St. John's College
Annapolis, MD
Saturday, October 20th, 2007

Triumphant returns and big plans

Yay! It's Saturday and Miranda's visiting!
[You may recall Miranda is spending this academic year at SJC/Santa Fe instead of Annapolis.]

This is excellent in so many ways. For starters, it gave me something to look forward to yesterday, which was just a really long and tough Friday, if such a combination is possible. (Yeah, it is.) I had work, more work, studying and my oral, none of which looked appealing after late afternoon French. But, I made it through a long week, a long day, and a long French class, did great in my oral, and then took a two-hour walk around Spa Creek as a compromise between "wasting time" and "getting exercise". And then, of course, there was tasty cooking, a swell lecture on cell death (apoptosis), and Miranda!

So now, everything is going swimmingly and the long, dark week is beginning to fade away. The crew of four - Anna, Miranda, Lucy and I - walked around campus and the environs to visit various groups of people and parade around our homecoming (homecome?) Johnny. Once we got tired of that, we returned to Campbell Hall and found a bunch of our freshman and the hall RA sitting in the middle of everything painting little pumpkins. Easily distracted, we joined them and waxed creative and chatty until around midnight.

This morning, Miranda and Anna went out for the crew regatta, and then all of us met in Campbell as we finished up our morning routines. Listening to music, talking, trading clothes - it felt just like freshman year. Then we walked downtown for breakfast at the Corner Cafe, which has a secret garden area under a tent in a funny little annex created by all the old buildings being stacked together. Right now it's naptime for the crewbies and work-time for the...workies. (That's Lucy and I.) But we have plans! Oh, yes. Shopping, and cooking, and hanging out. And I have organized what will certainly be a fabulous party this evening, and all of the cool kids are coming, and there will be cupcakes and beer and corn chips, and we will pretend that Newton never coined the term "ultimate ratio".

Which brings me back to school! The big deal right now, aside from the usual tutorials, is Leibniz. The current common feeling is that he makes more sense than Aristotle, but not much more, that at least he's internally consistent, and that it seems that the main idea of his philosophy is to support the happy coexistence of his favorite concepts, namely physics, a Christian God and free will. Which is all fine and good, except that so far, nobody's really convinced that what he's saying is true. It all looks kind of neat and pretty and hangs together, but it doesn't tell you anything new about the world. Which is why juniors are saying "Leibniz is like your totally nice but kind of crazy old grandfather, whom you don't really agree with but who's so good-natured that you kind of want to go along with him just because it'll make him happy."

Of course, this indulgent attitude is only good as far as his metaphysical works go. Mathematically, we definitely do not trifle with him. (Although, I'm not yet clear as to how his "absolute force" of mass times the square of velocity is going to work.) And while we're on the subject - and in junior year onwards, it's a big subject - does anyone know even vaguely what metaphysics is? Despite all the Aristotle fans and all the crazy German philosophy we do, I still have the sinking feeling that it's all crazy talk. Fortunately, I don't have to agree with what I read here - I just have to discuss it.

Next week: More Leibniz! More parties! Einstein and electrodynamics for the inexperienced!  And riches! And glory! And...see you there!

Roxanne