Angry

Something happened today that had nothing to with me but it infuriated me so much that I need to get this anger out. So, today's blog post will be in haiku form.

I am so angry.
Tactless people annoy me.
Why not leave her be?

Thank goodness for girls.
Solidarity can help,
Girl power, Queen B.

I'll let this go soon,
But I'm still furious for now.
No one is sans flaw.

Katie Hopkins, Access and Rousseau

   Today, Katie Hopkins came to my university and she debated on social class and social mobility. She was her usual lovely self (insert heavy sarcasm) and some of the highlights during the debate included her saying that she would get rid of the NHS, the Minister for Women and Environment Minister if she was put into power, and how students at this particular university should not care about access issues as we're in the 'top percent' of the country, have bright futures ahead of us and shouldn't worry about others. I think she thought that we'd be flattered by her words, patronising tone and general flippant attitude but she was so so wrong and put in her place many times.

  Some of the things that she said that really irked me were her views on the admission process and access scheme. She said that if she was in charge of this process, and there were two potential students with identical grades called George and Charmayne for example, she would pick George due to his name as that sounds 'more right' for the university than Charmayne. She is also against the way that the university takes into account the different academic backgrounds of students while considering them. For example, let's say Charmayne was from a very low achieving school, where no student has ever been to Oxford and George is from one of the best private schools in the country. Normal admissions tutors would take this into account and be more likely to favour Charmayne over George in this situation. Why, you ask? This is because the fact that Charmayne has identical grades to George despite the poor quality of her school shows that she is a hard worker, independent and quite bright, whereas George could have just had things handed to him on a plate due to the many opportunities available at his private school. Despite all this, Katie Hopkins would still pick George over Charmayne. This really angered me because in this kind of scenario, I'm the Charmayne.

  I've been at this university for over two months now and in my time here, access has really begun to mean a lot to me. This is because the university is not as elitist and unreachable as the press (coughDAILYMAILcough) would make people believe; there are many bright students from poor achieving schools who could get in but people like Katie Hopkins do not help in dispelling the myth about the university only being for Etonians and students from independent schools. It's sad that many people think this; most people at my secondary school believed this and the students that I tutor every week at a local secondary school also believe this. If people like Katie Hopkins had their way, the university would only accept these kind of students but thankfully, she's not the one making the admissions decisions.

Isn't he a looker?

  This is why I try to do as much access and outreach stuff as I can, so that I can reach the Charmaynes out there and convince them to apply as they have the grades and they just need the encouragement and knowledge of the fact that the university doesn't look down on them due to their school. Yes, it's true that there can often be inequality in the the schooling system as more schools know the ins and outs of the application process etc than others. This inequality brings me to Rousseau, the philosopher that I'm studying this week, whose 18th century work, 'Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men' was very appropriate for the week. I'd really recommend it; it's a very interesting read and wayyy easier to understand than Descartes!

 So, how do I sum up all of this? Katie Hopkins is very wrong in her ideas, which are very laughable as she often contradicts herself, access is an issue that is very close to my heart and something that I'll always try to help improve and Rousseau is a-okay. Finally, if you class yourself as a Charmayne and you're not sure where to apply and think you're not good enough to aim as high as possible, this song is for you. Peace out and enjoy.

 

An Idiot's Guide to Descartes's 'Discours'

Y U SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND??

   The idiot in this scenario is me. It took me a week, two lectures, a seminar, numerous articles and books and countless hours reading until the early hours of the morning before I finally began to slowly understand Descartes's 'Discours de la méthode' (Discourse on the Method). I haven't done Philosophy since Y12 and I dropped it after AS for a reason so this new French Thought module has been a struggle but I'm powering through. Whilst desperately searching for articles that could help me simplify the philosophy jargon, it really annoyed me that I found none! So, I thought I'd make this blog post a simple explanation of the Discourse for two reasons; 1) It'll help me revise when exam season comes in June and 2) It's actually really interesting and I hope that it can help someone like me one day, who is searching for a simple explanation of Descartes's ideas. Sorry if you don't like Philosophy. Right, let's get on with it.

What is the Discourse?
   Full name: 'Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences'. It is a 17th century philosophical treatise from French philosopher René Descartes that aims to provide a method for finding truth and reason, in order to analyse situations differently. It has 6 different parts; the first three parts talk on Descartes's background, how he came about the Method and the various rules and moral codes that are associated with this Method. The fourth part of the Discourse uses the Method to prove Descartes's existence and the existence of God, the fifth part applies the Method to the Sciences and the sixth part is a conclusion that summarises everything.

