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science & humanities in bed together
Sep. 8th, 2005 06:11 pmw00t! I successfully convinced the Philosophy department at UCSC to hire me as a TA for their Intro to Logic class in the Fall. This is the first step in my larger plan to help bridge the gap between physics & philosophy, to expand my horizons a bit, and most importantly... to trick science & humanities into putting aside their petty differences and hopping in bed together. :)
I first offered to TA Intro to Philosophy, and they were considering letting me do that since I've at least taken an equivalent class before (as opposed to Logic which I've never taken--but fortunately I'm half Vulcan, so it's in my blood!), but I was a bit too slow and they already filled all the open positions for it.
This will be the 4th department I've TA'ed for now (Math, Physics, and Astronomy being the first three); I really love moving around and picking up new things as I go. Teaching the same thing over and over gets repetitive. Next I guess I should do a CS or an EE class since I have a whole background there that's going unused; but if I enjoy this quarter in Philosophy as much as I'm hoping, I'll probably just stay there as CS and EE can both get kind of boring.
I also might sit in on some philosophy classes, which should be easier to do now that I have some connections to the faculty there. Particularly, I'd like to know more about Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, and the Vienna Circle. But I'm not sure if I should just jump into a graduate class or if I should take some upper division undergrad classes first. Hopefully talking with the other TA's I work with in the fall will help me figure out stuff like this.
Oh, and I forgot to mention one more thing I saw at Burning Man (in my last friends-only post, in case anyone is confused). They had a Playa Book of Records set up where people tried to set different records. The one which I happened to walk by and catch was a man who hung 4 full cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon from his penis (secured by his Prince Albert piercing) for about 60 seconds straight! He broke the previous record of 3 cans, but when he tried to do 5 he let out a yelp of pain and took it off almost immediately. Ouchies! Oh, and one more thing I saw was a bar for people on stilts. There were enough people walking around the Playa on stilts that they actually had a full bar set up for them on the second story at which they could walk up casually and order drinks. Wonderful!
I first offered to TA Intro to Philosophy, and they were considering letting me do that since I've at least taken an equivalent class before (as opposed to Logic which I've never taken--but fortunately I'm half Vulcan, so it's in my blood!), but I was a bit too slow and they already filled all the open positions for it.
This will be the 4th department I've TA'ed for now (Math, Physics, and Astronomy being the first three); I really love moving around and picking up new things as I go. Teaching the same thing over and over gets repetitive. Next I guess I should do a CS or an EE class since I have a whole background there that's going unused; but if I enjoy this quarter in Philosophy as much as I'm hoping, I'll probably just stay there as CS and EE can both get kind of boring.
I also might sit in on some philosophy classes, which should be easier to do now that I have some connections to the faculty there. Particularly, I'd like to know more about Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, and the Vienna Circle. But I'm not sure if I should just jump into a graduate class or if I should take some upper division undergrad classes first. Hopefully talking with the other TA's I work with in the fall will help me figure out stuff like this.
Oh, and I forgot to mention one more thing I saw at Burning Man (in my last friends-only post, in case anyone is confused). They had a Playa Book of Records set up where people tried to set different records. The one which I happened to walk by and catch was a man who hung 4 full cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon from his penis (secured by his Prince Albert piercing) for about 60 seconds straight! He broke the previous record of 3 cans, but when he tried to do 5 he let out a yelp of pain and took it off almost immediately. Ouchies! Oh, and one more thing I saw was a bar for people on stilts. There were enough people walking around the Playa on stilts that they actually had a full bar set up for them on the second story at which they could walk up casually and order drinks. Wonderful!
