting ready to leave, say - more times than I can count. I think this may be the second time ever that I was done more than 9 hours in advance of the paper due time. I've knocked myself out for the two exams so far, and likely will again for the last one, more studying than I usually subject myself to.
This is honest to @PANTHEON much, much harder than my real job. My real job is supposed to be hard, and philosophy is supposed to be easy: just write bullshit, right? Sysadmins get paid decent salaries to do jobs not many others can, and philosophers - well, if they're really lucky, they're faculty members, but those positions are few and far between. If they're just lucky, well, they're sysadmins. If they're not lucky, they're Windows admins. *rimshot*
So I'm left wondering why I do this to myself. It's fun, it really is, I've really enjoyed this course so far, and my others have been good too. But... it seems to get harder every time. I don't know if it's because I'm older, or work takes more of my brain cells (even if it is usually relatively easy) or if I'm just getting more impatient, but it seems like the returns are diminishing. I spent part of my procrastination time thinking man, if I put this effort into studying, say, network stuff, I could do so much more at work. (Notwithstanding my performance reviews from the last 3 years, which have all been excellent, I'm always feeling vaguely guilty at the amount of stuff I don't know.)
On the other hand, I don't want to become a sysadmin who knows very little outside his sphere of expertise, except "things I read in books." Any idiot can pull a book off the shelf and read it - I want to know that I'm getting the "right" ideas from it.
But the stress! Argh. I know by Friday I'll have largely forgotten this, and come the beginning of April (last exam's on the 6th) I'll be stressing again, but by mid-April I'll again be wondering what the big deal was, and by mid-summer I'll be wishing I'd signed up for a spring term course (Waterloo sucks, why isn't it a summer course?) and by August I'll be looking to see what course I can take in September.
Do I really want to keep doing this? Who nose, but my beer is almost done and my cat gave up some time ago on trying to entice me to bed so he can lie across my legs.
Normally it's a pejorative term, used to denote scorn for academia.
In this case, I'm feeling demented for continuing to subject myself to it. Not in the job sense, it's about as enjoyable as any job can really be, but in the personal sense.
It's 1am, and I have a paper due tomorrow. The paper is actually finished - I read it over, printed it out, found a stapler that could take its massive 12 pages, and am now drinking the last beer in the fridge - which is a big switch from my usual undergrad career so far. I was late with one paper and received exactly two extensions ever, but I have passed in papers literally at the very last minute - just as the prof was getting ready to leave, say - more times than I can count. I think this may be the second time ever that I was done more than 9 hours in advance of the paper due time. I've knocked myself out for the two exams so far, and likely will again for the last one, more studying than I usually subject myself to.
This is honest to @PANTHEON much, much harder than my real job. My real job is supposed to be hard, and philosophy is supposed to be easy: just write bullshit, right? Sysadmins get paid decent salaries to do jobs not many others can, and philosophers - well, if they're really lucky, they're faculty members, but those positions are few and far between. If they're just lucky, well, they're sysadmins. If they're not lucky, they're Windows admins. *rimshot*
So I'm left wondering why I do this to myself. It's fun, it really is, I've really enjoyed this course so far, and my others have been good too. But... it seems to get harder every time. I don't know if it's because I'm older, or work takes more of my brain cells (even if it is usually relatively easy) or if I'm just getting more impatient, but it seems like the returns are diminishing. I spent part of my procrastination time thinking man, if I put this effort into studying, say, network stuff, I could do so much more at work. (Notwithstanding my performance reviews from the last 3 years, which have all been excellent, I'm always feeling vaguely guilty at the amount of stuff I don't know.)
On the other hand, I don't want to become a sysadmin who knows very little outside his sphere of expertise, except "things I read in books." Any idiot can pull a book off the shelf and read it - I want to know that I'm getting the "right" ideas from it.
But the stress! Argh. I know by Friday I'll have largely forgotten this, and come the beginning of April (last exam's on the 6th) I'll be stressing again, but by mid-April I'll again be wondering what the big deal was, and by mid-summer I'll be wishing I'd signed up for a spring term course (Waterloo sucks, why isn't it a summer course?) and by August I'll be looking to see what course I can take in September.
Do I really want to keep doing this? Who nose, but my beer is almost done and my cat gave up some time ago on trying to entice me to bed so he can lie across my legs.