What is this Method?
    Using doubt- doubting everything leads to one finding parts of life that can't be doubted and when these parts are discovered, one finds the truth and reason. This doubt is known as hyperbolic/ Cartesian doubt.

What are the rules of this Method?
To never accept anything for true that is not known to be true, divide each difficulty into as many parts as possible, conduct thoughts- start with easiest and simplest, make detailed lists and reviews- omit nothing.

How does the Method prove Descartes's existence?
Descartes doubts and doubt is in the thoughts, it doesn't come out of nowhere. So, to have thoughts, a person must exists and this leads to one of the greatest philosophical statements ever; Je pense donc, je suis: I think therefore, I am. Or cogito ergo sum in Latin if you want to be fancy. Descartes also says that these thoughts come from the soul, which is completely separate from the body.

How does the Method prove the existence of God?
Descartes doubts so, he can't be perfect. However, he has the idea of a perfect God in his head and this idea of perfection cannot have come from Descartes himself as he is not perfect. Therefore, the idea of perfection must have been placed in Descartes's head by a being that embodies this perfection- this being is God and this an anthropological proof of God that is also known as dubito ergo Deus est: I doubt therefore God exists. There is also the a posteriori (from experience) proof which states that Descartes cannot create himself as he is imperfect so his existence must come from an omnipotent being that is the creator of eternal truths, the biggest truth being the clear and distinct idea of Himself that He has put in Descartes's head. The final proof of God that Descartes offers is ontological and a priori but if you really want to know more about that, just ask.

Criticisms of Descartes's Method.
1) If one doubts everything, one begins to doubt the act of doubting itself, leading to an infinite circle of doubt.

2) The rules and morals of the Method contradict each other sometimes.

3) The question of solipsism that argues that Descartes is only proving his own existence, not the existence of everyone else on the planet.

4) The hypothesis of the malin génie (evil demon)- how do we know that Descartes's omnipotent God is not an evil being that is directing people towards the wrong thing?

Why is the Discourse an important text for philosophy?
    - It is one of the reasons why Descartes has been called 'The Father of Modern Philosophy'.
    - It presented a new way of looking at philosophy by showing the link between rationalism, knowledge and self evident truths.
    - It presents a new way of analysing situations and looking at the world.


So, there you go, future Kenny. Sorry if you found all that boring, I just needed to get all the Descartes out
of my system. It seems like he's everywhere today; I went to two different events today and somehow, Descartes was brought into the conversation at both. Inwardly, I screamed. Next week, I'm starting lectures on Rousseau and I haven't even read the book yet lolz. Week 7 will definitely be interesting. Farewell for now.

PS- I started tutoring at a secondary school this week as a Y12 Languages assistante and it went really well! I also sang in a Christmas Carol service and that made me feel so ready for the holiday season. Also, Catching Fire was so amazing that I'm going to go see it again next week. Might review it soon, if I don't collapse from my workload. You'd think that things would get less hectic towards the end of term!

Breathless 5th Week Blues

  At the university that I'm at, there is a specific time in the term when the euphoria of the new term and start begins to fade away, the workload keeps piling up and  life seems like a never ending cycle of lectures, seminars, tutorials,
essays and reading. The end of term, 8th Week, seems so far away and making it to the end seems like an impossibility. This is know as '5th Week Blues'. 6th Week begins tomorrow (today) and I'm happy to say that I survived the dreaded blues!

  I'll admit that 5th Week was a tough week, probably my hardest week here so far because I got given more contact hours as we moved on to other parts of my French course- French Thought and Unseen Translation. As a result of this, I had a lot of reading to do (reading Philosophy books is even more difficult when you have to do it in French!), more translation work, two presentations to prepare and many essay questions. Ouch. 5th Week also happened to be the week of the performance of the play that my college has been working on for an inter-collegiate drama college and I was on the marketing team for it, so even more stress there! Out of over fourty plays, my college made the top ten, got nominated for five awards (Best Marketing being one!) and we won two- Best Supporting Actor and Best Technician, woooo! Thank goodness 5th Week stress is finally over though.

