I've got the grad school bug again

Ever since I got reunited with my grandpa over this last Christmas, I've been thinking a lot about family and genetics.  I've also been obsessed with determinism ever since I first heard of the idea.  Christmas got me fucked up with genetic determinism.


The thing is, it makes so much since.  I am so convinced that reality is dictated in a calculate-able, predictable, sensible way and there is no escaping it and we all lack free will.  I hate it and don't want it to be true so I'm reading everything I can to convince myself that it's not.  


I just finished reading "Who's in Charge" by Michael Gazzaniga and it is really good.  I recommend it to anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of the brain.  It did't quite convince me, but it made a really good case.  My current stance is that although complex systems can't be predicted, and human interactions and just even human existence is not only a complicated system, but a complicated interaction of multiple complicated systems, I still think that once we know more these calculations and predictions could be made.  I think they could, but I hope they can't.


How this relates to grad school is such:
I am interested in ideas.  When I studied literature, I studied it comparatively--how cultures and time periods interact to shape one another.  It is a representation of minds bumping into each other within one of our many complicated systems as humans.  It's mental evolution.  Through studying literature, you can see into the mind of the author, see where he came from, and see the people around him--his society--the world.  Books are doors.


There is a more precise study of ideas that I need to learn more about before I commit myself to it and that is the study of memes.  Memes are like the genes of thoughts. They are the building blocks of ideas and are transmitted and can evolve just like viruses.  


I would love to do a collaborative study with a neuroscientist involving memes, broadly, literature, specifically, and their quantitative role in the human mind.


There are so many places I would like to go with this!  For me, this seems to open doors to everything.


I just need to find what kind of program that would be and where I could find it.

Forever tired

I will never feel rested, but that's kind of not a problem.  I have a crazy strong urge to make the best out of every single second that I can barely let myself sleep.  At times this is a good thing, but if I'm ever in a situation where I can't do anything or feel I can't do anything, it is absolutely crushing.

It is a good motivator, but it's also depressing.  There's always going to be down time.  I can't always do everything ever.  And that sucks, but I need to learn to deal with it without accepting it too much that way I'll still have the drive to do all the awesome stuff I want.

Rosario Castellanos

I'm currently taking a Spanish Literature class called "South American Literature since Post Modernism" and when I signed up for it I didn't know what I was getting in to.  I've taken more than one lit class, but they've mostly been in French, and we barely made it past WWII.  For the first time in a while (in a lit class) I was a little lost.

But it's turning out to be awesome.  I've discovering a whole new world and new ways of thinking.  (One thing that I love most about literature is the philosophy behind the movements.  And I can't even decide which one I like the most.  For a while it was the Enlightenment, but then I started learning about the Romantics and after that resurged my love of Poe and came my discovery of Baudelaire and then how his way of thinking influenced the modernist movement and how everything comes from everything else.  I just get overwhelmed with the awesomeness of literary evolution that I can't even write a proper sentence.)

I feel so inspired everyday I walk out of that class.  And I never gripe about doing the readings.  Sometimes it even makes me want to write myself.  The modernists inspired poetry in me, and I plan to start working on that soon.  I've also grown the desire to become a cosmopolita ensayista and write about the world.

And today we talked about Rosario Castellanos.  I've always been a bit weary about feminist literature because most of what I've been exposed to was stereotypes about the feminazi and that just wasn't appealing to me.  It's true that I had read some works in high school that stuck out to me, but I never moved on past those.  The two that have stayed with me are "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin and and essay "I Want a Wife" by Judy Brady (Syfers).  Both left an impression on me, and I enjoyed both very much.  I like sad, dramatic, meaningful endings and irony.  They're different from one another but share the same feminist message.  Rosario Castellanos was very similar to both of them.  She has a sharp irony that doesn't hide her meaning.  And one thing I thought about today was the fact that feminist writers have to be extremely talented.  Their message and ideology rely on the fact that women are just as good as men (sometimes better) and to prove that they have to Be better than men.  To prove their worth as writers, they have to surpass their male peers in their shared craft.  They have to be extremely ironic, witty and knowledgeable to even be noticed, and this leads to the development of writers of extreme talent.

Right now I am majoring in French and Spanish.  I do plan on teaching abroad, but as far as continuing my studies goes, I've been considering delving into Comparative Literature.  Today's lecture made me start considering focusing on the feminist movements in both regions (the only problem is that I don't know a whole lot about France's feminist movements, so I'll have to get working on that).

I'm really grateful to be in school.  Sure there are dumb greedy burecratical issues, but there's so much knowledge to be gained I almost can't stand it.


Update from 5/21/13:

I've found myself returning to Latin American literature.  The spark came one night when M, S, R, and I were drinking in a park at night and two strangers approached.  One was a poet and loved to talk ideas.  We talked about the art of today--the poetry and break dancing, music and movement--and where it comes from.  It got me thinking in old veins.

A few days ago I was temporally stranded so I took shelter in the library nearby and checked out multiple books, one of which is  "Interviews with Latin American Writers" by Marie-Lise Gazarian Gautier.

The first interview is with Isabel Allende who recognizes that she comes "from a continent where women have had to make twice the effort to obtain half the recognition in any field" (21).  Especially when it comes to writing.  Writing handles Ideas and "[g]aining acceptance into the world of ideas has been the hardest task for women" (21). 

I think that this is a truth on more than her continent but it is one that has been surpassed to some extent.  Maybe surpassed is too strong a word then, because we haven't gotten rid of it completely.  Women are accepted in most fields, but still not quite seen as equals.  We still need to prove ourselves by out-doing everyone else. 

I would make a terrible Buddhist

It's not because of a tolerance issue or anything, it's just because I want too much.  I won't be happy if I spend my life at some job I don't love and never being able to accomplish what I want.
Maybe it's a good thing; I have drive.  But maybe not.

I want to...
Go to grad school for comparative literature, become an expert, and write books.
Travel the world and actually Live in the places I go to.
Teach English abroad.
Be passively successful (so as to avoid a crappy job).
Have skills, learn how to do everything that piques my interest.
Have an extensive library in whatever place I call home.
Never have to worry about money during my crazy adventures.

They seem impossible, but at the same time I'm hopeful.  I feel like if I work and hope hard enough, then I'll get there.

Wish me luck.