11.20.2008

A Senior

Most people are more excited about my graduation than I am. In the uncoming month of May, if all goes well, I will graduate. What does this mean for me? What does it signify that I have done? Who am I now that I am soon to tuck this accomplishment into my belt? What have I learned?

Surely a change has taken place which cannot be denied. I have fallen in love. Yes, I have fallen in love with Bach, violin concertos, and Eric Whitacre, not to mention Sigur Ros, Leslie Feist, and folk music. I have come to know and adore Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Heidegger, and Rousseau. Inquiries into metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, political philosophy, educational philosophy, ontology, cosmology, technological philosophy, and logic have all wooed me with their sweet questions and promises of something good and true and beautiful. I've become even more enamored with a shutter clicking, a coffee pot dripping, a pot steaming, and a pan sizzling. I love poetry more now that I've received letters from Whitman,Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Ben Johnson, Baudelaire, John Donne,  Octavio Paz, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the Beats. 

Somehow, I've found a sense of place. A sense of belonging. I have nestled in the city of lights and grounded myself in the country of bluebonnets. I've seen my poetry sing itself through microphones in Austin and Dallas and around rooms filled with poets, poets, poets. The kneelers at my church are a welcome platform from which I petition and pray. A community has risen up around me in every direction. No matter where I go I'll either see a friendly face or make a new acquaintance, for I've fallen in love with meeting new people and asking them questions. 

Questions are indeed how I orient myself now. The best way to start the day is with questions. Lord, what would you have me do today? What shall I wear? What shall I do first? What is that? Why does this happen? What should I read? How shall I love? It is with questions about philosophy and education that I have spied what I hope to make my life's work. 

perhaps some more words later. class is over. haha, yes i wrote this in class. yes i know that considering the topic of the post that might be ironic. eh. i guess i've also learned that real learning happens outside of the classroom.


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