"What are you going to do with a philosophy degree?"

It's a question I get asked when I report my degree, and frequently. Sometimes it is asked out of curiosity or interest. They have not heard of philosophy before. They have studied some and enjoyed it. Sometimes it is asked because this is small talk and that is what you ask. Sometimes it is asked because the person thinks a philosophy degree is a fluff degree, that cannot lead to 'success' in the world. Success in their sense is having a job that allows you to purchase a house and a car. For me success could also be the ability to attract someone with a house and a car. My part in the success can be raising a good, sturdy family. These people look down on philosophy, as some snobby academic discipline that can never allow you to 'succeed in the real world.'

I think that these people are less common, but I think there is a touch of it in the question each time it is asked. Even if they do not know why they are asking it, there is a general impression from society that a philosophy degree will get you nowhere.

I used to tell people that I would be in debt and live in a cardboard box because I did something I love. One day a man asked me, 'do you really believe that?' No. I didn't believe it. I just come up with something to tell people when they ask 'what do you plan to do with your life?' and I tell the same story to everyone. I told them about how I would be a biologist. I told them about how I would work as a translator. I'm not certain where my future will lead. Many people interpret this uncertainty as a weakness. It is not. I keep changing my path but that does not mean I am flaky or indecisive. I love a great many things. There are many things I could be passionate about. I select based on talent, opportunity, and lack. It doesn't mean I am flaky. It doesn't even mean I'm keeping my options open. I'm not keeping them open, I'm just making changes in the places that have not closed off yet. At the moment some doors are mostly closed. More changes will be made before the currently open options have disappeared. That is how I create my life.

Now when asked I tell people that I want to be a professor. I tell them that I am going for grad school but might not get in. I don't like doing this because it makes it appear as if philosophy really is a limited discipline, a snobby academic thing.

Sometimes I list the jobs you can do with a philosophy degree: Office work, writing, editing, civil service, military. None of these jobs clearly link to a philosophy degree.

Part of it is that the job market has changed. They might have got a job because they finished high school which I will be lucky to get now with my fancy degree and all. Yes, you used to be able to walk into an office and get a job. Now there is so much competition that you most often need a bunch of school or a bunch of experience in order to get that job.

But what does philosophy really give me in the end? The opportunity to read good books, explore interesting arguments, and learn about the world. The opportunity to have classes with talented scholars who are making contributions to the academic world. The ability to speak my mind clearly, present arguments, to hold to convictions. Other disciplines do this too, but one thing you can certainly say about philosophy is that it makes good citizens.

Why we hate principles

"Why We Hate School Principals: Every adult remembers being a child who was afraid of getting sent to the principal's office. It may have felt like the principal was out to get you ... but only if you misbehaved. Take for example Principal Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off He tried to keep high school student Ferris Bueller from playing hookie. Why did he make it his life's mission to get Ferris back to the classroom. You would have thought he'd be happy to have this troublemaker out of his hair."

From Most hated professions.


I am sure that there are people who disliked their principles because they were authority figures. Personally, I got along with most of my authority figures. Of course it was upsetting to be called out in band class for making a mistake or to have my math teacher ask me why I nearly fell asleep in class, but these experiences point toward the position of an educator. It is their job to point out mistakes and encourage improvement.

The principle on the other hand, I hated. Why did I hate the principle? Because he was stupid. This was not the case at all my schools, I am thinking of high school particularly. I went to a good school. I didn't know it at the time but we had a lot that other schools didn't have. The honours program and specific teachers who helped you through scholarship applications and university choices, a fantastic band program, and well-funded science classes, among other things. The principle was dead set on messing all this up. Every decision they made was out of line with what was good about the school, what the students valued, and so on. The honours program was changed because it was discriminatory. The music program was cut so that we could have more soccer. There were 900 students in the music program. That is a sizable portion of the school, many more then can fit onto a soccer team.

Almost a year being vegetarian

Last year at the beginning of December I stopped eating meat. My father, who does not eat meat and should have been supportive of my decision, said that it was fine that I didn't eat meat but I should eat turkey dinner anyway because he always did. So it is almost a year. I will include some pictures from the past year. Unfortunately I cannot find any of the delicious meals I made, but here is some fruit and pastry, which is my meat replacement in any case.

Picture #1 Apple halves and melon.

I was playing a game on the bus. I imagined my ideal. I could say ideal self, but that isn't really what I mean. I mean the person I would like to be, but I also mean a role-model or ideal human being. Apparently my ideal is a tall, lanky man dressed in a white suite who does not procrastinate, as I am doing now. The most interesting thing I learned from this thought experiment is that my ideal is vegetarian.

