Hmm

I was on invigilation duty yesterday. I felt pleased to see students thinking so deeply about philosophical questions. I felt particularly happy to see people write down their workings. I have always believed that the first, and perhaps most important step to answering a question is to understand what the question is. Since philosophy is largely about answering and posing questions, I have always believed that the first, and perhaps most important step to doing philosophy is to understand, in extremely, extremely precise terms, what exactly the issue is. Seeing students attempt to do this was nice.

It amused me, too, to see a student sleeping very soundly half an hour in.

Grapes

I'm feeling kind of strange now, and I'm going to try trace this feeling by writing a blog entry. It's 2:40am now, that's late. But I know that this feeling will dissipate with time, and if I were to do any justice in describing it I will have to do it now.

My school term's ended today. I ended the last tutorial class that I'm teaching pretty unsatisfactorily, I thought. I gave them time to ask me questions in the 2nd half of the class, and things got kind of fragmented there. It points to a larger problem really, something that I've experienced throughout the term. I tend to end my classes without tying things together. I can imagine how it might feel unsatisfying for some - they'd be wondering what they've gotten out of that 45 minutes.

I've got pretty high standards for myself in certain contexts, and this is one of them. I feel like I have done something wrong when I see students staring blankly into space. It saddens me that I can't engage them. To be sure, this is probably a problem not specific to me. Different students have different learning speeds, and it's quite impossible to cater to everyone's. I've spoken to a few people on this, and the general consensus is that there is always a tradeoff of this sort: either you engage the fast learners and alienate some of the slower ones, or you engage the slower ones and alienate some of the fast learners. This is not to say that I can't improve my teaching. I can, and part of that consists in finding the right pace that suits the most number of people. Till that happens, I've just got to have more realistic expectations of how many people I can engage.

The route I'd chosen  (perhaps not too intentionally) was to cater to the fast learners. This inevitably alienated some. But the problem here is I don't have too much feedback from the fast learners - I don't know how engaged they feel, if at all. Consequently I'm not sure if this was the right strategy.

Back to the original topic though. Teaching my last class simply reminded me of how much better I could really have done for my students.

I played some board games with 4 others in the Graduate Room earlier. Ended late, thus I was home late, thus I'm writing this late. It was a pretty poor turnout, but that's really not an issue. I'm used to that by now, and I did enjoy the time I had with the 4 others. I didn't have tremendous fun, but I have always found a certain pleasure in having a group of people sit around a table passing the time away playing cards, or board games, both of which we did. It struck me then that I should have held more of these sessions on Friday evenings in the course of the semester. It's too late now. Term's ended. It will be at least 2 months before I can do this again.

We ate grapes while we played in the air-conditioned room. This is significant. Let me explain. I was trying to persuade a senior of mine to come down for the games. Quite an amusing senior, because she's of a small size, but likes spewing vulgarities. (I have actually started seeing her more and more as a little sister, and was going to write an entry on her - but that will come another time).

She had recently put some grapes in the fridge for general consumption. I wasn't successful in persuading her to attend in the end. As a parting remark I told her that whether she came down or not, her grapes would be consumed by evening's end, to which she replied she had adequate stocks at home, 'hurhurhur'. This was in the afternoon. It's evening now, I and my boardgaming partners have put our stuff in the room and went out for dinner. When I came back, I noticed she had rearranged her stuff back on the table, which meant she had dropped by while we were out. Later on I noticed a new box of grapes in the fridge.

This is an interesting scenario. I wasn't, and still am not, sure whether that box of grapes was intended for me, or if she had placed it there for her own future consumption.  [Note that I use the word 'me' here only to the extent she doesn't know who else is attending the session, and that she really was intending for me to share it with the rest, whoever they might be]. It's the end of school, but she could be coming down still. I could very well ask her. But here's why I wouldn't.

