Long September Long Weekend Report.

Well as far as long weekends go, this was not a terrifically exciting one. With the possibility of a decent job facing me, I've spent most of the long weekend preparing for that. It's a fairly easy to sit down to work when nearly everyone you know skips town.

Friday
On Friday a zipped past the school to pick up a package of readings and spent the whole afternoon in the Palmerston branch of the Toronto Public Library. I waded through an article entitled, "The Philosophy of Perception," which I found not to be the simplest refresher into philosophical thought and philosopy-speak. I spent most of my time on Wikipedia looking up concepts that I probably should already know if I am planning to teach philosophy.

I managed to get through it and after coming home to a big piece of pumpkin pie, I opened my second article: Chapter Three "Language", of Thomas Nagel's The Last Word. If I thought that the article on perception was tough, this one was like being in the ring with Hulk Hogan (scary and at the same time, laugh-out-loud embarrassing- or so I'd expect). The language was difficult and the concepts obscure. On first reading, I did my best to make sense of anything and underlined a few passages.

The final article was a refreshing breeze. It was clearly written with clear ideas, in short, accessible. It was Chapter One of Michael Lynch's book, True to Life: Why Truth Matters.

Saturday
My Mom and Dad were expected to arrive at 10:30 on Saturday morning. At 10:00 my alarm jolted me out of bed and I quickly dashed around the apartment in my underwear, trying to tidy things up: dishes, folding a blanket, taking out a small bag of garbage, that's about it.

After a leisurely shower, my parents arrived at 11:00, which by their normal standards of lateness, isn't too bad. I welcomed their dog into my home (where she will be living for the next three weeks) as well as more garden-grown vine-ripened tomatoes than I could possibly eat in a month.

I drove them to the airport and we had a nice chat about the chaos in New Orleans. I pontificated about my vision of a new civil rights movement in the United States, and hoped that this event would be enough to jolt people out of complacency. We arrived at check-in and I left them at security and headed home. I parked their car with the impudence that only a temporary parking permit affords; right in front of the house.

With that I got down to my second reading of my articles. I won't go into detail here as no one really wants to read a blog about someone reading. After the second round, they all made much more sense and I had a fairly strong grasp on all of the concepts and their spinoffs. I called my friend Andrew, about going out after he finished work at midnight, but I dozed off at 11:15.

Sunday
Feeling refreshed after 12 hours of sleep, and happy to have made sense of my readings, I treated myself to breakfast.

I wanted to go somewhere where I would be able to review my readings, before sitting down at the computer to type notes. There's no better place to do that than the Victory Cafe. Not only do they have a nice outdoor patio, but their service is so reprehensibly awful that I couldn't imagine ever going there without a minimum of at least 50 pages of reading! They did not disappoint, I reviewed my articles, ate my scrambled eggs, and still managed to be frustrated at the delay.

I spent the afternoon typing notes on the articles: raising questions, drawing connections to real life, and thinking of ways to make these abstract ideas relevant to a 16 year old. I managed without too much difficulty, and with that finished, I headed to the video store, and watched movies for the evening.

Monday
Having finished all my work, I went out to brunch with my sister. We chatted mainly about our parents, and had a few laughs at their expense, while secretly weeping on the inside at the horror of our responsibility to take care of these two nuts.

I finished watching my rented movies and made a peach/strawberry/blueberry crisp. I passed the vacuum around, did my laundry and some yard work. I took a much needed shower and my first shave of the weekend and took my parents dog out for a walk to the video store.

When I got back, I got a call from a friend who had just returned from the long weekend out of town, and I had dinner.

Tuesday
So now I sit, waiting for my interview. I worked hard preparing this weekend and I would like to get it over with. If I get the job, I'll take it, but if I don't I really don't want to waste any more time thinking and worrying about it.

Not the greatest of long weekends (though a few things made it fun), but as I've said before, a long weekend means nothing if you're in the middle of eight weeks of summer holidays.