Then I asked 'what changes can I make to be similar to my ideal?'

My sister, boyfriend, and roommate were all vegetarian at this point. As such I knew lots of recipes that did not involve meet. Furthermore, I made a deal with myself. I would give up meat in exchange for fruit and cheese. I did not realise at this point that cheese contained enzymes from calf-stomach or that marsh mellows contained gelatine. I discovered these things during my research and decided that my decision was based on not eating flesh and as such I was permitted to continue eating gelatine and calf enzyme.

So I got off the bus at the local green grocer, bought a bunch of fruit and went home to tell my roommates I was vegetarian.

I learned the arguments for vegetarianism: health, environment, cost, animal-torture, respect. I fall under the respect and environmental category if you push me. I believe that the consumption of sentient beings is a religious act at as such should be undertaken with respect. It is a disturbing act and well it need not be avoided it should be taken seriously.

I do not tell people this!

It is amusing to see the confusion of my opponent when they attempt to challenge my choices and hit thin air.

"Your against it because you don't like torturing animals."

No, that isn't why I became vegetarian. Then they manage to be very confusing and ask if I eat chicken.

Picture #2: Strawberry rhubarb pie.

"Why don't you like meat?"

I do, I love meat. I just decided not to eat it. It is fun to talk to people who wish to challenge my views. Sometimes my responses are not as good as I could wish for, but  sometimes I manage to make the person sympathetic. Moreover, I am proud to say that I have not attacked or alienated any meat eaters. I do not approve of this method, particularly because non-vegetarians will sometimes approach vegetarians out of curiousity and possibly to consider the choice for themselves. If I want to support my view I should give them information, not attack them!

"You don't get enough protein. You don't get enough iron."

Picture #3: The melon matches the plate.

At this point I explain that if you become vegetarian you need to know what kind of food to prepare. Before I could be vegetarian I needed to be an independent and self-reliant cook. You cannot be an unhealthy vegetarian or a vegetarian who simple does not eat because then you will become ill. When I first became a vegetarian I also went through a phase of not wanting to cook. I knew what I could cook but I had no interest in eating. I think the main danger in being a vegetarian is losing interest in your food. In which case the attacks are correct. If you do not eat you will not get enough protein, iron, or whatever else you might need. This is because you need food in order to get this.

If you do eat, however, you are likely to be healthier then a non-vegetarian. This is because being a vegetarian forces you to explore food, cook variety in order to keep up interest, and pay more attention to your food intake to guarantee you get what you need. It isn't more difficult, it is just more fun.

Picture #4: Frozen desert chocolate wafer & cream.

If must people ate the sort of diet I did before I became vegetarian I would not encourage them to switch. I bought and prepared whole rock cod. I roasted chickens and saved them over periods of days. Then I would use the bones for soup. Once a month I fried up a slice of steak and ate a dining room table dinner. My diet was enjoyable, exploratory, and at times festive.

Most people do not approach meat the way I did. For them eating meat simply means not changing the recipes they know, mixing bacon into everything (not that bacon isn't delicious), and choosing whatever they like at restaurants.

Picture #5: Tea kept warm with a candle.

Recently I had followed the live-food fad. Live foods fascinate me. I explained that being vegetarian was eating only that which was still alive until I cooked it. It is a fun definition, and fairly accurate. It also changes the view on meat. Eating meat is eating things that have been dead for a while, that doesn't sound extremely appealing.

So that's what I have learned over the past year of being a vegetarian. Around New Years I plan to reevaluate my commitment. The year was supposed to be six months. I made it to six months and decided I should do a year. I think instead of being vegetarian I might be a vegetarian in practice but eat fish that I or those around me catch. I also want to decide whether I should eat bugs or not. Buts might be tasty.

Whale skin

It was my birthday on Easter and I asked my father to take us out into the woods for a hike. I live in the city now and I miss having access to the parks and paths.

On Friday there was a huge storm. Trees were on the path in a few places. We had to climb around and over. For a bit we walked on the beach. Coming around a corner I saw a crowd of people. Then I gasped. On the beach in the circle of people was a dead grey whale. Never having seen a wild whale, either dead or alive, I was in awe.

It was definitely dead, although the barnacles were not. The tail was in the water and the barnacles there were still feeding as the tide washed in plankton. It stank. It only stank sometimes. It would be fine and then there would be a moment when the smell would wash over everything.

