meditations on first philosophy

thought i was doing well by reading the book before class started and sticky-noting stand out concepts/arguments. i even was beginning to feel more comfortable with the reality conundrum mentioned in the previous post. three days before class starts i get an e-mail from my professor saying "read Meditation I (pgs 12-15), refer to attached commentary and questions while reading."

initial response: i'm already on Meditation III so i'll just review/reread Meditation I with his pages of comments and questions.

second response: 3 full pages of analysis (8.5x11" ea) for 3 pages of text (5x8.5" ea) ?? i must be stupid because i didn't think there was that much material in the introductory meditation.

after reading: oh... i guess so.

still on page one of three of the professor's comments&questions. one point refers to paragraph 3 and the "argument from Illusion." paragraph 3 is two sentences.

initial and current response: where is the argument !? i must be stupid because i can't pull any form of argument from these apparently-laden-with-meaning two sentences...

sushi break please...

sunday funday

a quick update, sans photos...

1. i was awarded the UCLA TAP scholarship! it's $5,000 with the condition that i commit to participating in undergraduate research -- something i'd love the opportunity for, so this is so nice to receive $5k + a contract to do it (: the scholarship is renewable, assuming i fulfill all the reqs... nice!
2. i lost 1 pound! sound measly? maybe to the average supermodel, for whom a pound a day is par for the course... but for me it's a huge win because i feel like i've plateaued foreverrrr. now i'm 113! every time i work out, i'm 112 the day after, though... fleetingly. i hope i can attain that 112 for good, then 111... and ultimately 110. i'm toying with the idea of 110 lbs + an A in my first UCLA summer course = me treating myself to a shallow designer material object :D
3. caught up with jonas & lynard briefly last thurs&fri. nice (:
4. drove to malibu today with the aid of our new GPS system! yesss, it was so helpful, especially with all the detours we had to make. malibu is great, esp the malibu county market (dont be fooled by the name... it's a haven for boutiques / birkins / lazy sundays)... but the traffic is murder. in both directions. and there isn't any rush hour -- unless you'd say it spans the entire day...
5. yes i am unsatisfied with my Chloé Marlow. it's kind of large and the bottom sags which i'm quickly understanding is a constant concern with designer bags. so now i'm perusing (obsessing) for a new bag...
6. need to get crackin on descartes' meditations on first philosophy... i'm stuck on the whole formal/objective reality thing. i think i grasp his argument for the existence of god, but i'm not willing to attempt any further reading until i understand the reality concept.

mamegoma bruin

although technically, in the world of san-x, it's rilakkuma who's the bruin (:

a lot of things have been happening, all which have nothing to do which each other, but it would take too much effort on my part to attempt to find a connecting thread so i'm just going to spit them out:

UCLA orientation was ... overwhelming, and not in the intimidating-intellectual way you'd think. it was way less organized than you'd expect (or perhaps just i'd). way too many things we were supposed to be doing + too little time + too large of a campus, combined with little to no organization/directions. i understand we've been given a UCLA map, but considering the size of the campus, couldn't there have been at least some direction signs? also had insomnia for the last 3 nights leading up to orientation so by midday i wanted to vomit or die or both.

as a tutor for two years, i've had some pretty interesting insight into the variety of perspectives people have on education (for their kids). i've held different types of tutoring positions, so my observations have come from classroom settings, playground settings, and the family home itself. i have a lot of analysis and social commentary on this subject, which deserves a whole post to itself... so i'll save the spiel for later. but basically, this summer i tutor for a certain family. and it's plain sad how even the parents don't take their children's education seriously (constantly rescheduling so he can go to the beach/hang out with cousins/rest from being tired from school). the kid is rebellious and resistant, but that's kind of expected -- the parents, though, definitely need to get it together. even worse is the way they constantly forget their tutoring appointments. uhuh. no call, no text, no notification that they're not going to be home -- until i drive all the way there, ring the bell twice, knock on the door, wait around, call the mom's cellphone twice and get voicemail each time. this has happened more times than i can count. i don't charge for these incidents but i'm beginning to feel that i feel that i should, because it's just sooo inconsiderate. like, once or twice, understandable. but 12+ times you're doing this to me? and being inconsiderate is utterly UNCLASSY, no matter how many carats you're wearing in your ears.

ew i totally said i wouldn't rant but i kind of did.

on a lighter hearted note, my momma and i planted iceberg roses in our front yard. (: i love white iceberg roses! i love it in landscaping, which is highly convenient because around the south cali area, all the landscapers seem to love iceberg roses too (: they're very durable and easy to care for, while looking pretty elegant (: since ours are newly planted they're a little weak, but i'll update on their progress as they come along (:

contentment

one final moment to pause and reflect before diving in, and reveling in it all

i love being a philosophy major

i also love UCLA, the prospect of going into law, and the LSAT

this is just who i am. back in highschool while everybody grumbled about SAT and SAT prepclass, i loved SAT class. and now that the LSAT is coming up, i'm so excited to get back into that atmosphere again... the studying, the drilling, the anticipation, the hard work. you just feel so productive, smart, and happy.

at this point, i'm really happy.

simple post? yeah.. but i thought it was important to document. (:

minutiae

(note: heard for the very first time the pronunciation of this post's title, "minutiae" ... and it is WEIRD. even in singular form its weird. to digress, you can tell you're a reader when you know how to spell and use words before knowing how to pronounce them. i'm proud of this in my snobby-reader way.) (extra digression: another word i don't know how to pronounce is "albeit." will look it up after this post.)

what was i gonna write about, again?

oh, right... topic of choice: minutiae.

