Plato Awaits

My mornings are all starting to blend together. I wake up, take a shower, get my backpack ready, and head down to Andrew and Jordan’s room so that we can go down to the lobby and wait for Andrew Woo and Dyana, when she hasn’t already gone down to Appels with the Hotellies. I’ve fallen into a rhythm with my mornings and it feels a lot like home. Other than my mornings, there has been something new to experience every day.

Today, Prof. K lectured about St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. I’ve always found Augustine’s work to be a bit depressing because of how pessimistic he is towards human nature. He believed that the entire human race is condemned for Adam’s “original sin” in the Garden of Eden and that there is little to no hope for the salvation of humans. I’m just glad that we had study sessions and discussed Augustine in depth before we got here. I wouldn’t have understood him nearly as well as I do now if the group hadn’t met during school. I think Augustine is a good match for Aquinas because Aquinas is easier to read and he incorporates tenets from Augustine’s beliefs into his philosophies. This made it easier to discuss Aquinas during our TA session, which is always a good thing since the TA’s give us our grades. I need to get more accustomed to taking notes in Prof. K’s class. Taking notes always makes me split my attention and I don’t learn as much, so I need to find some way to catch everything important that he says, even if I’m writing.

After Prof. K’s lecture, we headed to our respective TA sessions. These sessions are one of the best parts of my days. This gives us the chance to take an active role in our studies, which is what I prefer, instead of just listening to Prof. K tell us about each philosopher. Today the majority of our class session was spent outside. It was nice and warm because the courtyard we were sitting in was under the direct sunlight. It was a nice contrast to the cold seminar room that we are usually in. We had to contrast Augustine’s views with Aquinas’ on topics such as tyranny and the significance of law. I have to try not to get used to the simple stuff because soon we will cover Plato (of which there are over 100 pages that we have to read by tomorrow).

After lunch at Trillium, we went back to the cold seminar room (which will be called the ice box from now on) to attend our writing workshop. It actually turned out to be a continuation from the discussion we had before lunch. The only thing that was related to our writing was the receipt of our essays on freedom. We have to hand in a second draft on Friday. Simon’s comments were neither good nor bad; they were simply suggestions concerning different perspectives of what we wrote. We just have to address his questions in the new draft and augment our essays accordingly.

In anticipation of the busy night we had ahead of us, the Andrews and I drew up a battle plan, of sorts. We decided to head back to the dorms immediately and blog so that the rest of the night could be concentrated on Plato. This is going to be our biggest challenge yet because when we read Plato the first time it was spread out over five weeks. We have to read all of this in one night. It’s not going to be easy, but we can do it.

I need to work now, so I’m going to end the blog. Sorry about the absence of pictures, I usually snap some shots after our classes. Today we didn’t have time though. So until tomorrow, I’m signing off.