I watched the people touching the whale, a real whale! I found it disturbing, as did my little sister who watched from a distance. But I have always been curious. I could not bring myself to touch the flesh, but I did touch the baleen. It brought back all my desire to be a biologist, a dream until the first year of University when I realised how unsuitable I am for the sciences.

My boyfriend told the story to his disgusted co-workers. They expressed moral indignation at the importunity of the spectators. He agreed with them and then told them about how he had seen the whale, and touched the whale, and taken some pieces of it's skin. He gave me some for my birthday. A less disturbing gift then last year but only because last year he gave me Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

I have the same view of this as of the Garden Protest. Wrong but rather wonderful.

My mother is dead.

This is not a happy post, but one I felt compelled to write.

My mother is dead. I feel angry. I feel guilty. I want her back. I need her back. For her, form me, for her family and friends and poetry. I feel jealous of those who have both parents. There are so many who are less deserving of a mother. I am. I loved my mother. I told her how much she mattered to me and I told the truth. How can she be dead? How can she be dead when others less deserving still live? People are alive who just go on killing time and when they are gone it will not matter. This was not her. Why could not one of them have gone in her place? It is not right. It is unfair. Death always seems unfair, but this one was particularly so. She died at fifty four. I am in my twenties. It is wrong. I should have been 50, not her. She was too young; I am too young to lose my mother and too old to not remember her now that I have.

I know she is dead. I am not in denial, which is the little I can say. I saw her body. I could tell from how it lay that it would not move again, like a soiled bed or a doll left in the ditch or an apple forgotten in the fruit bowl. Once death was a metaphor for those things, but to explain it I used them as a metaphor for her body. The body was no good. It could not harbour human life any longer.

I wish it called for revenge. I want someone to pay. I want someone to suffer for taking her from me. How dare the world do such a thing? But it is life, and no particular person. But there is no one. It is for the best, I would only get myself into trouble. I have a little anyhow. A man on the street was nearly hit by a car in his own negligence. He was angry at the car and I pointed out that the driver was simply upset at having nearly caused a death. He became angry with me. Insisted he was in the right. Following me. I slapped him. All the time I thought, I would like this man to suffer a little. I would like to take this out on him. What right does he have to live in a world that my mother no longer inhabits? There are others like him. I could hurt them too. Angry, stupid people who call attention to themselves when there are beautiful people in this world, people like my mother who would never ask for such attention.

I will not do these things, but I think of them as consolation. I pretend I will because it makes it hurt less.

I knew how lucky I was and I know how unlucky I now am. To lose a parent is devastation. For me to lose my mother is worse, worse in circumstance and worse again because she was so warm and so wonderful and gifted. My mother was Tanya Kern.

Swing dancing

I took a class on Sartre last year. We watched a video because my teacher was slightly incompetent. Various people who knew Sartre talked about the time in which he lived, the atmosphere into which he was accepted, and the strange freedom that the Paris youth were then embracing. Thousands of people came to his funeral. He was not only a philosopher or an adored public figure, he was one of the spirits of the time. He exemplified the thoughts of a new era, and offered further thoughts to expand that era. I don't know if he was right, what I do know is that in the video there were people dancing. People about my age in a black and white video. They looked free. We don't have that feeling of freedom anymore, but we still have swing dancing.

My roommate did swing when I moved in with her, and she convinced me to come along to a Saturday night dance with a live band. Because of the band the room was packed. First there was a lesson. Two teachers instructed us to get into partners. First we learned the basic step, and then a few simple moves. You meet a few people and learn a bit. There is nothing grand in it.

Once the lesson is over the instructors turn out the overhead lights and turn on a reddish spotlight. The DJ puts on a song and everyone starts dancing. It isn't just the things from the beginner class.  Throwing or jumping is not permitted because of limited dance space, but many of the people dancing are impressive and skilled dancers. Seeing all these people in the dim red light I realised that swing is still alive! After almost a hundred years this dance is still something that brings people out. I have been dancing for about a year now and I am always surprised by the enthusiasm. I can tell my friend about swing and she will ask me to take her along. It seems so esoteric but it isn't. It isn't just a few people playing with the past. It's alive.

If you live on Victoria please come out to Nothin' but Swing on Saturday nights. It's pretty amazing that this exists, so you should see it at least once.

Trust

I moved out in 2008. I understood that my mother sheltered me a bit and that I did not know a lot about people. I never had the sort of friends who spend all their free time together and never dealt with the sort of fights which arise from that kind of friendship. So I knew that having roommates would be a challenge for me and that I needed to be respectful of them and take care to know their boundaries and realize that hurt feelings do not equate to lasting hatred. I trusted that my roommates, all of whom had been on their own before, would be a reliable source of information on how to act in the world. We all want to be good people and do the right thing, right?