1. how little girls play "house." sooo cute/funny. and being the mom is always the best role. sister, daughter, aunt are secondary. grandma, teacher, and family dog, tertiary. and you can tell who's gonna grow up to be an alpha-type female, because she's the one utterly insisting in her bossy voice, "NO, I'M THE MOM! THIS IS THE KITCHEN! I'M THE MOM AND I'M COOKING DINNER! YOU'RE AT SCHOOL RIGHT NOW!" this game is hilarious... and all girls, all over the world, play this game. it's even more funny how this game has relatively no point, no story, no climax, no problem, no beginning, and definitely no conclusion. it's just this relentless mimic of adult daily life... also interesting to note that boys don't have their own version, i.e. play dad/son/uncle roles, "going to work" and "mowing the yard" and whatnot.

2. how little kids scream when they're playing. lmffaaoo. hysterical laughing and screaming that usually accompanies chasing games. i have next door neighbors who have children, and they also always have family come over, with other children. they also have a pool (to be implicitly understood: the effect a pool has on kids, namely: euphoria.) so my family often hears them screaming and yelling all the time. not in an annoying way... but it's pretty familiar background noise to us. and the other day i just thought about how funny it is that kids scream when they're playing... when do we lose that?

3. watching tv: listening to what a person has to say, in silence, until they've finished. pause. then remarking, "her teeth are weird." "i know! it was bugging me!"

adieu!

3

since this blog is supposed to help me improve my writing, i thought i'd rest that cryptic style i'd been hiding behind for the last few posts and really settle in ...

its 3'am and my situation is really terrible. i have sooo many things to do and time is beginning to run out. the biggest indication of this is that it is sunday, the work day for the slacker. and i have a head start at 3'am (or a lagging finish, since i started all my work last friday!).

the most challenging item on my to-do list currently is to write a paper juxtaposing Ayer and Mackie and their views on ethical (non-)cognitivism. i like Ayer but find that Mackie's style of arguing isn't as straightforward. what's difficult is that the two articles (one from each) i have to read are defending different points.

see:

my excerpt from Ayer has a thesis of ethical concepts are pseudo concepts, because making value judgements in ethics is the equivalent of expressing non-cognitive emotion.

my excerpt from Mackie has a thesis that objective moral values do not exist, but society has a deeply ingrained belief that they do.

my excerpt from Ayer matches the subject of my paper, but as you can see, i'm going to have to do a lot of twisting (use a lot of mind energy to stretch the relevance) for Mackie's arguments to fit the subject. As far as i can tell, Mackie's viewpoint on (non-)cognitivism is that moral judgements have cognitive meaning, but are false. why does he believe they have meaning? because they have more than communicative function (as opposed to Ayer's 'evincing emotions' fxn)? because they are full-bodied, fully developed concepts with only the flaw of being false (like unicorns)?

oh i forgot to mention the most prevalent thing in light of all this.

i have a pounding headache!!

going to refresh my tea with hot water, cook up some toast, and start anew.

p.s. since i got into UCLA, thought i'd treat myself to a super gorgeously luxuriously utterly impractical bag. (get to know me and you'll soon learn this is the type of thing i love the most. super gorgeously luxuriously utterly impractical things, i.e. cream lambskin leather. i should come up with a more succinct title for this category, or an acronym or something, but i can't be bothered at the moment. hello didn't i just tell you i'm a v. serious philosophy student who juxtaposes viewpoints on non-cognitivism?) what should i get? currently in contention are balenciaga work (maybe city if i'm too poor), vintage chanel (less ostentatious than current styles), some chloe or tod's...

p.p.s. oh god just realized excessive usage of parentheses. do i speak in footnotes? how do i ever get to any of my points? also, i'm enjoying the way i managed to discuss both something very scholarly and very materialistic in the same post. go me!

before and after

that was the before; here's the after

when a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. (jonathan swift, "thoughts on various subjects, moral and diverting")

i'm not in any way asserting that i am a genius, nor on the track to become one. i engage in all sorts of dumb practices like forgetting to take my keys and arriving home after 3am, or exiting a parking lot through the path that takes me the longest (and only realizing i've done so once i'm too far gone -- ah, well. next time i'll remember to go out the other way.)

i just wanted to reference this quote (from the beginning page of my A Confederacy of Dunces) because lately, my major has been eliciting the most disapproving, condescending, and dismissive reactions. as soon as (ignorant) people hear me say "philosophy," i can visually observe a multitude of connotations, generalizations, and assumptions start clamoring inside their heads...

anyway, this is me in poses with lots of leg creativity. hahaha. thats the effect black leggings have on you. i really live in these heel-out leggings, because i have this funny idea that the way they make my legs look thinner + are black makes me look like a spider. and i weirdly really like that, so i have like 8 pairs. hahaha.

btw i'm a UCLA bruin now. see photos. the first three are me as an arachnid without an identity. the second two are those in which i, now blessed with a UCLA permanent ID, am representin'.