I thought it would be interesting to turn the tarot-thoughts on a subject I haven't really touched on that much with them in a while - my academic life. Today's cards seemed to agree with that vague intention/seem to speak to that, and so...
This four of cups cards brings to mind my Arabic class, on several levels. I've been feeling rather physically tired overall lately - and mentally too for that matter - and the fact that this class, unlike all my other ones, is a morning class does not improve my enthusiasm for it. I've never been great with morning classes, and one of the thing I love about my grad program is that everything is in the evening. I CAN drag myself to class or work in the morning when I must, sure, but my performance is rarely what it could be later on in the day...
More significant here though, is the mood of the card as a whole, the tired sleepy posture of the figure on the chair and the studied apathy of the one standing up. Dissatisfaction - a why bother type of attitude? I am indeed, I must admit, rather disatisfied with the class so far. Over the summer, in Tunisia, I LOVED studying Arabic. It was challenging, interesting - we got to learn the patterns of the structure of the language, engage with reading and listening to apply that the teacher, even though his English wasn't as great as this new professor's is, could explain things really thoroughly...
As for her...she is a lovely person and, in my opinion, a rather terrible teacher. She doesn't explain things well at all, the haphazard way she assigns homework means I always struggle to remember what I am supposed to do, and really - I just don't LEARN anything. Fortunately most of what we are doing, I learned over the summer, and yet nonetheless - it isn't even a good review. Feels like tedious busywork and a waste of my time. But well - I am financially constrained by the language scholarship to stick with the class until the end of the semester and to, at the very least, do well enough to past with a decentish grade and so...a kind of tired apathy indeed :/
The ten of swords is a bit of a funny card to get in this context, but it does make a kind of sense. It's interesting that here the figure is...dancing among those swords, perhaps a bit melodramatic in posture, surrounded by so many dangers and yet, nonetheless, that graceful movement...
In my other classes, I find myself with a stack of reading to do each week, as always. And what do I read about? I read about the crimes and violence perpetrated by criminal groups, insurgents, terrorists, armies and militias. I read about these from an economic perspective, with complicated equations; with a security studies focus; from a humanitarian and human rights standpoint. Switch between reading about Sicilian mafia bombings to reading about LTTE suicide bombs and PLO hijacking, to all kinds of war crimes. The other week we watched an incredibly graphic documentary in my human rights class about the war crimes perpetrated against Tamil civilians in the final months of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009. And certain images stick in your mind afterwards, as you walk to the bus. The knowledge that people can do these terrible things and walk free with so much impunity because it is so much easier all around to just pretend...that did not happen. And so what if it did, over there, so far away...
I am also a but fearful of the kind of...difficulties that the 10 of swords can represent. I have a lot of papers and presentations due in rather narrow timeslots later on in the semester. I am hoping to get my act together a bit more and get a head start on things but...have been having some trouble focusing and doing that and last time I had multiple long papers and presentations all due within the same week or week and a half it was...a less than fun experience shall we say. Perhaps this is a warning to me in that regard, something to help me get properly motivated. Procrastination does not lead to great things, on the whole.
More significant here though, is the mood of the card as a whole, the tired sleepy posture of the figure on the chair and the studied apathy of the one standing up. Dissatisfaction - a why bother type of attitude? I am indeed, I must admit, rather disatisfied with the class so far. Over the summer, in Tunisia, I LOVED studying Arabic. It was challenging, interesting - we got to learn the patterns of the structure of the language, engage with reading and listening to apply that the teacher, even though his English wasn't as great as this new professor's is, could explain things really thoroughly...
As for her...she is a lovely person and, in my opinion, a rather terrible teacher. She doesn't explain things well at all, the haphazard way she assigns homework means I always struggle to remember what I am supposed to do, and really - I just don't LEARN anything. Fortunately most of what we are doing, I learned over the summer, and yet nonetheless - it isn't even a good review. Feels like tedious busywork and a waste of my time. But well - I am financially constrained by the language scholarship to stick with the class until the end of the semester and to, at the very least, do well enough to past with a decentish grade and so...a kind of tired apathy indeed :/
In my other classes, I find myself with a stack of reading to do each week, as always. And what do I read about? I read about the crimes and violence perpetrated by criminal groups, insurgents, terrorists, armies and militias. I read about these from an economic perspective, with complicated equations; with a security studies focus; from a humanitarian and human rights standpoint. Switch between reading about Sicilian mafia bombings to reading about LTTE suicide bombs and PLO hijacking, to all kinds of war crimes. The other week we watched an incredibly graphic documentary in my human rights class about the war crimes perpetrated against Tamil civilians in the final months of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009. And certain images stick in your mind afterwards, as you walk to the bus. The knowledge that people can do these terrible things and walk free with so much impunity because it is so much easier all around to just pretend...that did not happen. And so what if it did, over there, so far away...
I am also a but fearful of the kind of...difficulties that the 10 of swords can represent. I have a lot of papers and presentations due in rather narrow timeslots later on in the semester. I am hoping to get my act together a bit more and get a head start on things but...have been having some trouble focusing and doing that and last time I had multiple long papers and presentations all due within the same week or week and a half it was...a less than fun experience shall we say. Perhaps this is a warning to me in that regard, something to help me get properly motivated. Procrastination does not lead to great things, on the whole.
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