No. We don't. We want to do the easiest thing. We don't want to do something that is seriously wrong. No murder. No cruelty. But what about the grey areas? Rent money is an issue that is slightly grey. How to treat people when they have treated you is an area that is grey. What to do when you break someone's possessions accidentally is an area that is grey. What? Those aren't grey areas. But what if the person is a jerk? What if they had it coming?

I am now very careful who I trust to make judgments. Those are not grey areas. I knew they weren't. But I had never lived on my own before and thought that I just did not understand how these things worked. It is a bit of a nasty lesson, learning not to trust people's judgment. But it is a good one.

My sister phoned me the other day. Her friend was on academic probation. His life was a mess and he was depressed. She had asked all her friends if she should stop being friends with him, because it was creating a lot of stress for her and she did not feel like she could help him much anyhow. Everyone had told her yes. Then she asked a mutual friend of ours. He is a on call teacher and as she put it, 'an authority figure.' He said to wait it out. When she called me I told her to discourage him from discussing his problems with her but to continue being her friend. We were the only people who said she shouldn't drop him. This upset her, because it felt wrong.

It is rather sad. Idealizing people is wrong. People are people, not embodiments of a priori thought stuff. I am happy to say that the issues I had to take up in first year no longer exist. My roommates and I care about each other and want to do right, but this is from natural sympathy. How do you avoid the world becoming grey? Getting into a muddle. It worries me that what seems so clear now could fade in the wrong situation with the wrong people.

Talking too loudly on the bus

I am a loud person. When I am in a crowd of people I do not know or do not feel comfortable with I speak quietly and politely. But as soon as I have a friend I get loud. I know it is rude and I try to be considerate but sometimes I am so interested in the conversation that I forget about the people around us who may not really want to know about carnivorous tomatoes.

One episode particularly stands out for me. During National Novel Writing Month I talked about my novel a great deal. My roommate and I were on the bus. We were going to a Butcher's shop to buy five quail for a potluck. We were both in good spirits having just attended a talk by a brilliant teacher of mine. But my novel was giving me a bit of trouble. My characters lost motivation and my antagonist was mostly reacting at this point and as such could not himself be a motivation. So I was running through various was in which I could get my novel started again, with intermittent bursts of conversation about the talk on biomedical ethics we had just attended. I had just solved the problem with help from my roommate when a man a few seats away said, 'excuse me, do you realize you are very loud?' He was antagonistic. It is understandable because he had not wanted to hear our conversation. Say 'shush' or 'you're being loud' in a firm, quiet voice.

Understand that I do feel a bit guilty about the following. I do not always react well to people being angry at me and this is definitely an example of a poor reaction.

"I'm sorry," I said, "did something I said bother you?"

Here I learned that my poor reaction was somewhat more understandable. I don't mind people shushing me. I do mind them misjudging me. "Yes," he replied. "You think you are intelligent. But you're not. You're stupid. You are pretending to be intelligence and you are so stupid."

I was a little bewildered at this. "I don't think I'm intelligent," I said. It's true. I have rather low self esteem when it comes down to it. It's something I'm working on. I am happy when I understand something and unsurprised if I don't. But that conversation had not been one of self-awareness. If it had I would have known to keep quieter. As it was I was entirely wrapped up in ethics and stories and had no idea of myself or anything else, except possibly my roommate.

"Then why would you be talking so loudly?" He asked, "Obviously you want everyone to hear you because you think you are so intelligent. But you're just pretentious."

Now what he says has a bit of merit. In first year I had Latin 101 at 9:30am. I lived far away and the bus ride took an hour. Every day my friends and I would give up studying for Latin and have absurd conversations. More than once I was approached when riding alone by people who had heard our conversations, found them interesting, and thought it pleasant to speak with me. I was embarrassed by these encounters but also slightly pleased. So I had good reason to suppose that if people overheard our conversation they would know it to be what it was, two happy university students discussing things they loved.

I muddled the poor man, I think. I kept quiet until I stood up to get off the bus. Then I told him not to be afraid of intelligence, and pointed out that it is only a danger if misused and that ignorance on the other hand should always be feared. He disagreed and informed me that intelligence was dangerous and ignorance right way. He actually said that! I think he was terribly confused at this point or he would not have made such a blunder. I do realize that I was in the wrong, but I also see him as an example of a failed attempt to control the thoughts and speech of others. He felt threatened by me and that was why I responded so poorly. Had he known that he was in the right in asking me to be quiet I would have responded positively. That brings up an disturbing issue of how easy it is to control people with the right attitude and at the right moment.

