Hmm
A senior from S Korea mentioned that back in her undergraduate days in her home country, her Philosophy professors would on occasion comment that the weather outside looks great, and they would cancel lessons and take the class up a nearby mountain with some beer. I said that that was really good, though (because the trip up takes over an hour) wouldn't students miss their next class? I can imagine some students being concerned about that. I can't remember what she said in reply. I suppose it doesn't really matter in the larger scheme of things. When you are 50 years old and looking back at your schooling days, what exactly matters more? That you had attended your next class, one of many leading up to your inexorable graduation, or that you had wilfully abandoned your next class to have some beer at a mountain top with your philsoophy classmates and lecturer, in the midst of a cherry blossom? (Yes there was that, too).
I went to a Faculty-level Graduate Students' Meeting recently, that the consequence of the de facto Philosophy Representative being overseas and everyone else engaged at the scheduled time. I went with the sole interest of gaining a free lunch, it being perhaps the sole reason why I would have bothered turning up at some early hour to begin with. But it turned out to be more interesting than I thought it would be. I came to discover how money was controlled and dispensed with. I came to discover that Econs graduate students had too few workspaces, and had a system where workspaces were alloted by name. (So if one had a name starting with Zhang, it'd be quite unlikely one would get a workspace). I came to discover that some other graduate rooms in other departments had a fridge, a toaster, and a coffeemaker, amongst other things - while some others had to pay for their own paper to print on.
I heard nice anecdotes too. A South Asian tutor remarked that every semester there would surely be, without fail, at least one person in her class, who would say that they are taking (whichever) South Asian module she was tutoring because they were interested in Malaysia, Indonesia, or China. When a professor commented that the faculty had no space for a faculty-wide lounge for graduate students, one of them quipped that the present seminar room the meeting was taking place in was a nice venue. To which another professor remarked that they wouldn't want to clean the tables after each time they did bartop dancing there.
These things are always hard. Looking back now, does it matter more to me that I had 1 more hour of sleep at home, if I had not attended the meeting, or that I had these things to write and remember?
I went to a Faculty-level Graduate Students' Meeting recently, that the consequence of the de facto Philosophy Representative being overseas and everyone else engaged at the scheduled time. I went with the sole interest of gaining a free lunch, it being perhaps the sole reason why I would have bothered turning up at some early hour to begin with. But it turned out to be more interesting than I thought it would be. I came to discover how money was controlled and dispensed with. I came to discover that Econs graduate students had too few workspaces, and had a system where workspaces were alloted by name. (So if one had a name starting with Zhang, it'd be quite unlikely one would get a workspace). I came to discover that some other graduate rooms in other departments had a fridge, a toaster, and a coffeemaker, amongst other things - while some others had to pay for their own paper to print on.
I heard nice anecdotes too. A South Asian tutor remarked that every semester there would surely be, without fail, at least one person in her class, who would say that they are taking (whichever) South Asian module she was tutoring because they were interested in Malaysia, Indonesia, or China. When a professor commented that the faculty had no space for a faculty-wide lounge for graduate students, one of them quipped that the present seminar room the meeting was taking place in was a nice venue. To which another professor remarked that they wouldn't want to clean the tables after each time they did bartop dancing there.
These things are always hard. Looking back now, does it matter more to me that I had 1 more hour of sleep at home, if I had not attended the meeting, or that I had these things to write and remember?
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home