1. Either she had intended the box for me or not.
2. If she had intended the box for me, asking her about it will ruin the gesture, and consequently the nice feeling I am feeling now.
3. If she hadn't intended the box for me, clarifying so would ruin the nice feeling I am feeling now.
4. I don't wish to ruin the nice feeling I am feeling now.
5. Thus I shouldn't ask about the box of grapes.

Why 2? If she had indeed purchased the box for my (our) consumption, it is a very thoughtful gesture. I would feel touched. In fact, I do indeed feel touched, because I think it's likely the box was for me. But I would also like to think that the best kinds of thoughtful gestures are those that don't need any further verbal follow-up. She's done this for me. She knows that I know. And that's it. Asking her about it implies that I don't know, and if she has to communicate the fact that she did indeed intend it for me, that takes away some of the gloss on it. After all, the phrase "I did this for you" doesn't seem to arise in positive contexts usually. I don't even think a 'thank you' follow-up would do here. If she had intended the box for me, I would like to think she knows that I would appreciate it too. Saying 'thank you' here would remove some of the gloss on the unstated understanding we have between us.

2 quick further notes. First, I am not saying here saying 'thank you' is unimportant in all situations. Sometimes I would want to say 'thank you'. If I take a fall and a stranger (or a friend) helps me gather my belongings, I would feel genuinely grateful and I would utter a genuine 'thank you'. But here I ask you to consider: can we not imagine a society in which I take a fall, a stranger helps me gather my belongings, I look at him in the eyes, smile, nod my head and go on my way, in the full knowledge that he knows that I am genuinely grateful for his help? Second, not giving a verbal follow-up doesn't mean not giving any kind of follow-up at all.

Warm feelings aside, I feel some stress too, because I still need to do a term paper. I'd be flying off for a fairly long vacation thereafter too, and I'm not sure what that will bring me. I guess the result of mixing this and all of the above is just a strange amalgam of emotions, one that will resolve itself into a distant memory come the next morning.

Hmm

I'm taking 1 intro to philosophy tutorial class. Marking weekly summaries tends to take up half a day. I can do it faster, but I'm a very conscientious person when it comes to this sort of things. I spend significant amounts of time trying to understand what some people write. I also spend significant amounts of time making sure my marking is consistent. If a paper scores 8/10 and another 6/10, there would definitely be an  important difference in them. If I think a paper is significantly different from another, but they both happen to end up having the same marks, I would revisit both papers and regrade at least one of them. If there are no important differences between 2 papers but they end up having different marks, I would revisit both papers too. Sometimes revisiting papers compels me to revisit other papers I've given provisional rankings too. That's what consistency is like - a vibration in a part of a web easily affects other parts too.

I've been listening to 2 songs frequently of late: Transformation and The Messiah. Here they are.






They have 1 thing in common. They each give me the picture of me moving endlessly to somewhere, someplace. I'm not exactly looking forward to where I'm ultimately going; I don't exactly care. Why should I? What does it matter?

Transformation gives me this sense most acutely from 1:55. The bass reminds me that I'm moving somewhere. I'm progressing. It gives me a sense of adventure, of hope. And then the violins sweep in, and they remind me not only of disappointment and failure, but how this adventure is ultimately meaningless even if it succeeds.Why exactly the violins have such an effect on me is something I would like to know, but can't pursue until I know more about the technicalities of music and neuroscience. If I weren't doing Philosophy, that would be pretty much what I would want to do.

The Messiah is best heard late in the night, when you're winding down. The various guitar riffs and percussion flash in and out the main musical thread, making me feel as though I'm gliding down a stream at night, and people are trying to find me with their flashlights, but I'm swimming faster and faster, until I break free of them and am gliding in the water with ease. At 4:05 I hear some noise - that's the guilt and regret in my heart. At 4:50 that noise's gone, and at 5:13 I emerge from the water exhausted, but all alone.

I wanted to quote something from Skippy Dies, a novel, but I recall that it is now with someone else.