E603, Fall 2004
Learning Record Final
"How good it can feel to regain perspective. Our feeling of confinement as narrow, limited, isolated entities begins to dissolve as narrow, limited, isolated entities begins to dissolve as we take a few steps back and recognize that who we are is "this … and also … and also … and also" (Duss 73).
On the first day of fall semester, I was worried about whether or not it was OK to chew gum during college classes. I wanted to please my professors and show them that I wanted to learn. And I really did - I wanted to learn to think, to reason, and to live. I expected to somehow find the secret of life and a simple plan for proper living all within the first six weeks of college, and to embark on my life full of confidence, joy, and understanding.
I spent a long time looking for that grail. I still haven’t found it, but that’s ok – I’m not looking for a grail anymore. I’m enjoying the quest.
On our last day of class, I sat and reflected on all I had read and written and thought about in the course. Dualism, pastoral, sympathetic imagination… my head could swirl with new terms if I let it. Now that the semester is behind me, I’m left to ask… what have I become by it? How am I changed as a result of the work we’ve done?
In the last four months, I have learned to be at peace with being unsettled. Life is not perfect. I’ve always known that. Now I understand it, and I can tolerate it. Somehow along the way I had come to believe that once I moved out of the house, I would have my life "under control," and things would be just peachy. But, as Katie once said, as soon as I moved out and go out on my own, I realized that it wasn’t my parents who were holding me back; it was me.
I began the course in hopes of accomplishing the following goals:
1. "I am most concerned with keeping the proper mindset. I’m sure that we’re going to have a hefty workload, which I don’t mind, because I have the opportunity to become something by the work that we’ll do. It’s easy, however, to let the trees blind my view of the forest, so to speak. I don’t want to lose sight of the greater goals we have for the class when I begin to think about deadlines and due dates. If I can complete the year having kept the mindset that I will live out what I learn, and if I become a better person because of what goes through my head, I’ll count myself successful in your course."
2. I want desperately to gain skill in thinking. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of life, as I see it, is that everyone seems to have a bias. No fact stands alone. Every morsel of information is either presented in light of or interpreted through a preconceived idea or disposition, and that makes it awfully hard to reconcile opposing viewpoints or to be "objective" in filtering through contrary theories and beliefs. I’d love to be able to interact with ideas themselves, rather than accepting some expert’s theory on the ideas.
3. In order to do these things, I commit to creating an environment for myself that is conducive to achieving these two primary goals. Thus, I will work against every natural tendency and habit in my body by not procrastinating my work. I will begin work on large projects the day they are assigned and break my work into smaller bits, so that I don’t have to pull another all-nighter… I wish to complete the final revision on all my projects and essays at least one full day ahead of the prescribed due date.
4. I seek to "hammer [my] thoughts into unity" by appreciating their intrinsic truth, as well as that determined by their context. Moreover, I seek to learn what it means to hammer my thoughts into unity.
I accomplished some of these goals, I think. I also accomplished others. One thing I hadn’t foreseen was how close I would be with my classmates by the end of the semester. But think what we’ve been through together: all the projects (i.e. frantic calls in the middle of the night about why Webspace won’t work), the excursions, the class discussions. The day we laid down in the Capitol seems like it was so long ago.
Considering my first goal (to become something by my work), I’d say that this has been a successful semester. Not that it’s been easy. Allow me to share an excerpt from an online conversation I had with my friend Samer recently. It’s a good example of my arrival in Dass’ "land of Not Knowing" (79):
MCsamer04: how was ur first sem of college
YoSoyAmie: it's been so fun!
YoSoyAmie: i'm not ready for it to be over
MCsamer04: ha ha
MCsamer04: so it got better?
YoSoyAmie: aw yeah
YoSoyAmie: it's been great lately
MCsamer04: awesome
YoSoyAmie: well, really, it's not so much the semester that changed, i think it was me
MCsamer04: how so
YoSoyAmie: alot of things are still the same - i'm still not settled in a church, i'm not necessarily doing any more/less campus orgs or anything
YoSoyAmie: i'm still working through alot of questions and challenges in my faith
YoSoyAmie: but i'm learning to be ok with not being settled or sure of things
YoSoyAmie: like that book "night" by elie weisel says...
YoSoyAmie: man grows closer to God by the questions he asks him
MCsamer04: "the soup tasted horrible that night"
YoSoyAmie: not necessarily in by the answers he received
YoSoyAmie: what?
MCsamer04: lol nevermind sorry
MCsamer04: i read it in the 8th grade
YoSoyAmie: aaahhhhhhh
YoSoyAmie: i remember now
MCsamer04: that's the only line i remember
YoSoyAmie: ew
MCsamer04: yea, it was after they hung the child
YoSoyAmie: but anyways, i guess my point is that i've always had this idea that i have to be sure of things to be OK
MCsamer04: HA HA
YoSoyAmie: or i have to KNOW this or that
YoSoyAmie: but alot of living is in the asking, and the wondering, and the struggling
MCsamer04: like what qauetions
MCsamer04: i've been asking a lot of questions too...
MCsamer04: a lot more than i expected
YoSoyAmie: ANY kind of question... what classes am i supposed to take? what should i do with my summer? why do i act this way when i want to act that way? do i really believe this? what if i never succeed at that
YoSoyAmie: what kind of questions have you been asking?
That said, I’ve come to realize through the course that things do not change, places do not change in such a manner that would direct the course of our life, situations do not really change all that much. We change. We study place. But places stay where they are. The reason place becomes so vital to us is that we move from place to place. We become adjusted to surroundings. But the surroundings do not know us. They do not need us. They remain. We are the ones who move.
The places in our lives are important to us because of what we associate with them. There is nothing intrinsically wonderful about a house. But when a life is begun there, and lived there, and remembered there… that is when place becomes important.
I kissed a pig this semester, too. I had kept that goal a secret but I’m glad I accomplished it.Thinking back on the person I am, and who I was when I entered the class, I’m beginning to realize the shift in my view of education that really has occurred: I’m finally beginning to comprehend the process of education. This is atypical of "inventors": we love the conception of an idea, but the fruition of it is rarely our greatest concern. "School gets in the way of my education," as the bumper sticker says, because I tend to shift my focus from the process of learning and maturing to the product of a finished paper or a grade or a completed project. In my heart I cherish that journey and struggle, the pilgrimage from ignorance to knowledge and wisdom, but I often fall into the trap of results. I feel like, toward the end of the semester, I’ve begun to appreciate that pilgrimage. I can honestly say that at times I found myself acknowledging the fact that Logic was about molding my brain rather than making a grade (though I can’t overemphasize that – it only happened a few times).
As far as my suggestions for the course go: I was pleased with our increased emphasis on discussion at the end of the semester. I really like being able to read the journal postings of my classmates, too, so I think that Blackboard is an effective tool. I love our excursions, especially to Waller Creek, where we get to interact with nature. Taking our learning from the page to the earth has meant so much to me.
Mostly, what I’ve enjoyed about the class is that it does not seek to just stuff me with knowledge, or even just a greater perspective. I feel like our class is teaching me how to live – asking questions, thinking through them on my own, searching for a higher purpose, and reflecting constantly on that process. I fear becoming too confident of my own ability to think and reason, and I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that I really don’t know as much as I’d often like to think I do. But I really enjoy this course because it’s a course not on just literature or composition but on life.