I’ve more or less finished my third semester at UNM. I have another week’s worth of stuff for the 8-week logic class I’m auditing as a background requirement, but that’s not a huge deal. The work is also much more interesting than I thought it would be, although it takes a lot of time and work to really understand it. At one point I actually said, while in the throes of trying to finish a test before the deadline, “I just wish I had more time for this!” It’s been a long, long time since I had any math classes, and logic is similar to math in that if you don’t get one thing down before moving on, you eventually hit a wall. Trying to work cumulatively, especially with all the nitpicky and counterintuitive rules, and with only a few days for each chapter, really was not ideal. Earlier today I actually caught myself looking for books of logic puzzles on the internet. High-school-math-hating younger me would have had a stroke.
Otherwise, I’ve now crested the hill and am approaching the end of my Master’s program. I have a few more distribution requirements to meet and some background requirements to audit, but beyond that, just a thesis and I’m done. For the second time.
I was initially disappointed that I didn’t get into UNM’s PhD program in philosophy because it felt to me like I was losing time and had taken a step backward from where I was at UT Dallas. Now, a year and a half later, I’m glad things turned out this way, even if it means my CV looks a little weird with the two Master’s degrees. I’m planning on spending some time over the summer researching PhD programs, although ideally I would like to continue into the program at UNM.
Speaking of summer, I thought I would use this post to write about some of my summer writing and reading plans.
First of all, prepare for my thesis. The degree program I’m in only requires a 40-page thesis (the thesis for my MLS was 160 pages), so I’m not really worried about it. I do, however, really want to knock it out of the park so that I have a head start on research for an eventual dissertation, or might be able to submit it as a long paper to a journal somewhere. I haven’t published anything since before COVID, so I need to get on that. I’ve been working on my old card catalogue for my first thesis with an eye to making it into a long-term archive and writing tool, and I’ll also be drawing up reading lists and working through material as I find it.
[It occurs to me that I’ve never written about my fascination with index cards here. Maybe I’ll do that this week.]
Second, continue working on my German. I took a German for reading course this semester which really did help supplement my nearly three-year streak on Duolingo quite a bit. I can read news articles with minimal dictionary help, but I’m still a long way from reading Nietzsche or Heidegger or Marx in the original. I’m planning on using parallel text readers from Penguin as well as continuing on Duolingo to keep my German improving. I’m also planning to work on reading knowledge of Portuguese and Dutch. There’s a lot of interesting philosophy of technology stuff in Brazil and the Netherlands, as it turns out. I can already read Portuguese a bit since it has so much in common with Spanish, and I know that Dutch is less morphologically complex than German, so hopefully this doesn’t turn out to have been too ambitious. Since I have a lot of downtime at work, I’m thinking I’ll set Monday and Wednesday for German, Tuesday for Dutch, and Thursday for Portuguese, with some time spent scraping the rust from my French on the weekend.
Third, get more consistent about writing fiction and poetry. I’ve gotten better about not beating myself up when I don’t write for a while (and this semester has been difficult in a variety of ways), but I really want to get into the habit of writing more regularly. Of course, some of this is self-interest: selling a novel to a big publisher and making a fistful of cash (hahahahahaha) would be great. But really, I’m more concerned with keeping the machine well-oiled. Besides, the more material I have written, the more material I have available for recycling, remixing, repurposing, and connecting. [I might also talk about this in my post on index cards…]
I have other plans beyond these, including researching PhD programs and trying to find publication opportunities, but the three goals above are my highest priorities. Outside reading, writing, and academia, I’m hoping to take some time to relax, keep getting my injured knee healthier, and spend time outside getting our yard in shape. We might also take a trip to Maryland to see family, but we’ll see. Flying just about anywhere from Albuquerque takes forever.
The Burnout Socialite 