My convocation's at 1600h today, and I'm more concerned that I'm pulling my siblings from school in the middle of the day than getting my degree. My thesis supervisor calls it the "capstone mentality" and finds it equally annoying -- the expectation that the grand culmination of four years (or however may) of higher education should inspire some sense of awe, triumph, chariots riding into the sunset, etc. I will give UBc this small concession, though: it broke down a girl who was brash, angry, and full of contempt, and churned out a kid with conventional twenty-something angst, self-doubt, and futility added to her list of past experiences.
Chris and I took Introduction to Critical Theory -- English 121 -- together in my first year, and it only took two weeks of class before we started wondering how professors and the academically-inclined could learn to take pleasure in simple things (like reading) any more. I wonder: do people with university degrees get paid "more" not because of their exceptional skills, but because they are the ones that have to live with the burden of doubt?
I've been home for three weeks now, and there's no doubt here, only a sense of slow stasis. I don't have to think. After the things that simply need to be done -- subsistence maintenance, if you will -- all that's left over is getting to the next save point without getting totalled by an Iron Giant or Ruby Dragon.
Chris and I took Introduction to Critical Theory -- English 121 -- together in my first year, and it only took two weeks of class before we started wondering how professors and the academically-inclined could learn to take pleasure in simple things (like reading) any more. I wonder: do people with university degrees get paid "more" not because of their exceptional skills, but because they are the ones that have to live with the burden of doubt?
I've been home for three weeks now, and there's no doubt here, only a sense of slow stasis. I don't have to think. After the things that simply need to be done -- subsistence maintenance, if you will -- all that's left over is getting to the next save point without getting totalled by an Iron Giant or Ruby Dragon.