  In my film studies lectures during 5th Week, we started looking at some French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague) films, Jean-Luc Godard's 'A bout de souffle' (Breathless) in particular. The film was released in 1960 and it was a ground-breaking work of art due to the fact that Godard introduced new film techniques such as using actual locations that are filmed with hand held cameras instead of studios (the film has many beautiful shots of Paris), realistic, natural dialogue between characters that often seems improvised and unscripted and what is known as 'jump cuts', which is when a scene suddenly cuts to a new scene, in a manner that seems rough and dizzying.

  Now, you're probably bored with me going on about film terminology but I am pleased to say that I am now familiar with most of the mumbo jumbo as a part of my course involves writing critical film essays where I analyse shots and the soundtrack etc. This week, I'll be doing a ten minute presentation on A bout de souffle so I thought I'd practice here by talking a bit about the film.

  The film tells the story of a petty criminal called Michel who kills a motorcycle policeman at the start of the film. On the run, he then spends the rest of the film trying to find money to flee the country and he also tries to convince his seemingly indifferent American girlfriend, Patricia, to accompany him. The film is very odd because nothing really seems to happen in it. The two protagonists spend most of the film talking at each other but not to each other and this lack of communication is one of the main themes of the film. My lecturer said that French New Wave films often seem pretentious at times and I laughed as that is exactly the case with this film. This is because the film's dialogue often consists of discussions on existentialism, questioning if we have a soul, what it means to love, be sad and feel grief and nothingness at the same time.

Deep

  Nevertheless, the film is still a nice introduction to La Nouvelle Vague and if you're interested in seeing more films in this genre, I'd recommend the works of directors such as Claude Chabrol and Robert Bresson. To conclude, even though it does sometimes verge on the pretentious, A bout de souffle is still a masterpiece from Godard and I hope that I can convey this during my presentation tomorrow on the film's love story. Aurevoir for now.

Rating 7/10

Woah, we're halfway there...

 Guess who's baaaack and halfway through the term!
 
    Apologies for my month long absence from here; I have truly missed blogging. University is a completely different world! Everything here seems to be happening all at once as the terms are only eight weeks long. So, I'm incredibly busy all the time. I'm loving it sooo much though! I definitely made the right choice.

  What have I been up to that has kept me away, you ask? Well, I will tell you. I proved that you can do Freshers' Week COMPLETELY SOBER and I had so much fun at a toga party, a paint party, a foam party etc. Some parts of the week are a blur as I barely slept due to the fact that I usually got to my room late and I had to be up at 8am every morning for breakfast. I signed up for too many societies at Freshers' Fair (got guilt-tripped into signing up for the African Caribbean Society, the Nigeria Society AND the Africa Society) so now I get about twenty emails a day that I don't know how to unsubscribe from. The societies that I have chosen as my faves are ACS, The French Society, The Christian Union (they helped me find a very lovely church that's less than five minutes from my college!) and the student paper. Next term, I will explore more! I matriculated and that was such a surreal experience that was made even more weird by the fact that tourists followed us around all day, papping us as we were in sub-fusc. I am on the college Netball team and we play a match a week so that's how I get my weekly exercise. I also have 'formal hall' three times a week, which is a three course meal that is served in a candlelit hall after The Grace is said in Latin and everyone is wearing a gown. Another really weird but fun experience. I am also a student tutor and I'll be going into local schools to teach French to primary school kids and that should be very fun. Last but not least, I got to see John Mayer speak at The Union which was very, VERY cool!

 Everyone here is incredibly friendly and welcoming and I was totally taken aback by it all. I'm really loving my course as well. It's like doing an English degree but with French texts. I'm also doing French film studies which is very interesting but now I can't watch a film without analysing its camera shots and angles! I have a tutorial every two weeks, which is myself, another student and my tutor. It's a bit scary as we have to read out our essays and the tutor often stops us, picking things apart that she doesn't like/wants us to explain better. But constructive criticism is always good, even though I sometimes feel incredibly stupid next to a tutor that has written books on what I'm studying!

  I went home for the weekend last week and it was so great to see my family. As cheesy as it sounds, there really is no place like home! Being home and just relaxing made me realise how hard I've been working here. I've already written six essays this term and by Week 8, I'll have written nearly sixteen! Crazy.
 
   So, that's been my hectic month at uni! I will try to write in here once a week if I can. Maybe I'll talk on the books and films that I'm studying. There's an idea but aurevoir for now, have some pictures from my hectic month.

Film Studies- L'Atalante

The Ashmolean Museum

Essay Crisis 1

Essay Crisis 5

The Radcliffe Camera

Fancy Freshers' Dinner

The 'Glink' aka the dungeon of my dark despair