Today was the type of day that makes the past few years of theory worthwhile.

Before I go any further, a brief digression: I’m not good with philosophy. Not in the “I don’t see the value of it” way. Nah, I’m at the more fundimental “I don’t understand it” way. I wasn’t trained to read it. And stuff like Marx’s “negation of the negation” stuff just causes my eyes to glaze over. It’s not for lack of trying mind you. But its been a stuggle since I dove into the social sciences.

Digression completed, my exciting news is that I think I finally “get” Hagel’s dialectic — the key to unlocking a lot of stuff. After an excellent lecture in my Professional Seminar class, it’s making a lot more sense. My professor, Dominic Boyer, gave an amazing lecture that really connected a number of dots for me (not the least of which was getting me beyond “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” to “becoming, negation, sublimation”).

Have a lot more to write about this, but I need to cut it off here so I can hopefully get in a proposal for Siggraph 2009.

Since this is Friday, it means I’ve made it through the first week of PhD studies and my shifted role at RIT. So far things are going well. I really appreciate the “breathing room” that the semester system is giving me to study. At this point at RIT or Chicago I’d be thinking “oh crap, we’re already 10% of the way through the class!” 1/15 doesn’t seem anywhere as bad (also because I know there are days off in there).

I’m in the process of preparing to meet with this week’s colloquium presenter — Adam Reed of St. Andrews University. He’s published two good articles on blogging and, reading them, I realized that I haven’t posted since school began.

Um… so… that’s about it. Things are going well. I’m starting to get the rhythm of this down. Which is good.

I think I could have hugged the undergrad who asked me this earlier today, as we sat waiting for the class to start. From professor to sophomore. What could be better than that?* Definitely an advantageous start to the quarter… oops, semester. I don’t quite know what to do with myself given 15 weeks of classes instead of the usual 10.

[*Note that I’m going to ignore the possibility that she might have been thinking “man that’s a haggard looking second year!”]

So one shopped class down. Definitely won’t be taking that one (The Psychology of Social Computing). It seemed interesting, but the room was packed and apparently the waiting list was 15+ deep. Next up is my first Anthro PhD class. It’s one I began to take last year, so I’m pretty familiar with what will be asked of me.

As a total aside, yesterday, while driving back to Ithaca, I stopped off at the Thirsty Owl Winery on rt 89. I cannot accurately describe how great it is to drive alongside a Finger Lake on a sunny day, so I’ll let the picture do the talking (there’s more on Flickr.)
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Two years ago Dre and I were married here at the house. I’ve traveled to Rochester to spend this night with my love and my best friend, toasting the family and friends who were there in person and in spirit to share that day with us.

Dre is telling me to cut this short before I get to cheezy (oops, make that “too cheezy”… thanks Dre, you back-seat blogger). So I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

The day is winding down. It’s 6.44pm and I’m going to see Harold Lloyd’s wonderful movie The Freshman. The day has been a busy one. I’m registered, I have my ID and my first stipend check. I’ve seen my apartment and gotten the chance to talk with a few people from my department. The next few days will be a strange combination of hurrying up and waiting.

I didn’t get the chance to shoot many photos, but here’s a sample of some of the sights and scenes from today: