Our Cloistered Existences
It's been forever since I posted. Oh, wait, only a few weeks. My how we've crammed a lot of activities into just a short time.
Last time your eyes met my words, I had just finished uploading grainy videos from prep. Now classes have been underway for three weeks. Everybody's talking about time management and midterms. There's a sense of healthy competition, as if everyone is in the first leg of a marathon and we're making sure our pacing is right. Most of us haven't had enough assignments to know exactly where we stand.
Career Management Orientation and other Metta-dologies
After more than a week of career management orientation before classes started, I think we all had a better overview of all the non-academic aspects of our program. IR/PS really devotes a lot of resources to helping us get where we want to go.
To cap the week, we had Marshall Goldsmith--the world-renowned career coach, meditator, and green Polo shirt aficionado--visited and give us some of his advice. He asked if there were any other Buddhists in the room. I almost raised my hand, but decided not to, since I don't define my meditation practice as Buddhist. But when I went up to him afterward, I asked him about how much time he devoted to meditation. Like anyone used to the spotlight, he answered a completely different question and I went away feeling satisfied.
He said he follows a very simple teaching from a Vietnamese Buddhist master: Heaven and hell are not places far away, but states of existence in the here and now. This is purgatory and this is nirvana. Then he cackled in his trademark way.
As I left Robinson Hall to grab dinner, the sun setting over the ocean, I thought how wonderful it is that someone of his spiritual caliber is on personal terms with so many of the world's top managers, helping them change behaviors that may be detrimental not only to their organizations, but to all other sentient beings.
Schooling is Primary
As a history and American Culture major who slacked off in high school and wanted to hide in a corner throughout middle school, I haven't enjoyed school this much since my elementary years. Some of my classmates think the QM and Econ courses are too easy. Others break down at too much math. I just keep throwing myself into it things. The coursework is not easy, but it's also not impossible. I had to stare at my econ and give it a stern tongue lashing before I drilled some of the basic concepts into my mind, but now the subject and I are back on speaking terms. We may even become good friends by the end of my time here.
I feel like I'm getting what I came here for because I'm learning standard sets of ideas and tools that give me insight and working knowledge of the dominant systems of organization throughout the world. I don't want that power for my own gain, but to turn it back to help people who don't have the same opportunities as I do. Perhaps I spend too much time studying, but I think my classmates feel much the same way. I can imagine if this were an MBA program that I might be continually repulsed by my classmate's avarice. I feel like my IR/PS classmates generally have healthy ambition, but not greed.
I like the structure of the courses here, but wish I had more time to question what I am learning. As an undergraduate student of cultural history, interpretation was always so wide open I hardly knew where I stood, so I always felt like I just returned back to where I started. We deconstructed everything to the point of nihilism. Here, we may still be studying "dismal sciences," but we're not stuck in the ivory tower. Yes, we've circled the wagons good, but that's the state of the world now. Our globalization instructor introduces new terms that come up in econ. QM goes hand in hand with the numbers that largely run the world. The discussions we have are stimulating.
It's a joy to be with such a motivated, optimistic, intelligent group of young people. I like the small IR/PS campus nestled inside the larger UCSD and UC systems. I like saying hi to everyone and never being late for class because I can leave the library 3 minutes before the hour and still arrive anywhere on IR/PS with enough time to find a seat. I like having a locker again. I attend Chinese class and feel like a 7 year old, because that's about my level, even though we're talking about important things like the Party's 16th plenary or how leaders in Guangzhou got a horde of foreign diplomats and local officials to swim in the heavily polluted Pearl River. I like our computer guys and the movies we're watching in the Chinese Language Film Society.
My life is simple now. I study, meditate, sleep, study, and do it all again. But it's not all work. I have had time to make ants on a log and sample a classmate's chocolate birthday cake.
Chatcha later.
Last time your eyes met my words, I had just finished uploading grainy videos from prep. Now classes have been underway for three weeks. Everybody's talking about time management and midterms. There's a sense of healthy competition, as if everyone is in the first leg of a marathon and we're making sure our pacing is right. Most of us haven't had enough assignments to know exactly where we stand.
Career Management Orientation and other Metta-dologiesAfter more than a week of career management orientation before classes started, I think we all had a better overview of all the non-academic aspects of our program. IR/PS really devotes a lot of resources to helping us get where we want to go.
To cap the week, we had Marshall Goldsmith--the world-renowned career coach, meditator, and green Polo shirt aficionado--visited and give us some of his advice. He asked if there were any other Buddhists in the room. I almost raised my hand, but decided not to, since I don't define my meditation practice as Buddhist. But when I went up to him afterward, I asked him about how much time he devoted to meditation. Like anyone used to the spotlight, he answered a completely different question and I went away feeling satisfied.
He said he follows a very simple teaching from a Vietnamese Buddhist master: Heaven and hell are not places far away, but states of existence in the here and now. This is purgatory and this is nirvana. Then he cackled in his trademark way.As I left Robinson Hall to grab dinner, the sun setting over the ocean, I thought how wonderful it is that someone of his spiritual caliber is on personal terms with so many of the world's top managers, helping them change behaviors that may be detrimental not only to their organizations, but to all other sentient beings.
Schooling is Primary
As a history and American Culture major who slacked off in high school and wanted to hide in a corner throughout middle school, I haven't enjoyed school this much since my elementary years. Some of my classmates think the QM and Econ courses are too easy. Others break down at too much math. I just keep throwing myself into it things. The coursework is not easy, but it's also not impossible. I had to stare at my econ and give it a stern tongue lashing before I drilled some of the basic concepts into my mind, but now the subject and I are back on speaking terms. We may even become good friends by the end of my time here.
I feel like I'm getting what I came here for because I'm learning standard sets of ideas and tools that give me insight and working knowledge of the dominant systems of organization throughout the world. I don't want that power for my own gain, but to turn it back to help people who don't have the same opportunities as I do. Perhaps I spend too much time studying, but I think my classmates feel much the same way. I can imagine if this were an MBA program that I might be continually repulsed by my classmate's avarice. I feel like my IR/PS classmates generally have healthy ambition, but not greed.
I like the structure of the courses here, but wish I had more time to question what I am learning. As an undergraduate student of cultural history, interpretation was always so wide open I hardly knew where I stood, so I always felt like I just returned back to where I started. We deconstructed everything to the point of nihilism. Here, we may still be studying "dismal sciences," but we're not stuck in the ivory tower. Yes, we've circled the wagons good, but that's the state of the world now. Our globalization instructor introduces new terms that come up in econ. QM goes hand in hand with the numbers that largely run the world. The discussions we have are stimulating.It's a joy to be with such a motivated, optimistic, intelligent group of young people. I like the small IR/PS campus nestled inside the larger UCSD and UC systems. I like saying hi to everyone and never being late for class because I can leave the library 3 minutes before the hour and still arrive anywhere on IR/PS with enough time to find a seat. I like having a locker again. I attend Chinese class and feel like a 7 year old, because that's about my level, even though we're talking about important things like the Party's 16th plenary or how leaders in Guangzhou got a horde of foreign diplomats and local officials to swim in the heavily polluted Pearl River. I like our computer guys and the movies we're watching in the Chinese Language Film Society.
My life is simple now. I study, meditate, sleep, study, and do it all again. But it's not all work. I have had time to make ants on a log and sample a classmate's chocolate birthday cake.
Chatcha later.
posted by Unknown at 7:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home