Chicago: Part III
I arrived in Chicago last night after a fascinating plane flight. The flight will be the topic of another entry, which will receive the detail and care that the experience deserves. For now, though, I'm actually a little bored. It's a little surprising: my classes were excellent today and this quarter promises to be the busiest yet. I finished Bertrand Russell's epic and outstanding History of Western Philosophy (that deserves to be the subject of even another entry). In other words, I should be satisfied and expectant.
In light of this state, I was perplexed about ten minutes ago. It occurred to me, that this was essentially a state of boredom. But boredom occurs because one has nothing interesting to do. However the only burden which I normally have but do not currently possess is homework. Indeed, my cheap textbooks haven't arrived, so I can't even pretend to do homework when I actually have none! Consequently the fact is: I can find nothing more interesting than homework to do in college.
This raises a critical point. Usually when I have nothing to do, I generate homework for myself. I do something like learn Esperanto, which is kind of like spinning one's mental wheels but going nowhere. You see, I just realized that the critical problem is this damn weather. It was 80 degrees today, and it is 70 degrees right now at 10 PM. I just feel like doing nothing, but I can't go to sleep, and I want to do something. Rumor has it that there are schools in warmer latitudes. Memory seems to hint that there are places with names like "Stanford" and "Caltech" in these climates, which I might have even found desirable once upon a time. In fact, there are even industrious cities, booming metropolises in these regions. However, I simply don't know how anyone can get much done in this sort of weather. It was problematic enough in Portland, where the weather is quite temperate during the school year. It makes me yearn for the tundra that was winter quarter.
But my package with a textbook just arrived! A diversion! An attempt to pretend to work!
More likely, just another lazy walk through the spring weather... followed by another lazy walk to the Reynolds Club for a nice cool bottle of Naked juice. But hopefully not followed by more utterly wasteful, superfluous, and meaningless blogging.
Adam, you disturb me in your academic masochism. Wanting it to be colder all the time, so you'll never have anything to do other than work? Wow. And surely you could have found something to do other than work, like play music, go running, or (God forbid) socialize?
Also, what classes are you taking?
I'm not sure that's quite right. For one thing, masochism implies that pain is experienced. That's not exactly the case. On the other hand I could (and probably should) have practiced music (although the practice rooms were soon closing). Running was out: running alone at night in good weather is a good way to get mugged. Plus I hate running on treadmills. As for socializing, my dorm isn't really optimized for socializing for some reason. I'm not sure why. In the rare event that I pass by an open door, the inhabitant usually seems to be doing something important, which I feel I shouldn't disturb. Additionally, creating noise in generally undesirable and frowned upon. I guess my point is that my reasoning isn't really as perverse as it seems.
This quarter I'm taking:
Democracy and Social Science 3 (social science core class)
Economic Analysis I
Quantum Mechanics
Analysis in Rn 2
How about you?
Bummer about your hall being anti-social. And I guess I didn't realize that this was going on at night.
I'm taking:
Waves and Modern Physics Honors (kind of like intro to quantum)
Intermediate Microeconomics Honors
Linear Algebra
Analysis of Rock Music
CAS 105 (writing class for all freshman; mine's about global warming and energy)
Primary Piano lessons at Eastman
Chamber Singers
It's a pretty large overload, and I'm beginning to regret it, but I'll manage.