a farewell to marms

I finally got around to visiting the interior of the Seattle Public Library today (main campus).

Talk about eight stories of Geek Filled Heaven! Eight stories of book/media filled goodness!

Even after being disappointed with the Plebian Fiction Section, I found myself flushed with indecent excitement whence I stumbled upon the philosophy section. Here, I rediscovered Simone Weil (and got all excited about this huge-ass book about her writings, until I realized I'd read it years and years ago for a paper I did in undergrad).

Then, my pulse quickened again to find an entire shelf devoted to Kierkegaard's journals and papers. I was then presented with A Dilemma: I had to make a decision as to whether I should read more of Kierkegaard, or fill in the huge gaps in my Fake Philosophy Knowledge with a little Nietzsche.

Finally, practicality and the fact that my book loan pile was nearly as tall as me made the decision: I realized, sadly, that I had to carry all my books home, and that I couldn't possibly read any real philosophy straight through in three weeks any way, at least not in my academically weakened and frail condition. I mean, even the hundreds of pages of reading we were assigned per week in div school amounted to a ridiculous wash half the time, and that was back when I was less of a mental sloth, and had slightly more philosophical acumen. Or at least, could write a paragraph without splitting my infinitives and improper use of the subjunctive, overuse of passive verb forms, and the like.

I even found a new primer on Kant's seminal works (by Paul Geyer, Routledge Press, 2006), which looks like no one has ever checked it out before--big surprise there. I hope this is a good piece of solid academia, and I'm not wasting my time staring at it all gooey eyed as it sits on my coffee table, because I seriously need some help in understand the basics of Kantian thought, even after years of thinking about what little Kant I can remember. Then, I realize I'm a Continental Philosophy Poseur, because I have no idea what this statement means:

Now the unity of the manifold in a subject is synthetic; pure apperception therefore yields a principle of the synthetic unity of the manifold in all possible intuition.

I'm all like, "Dude, huh?!"

And then I get worried, because maybe other people get this statement better than I do, and then I worry that some 18th century continental philosophy major is gonna come around and kick my ass for claiming to have read The Critique of Pure Reason in undergrad, when clearly, due to my lack of Kant Skillz, I couldn't have possibly read properly.

Any way, Public Library Happiness was tempered by a little twinge of Academic Snottiness, in which I lamented my non-student status, and loss of university library privileges (why, we have whole libraries devoted to one area of discipline!) Plus, I couldn't find Wheelock's Latin anywhere, and was totally disappointed by this, even though I didn't bother looking at the electronic card catalog, because God forbid I put down my precious Kant book, and someone steals it.

Unfortunately, many of my memories of Vanderbilt Divinity School's library revolve around me, standing at one of the two or three very ancient copiers, using my limited Rainy Day Crack Stash Funds to copy reams and reams and reams of very boring articles thoughtfully put on reserve by professors, who obviously believed there was no better reward for their snivelly little whiner students than to have to stand for hours and hours at Ye Olde Copy Machine, getting retinal cancer from the ominous green glow of the photocopying light.

I don't , however, remember reading much of these reserve articles, since I spent most of my would-be study-time watching my one, fuzzy, poor-reception television channel and procrastinating on writing mammoth twenty five page papers, which were then churned out furiously in my famed "all-nighters." Strangely, these frantic writing efforts often bore better results than papers which I actually a) proofread and b) wrote more than forty eight hours prior to their due date.

Worse still, I hardly ever studied for exams, which made my Reformation midterm results a very interesting exercise in complete pathetic academic awfulness.

Professor Johnson, who used to teach this course--and I believe shall until he joins the Martyrs of the Cause in the Great Beyond--used to make jokes about Muenster with this very peculiar brand of Midwestern Lutheran jocularity which Katy and I absolutely delighted in and made frequent amused reference to. In fact, one had the distinct feeling that the deliverance of his Muenster jokes--replete with one of his masterfully delivered, signature Power Point presentation slides--was the highlight of the entire semester for him. However, having thoroughly disgraced myself on a midterm, I then received a solemn but kind expression of the gentle professor's complete perturbation as to why my exam was such a piece of crap.

Of course, he was too genteel and learned to call my exam "a piece of crap"--but that's what it was, and I conceded this point with great remorse and embarrassment.

Alas, I have always thought I had performed so marginally during divinity school--despite always scraping by the GPA requisite to keeping my scholarship--that none of my professors bothered even to remember me as "that crappy mediocre student. " I mean, why would they? In my lame defense, I was getting burnt out on academia by that point, and tried to stay under the radar screen by being neither outstanding, nor--usually--totally piss poor, and for the most part, succeeded in this objective.

However, one professor--who Katy and I refer to as "PJ"--always pointed out what a piece of crap my essays for his classes were. I thought he loathed me, on principle, and promptly forgot about me after graduation. Lo and behold, however, years later, while touring the Academic Conference Circuit, Katy met up this teacher, who not only knew exactly who I was--completely horrifying and yet simultaneously gratifying to a Big Nerd like me--but also expressed genuine puzzlement as to why such a smart student always presented herself as such a delinquent crack ho.

Of course, he didn't say "delinquent crack ho," either, but, I'm sure if he was going to try to be "fashionably plebian" he would have.

My academic habits got even worse in nursing school, when the burn out became completely apparent. I stopped showing up to certain classes all together, and still managed to come in to test day and pass exams.

However, I thought this kind of academic work ethic was a poor showing for a would-be mid level practitioner... and well, the ugly fruits of that particular decision you see today in the Wurk version of Jamie, who instead of dwelling on the finer aspects of the fourth conjugation or Kant's metaphysical deduction, gets to chart about indwelling catheters and sputum consistency.

In conclusion, now that I'm a pithy little scutmonkey nobody (as opposed to a pithy little academic scutmonkey nobody) it's easier to conceal my sick academic lust for libraries.

And yet, sometimes, it does make me sad that I've lost my proclivity and talent for footnoting footnotes: "time it was, and what a time it was."