especially at night

i'm a master now. it's been a while in coming, and though it has been fun and quite worthwhile, it's also been a lot of life and energy invested. so it feels pretty good to be done. the defense went well enough - i don't think my presentation was all that great (hopefully good enough), but the committee generally thought that my thesis was good enough for them to pass me. thank you to all of you who have been with me through this time. and for those of you who have wished i might write on here more often, that should be more frequent for a while (and i've also decided not to take summer off this year).

i was talking to my older brother yesterday, and that was good - my parents are out visiting him this week, helping him to make more progress on the houses he's building. in our short talk, we came to an important realization about how we live and work in the world. both of us have spent longer than we expected to on our respective projects - me on my thesis, him on his houses. and i think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that we both want to do good work. and i think the same is true of my other brothers also - we all usually work hard to do well at the things that we do, but more importantly, we have a hard time being satisfied with doing a less than optimal job of things.

i probably could have finished my thesis sooner and not done as much, or made as coherent of an analysis (though what i have done is certainly far from the best i could do given more time). my brother could have finished the houses sooner, and for more profit, had he not worked hard to make them impressive inside and outside, and not just how they look, but how good they are.

i once had a conversation with my younger brother about doing lots of things or doing fewer things. in high school, i did a lot of things (not as many as some people, but many nonetheless), and i probably didn't do any of them as well as i could have, had i put all of my efforts into them (soccer, music, debate). my younger brother takes a different approach, or at least he did in high school (and i think he still does). he wants to be as good as he can be at the things he does, rather than just being good enough at them. but again, i think that the focus on quality work is important. even in my ever-changing life of many pursuits (especially high school, but to a lesser extent in college), i still work hard to make sure that what i do is of good quality. and i hope it pays off. but i also am always changing what i am interested in, what i like doing, and i want a job/life that can allow for this as much as possible. hopefully becoming a professor will allow for me to keep changing as well as anything can. and hopefully it can also be flexible enough that i can have time to get things done that i can feel proud of. that's one hope at least.

so now i'm done with my master's thesis. what's next? i'll need to try to get parts of the thesis ready for publication somewhere (because that's what future jobs will require). i have a paper that i'm working on that will also be headed toward publication, probably in environmental ethics. and then there's the dissertation. right now i'm thinking i'll look at how hope and pragmatism play out in environmental issues. and i'm excited for the topic right now. hopefully that can continue. and i think it's a project that i can get done in a few years as a phd student.

this song is one that got played in our coomon room quite often my senior year of college, though it was the version by the benjamin gate (cool south african band), and not the original by colin hay. in recently watching scrubs, i re-encountered the song (as it is the theme of the episode), and i wanted to mention how good and interesting it is. the first two stanzas are especially relevant to my life lately.

overkill by colin hay (and if you want, the benjamin gate)

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I'll be alright
Perhaps it's just imagination

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away

Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation
It's time to walk the streets
Smell the desperation

At least there's pretty lights
And though there's little variation
It nullifies the night from overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Come back another day

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I'll be alright
It's just overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away