Why don't you blog about it?

My roommates and I are loud overdramatic people so when I disagreed with something my roommate said instead of responding politely I yelled, "you're weird!" and ran into my room.

He yelled back, "Why don't you blag about it?"

This is his usual response when I comment on or complain about something. If I take his advice I'll be blogging about the dishes next.

I sometimes mention that I have a blog. I do not particularly want my friends reading my blog because there are only so many things I can be excited about on one day. It just gives us less to talk about. But that isn't the issue. The issue is that people often react negatively when I mention blogging. Somehow each time it happens I forget, because the reaction just doesn't make sense. If I told them I had been writing poetry or working on some personal work they would be fine, but somehow blogs are different.

There are issues in blogging. Sometimes people are always looking around for a new topic, or spend all free time reading other peoples blogs and updating. But those aren't issues everyone has. There are many worse things to be doing with spare time. Really that doesn't sounds like being a writer.My friends don't think I'm spending all my time working on my blog, so that can't be the issue.

No, it's the perception blogging a sign of mental ill health. In spite of all the great blogs out there most people still think that blogs are a place for high school kids to rant and moan about how hard they have it and how no one understands them, and assert their pretentious understanding of the world. This is a sign of ill health because it displays a level of obsession with personal experience that prevents any focus on the external world. I have always believed it is better to focus outward. There is only so much you can understand, and like a windows os there is much more that can go wrong then right.

"To Harvard."

I took a philosophy of film class last Summer. One day before class I was siting in the corner reading the newspaper.

"Anxious for class to start?" Asked the student sitting in the hall. I recognized him from class He was dressed in a suite, like the law students do, and obviously took care of his appearance. Most of us are scruffy. All us girls seem to have the same sort of casually messy hair, and the boys never have time to shave. Whenever I see him I am startled.

I remarked that I usually felt too shy to talk to the other students, and he discouraged this. He pointed out that there are lots of us who are shy, and that is why the classes tend to be so quiet. So it isn't that the other students are aloof, just that we appear aloof to each other. Over the last year I have seen this to be true.

But this story isn't about me. It is about him. There is a scene in certain movies where the father pours his son a drink and toasts 'to Harvard.' It does not need to be Harvard. But somewhere with equal prestige. No one toasts 'the the University of Toronto,' and really who would toast 'to Uvic?' I might toast 'to Victoria' but as great as these schools are it has to be better then that. But these are movies. This is the American dream of higher learning. Sending the son off to law school. Off to Oxford. Off to somewhere where anyone who gets in has a grand future ahead of them.

My roommate and I arrive early to the Philosophy Christmas Party. There aren't many people yet and there is a loll in conversation. Over by the bar the student who encouraged me to do things like go to Christmas parties is talking to his friend. I glance over in hopes that someone I know has arrived and see them raise their glasses. I hear over the noise of the room, 'to Harvard.'

Boxing day in the mall

Why would you go into the mall on boxing day? I don't know. Maybe it is masochism. Maybe the more obvious greed. For me it was neither. Seven of us met at the north entrance to the mall and went over the rules. Tagging is progressive so in the end one person will be left. We weren't allowed in any gender specific places. We were not to do anything that drew attention such as running or shouting. We were to behave exactly like the other shoppers. No getting in trouble, no getting kicked out. We still stood out so much, even when we made an effort. You could pick out the seven of us from different floors and we kept meeting each other to compare information on who had been caught. Instead of shopping on boxing day I played mall tag.

Escalators are death traps, as are elevators. The first game we played I was going up the escalator and saw another player. I couldn't tell if he was tagged or not but they started walking away. I figured I was probably okay but I should have walked in the opposite. I followed him for a bit and then decided that it was a bad idea and turned around. Another guy came up the escalator as I turned around. I suddenly had a strong desire to purchase a pink sweater from a guys clothing shop.

I went in and stared at the sweater but I knew it was useless. I turned around and he was come into the shop. I tried to move around to get out but realized I could not leave without drawing attention to us. So I gave up.

"Hey, I haven't seen you in so long!" I said and shook hands with him.

"Yah, how are you?"

"Oh, I'm good." We hugged and he said, "Yah, you are so tagged."

"Guessed as much." I follow him off to hunt other people.

If you are in victoria come check it out. Our facebook group is http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16989937139&ref=ts.