Little Fish, Big Pond

That would be a Philosophy class I took late in '82 or early '83 on Wittgenstein. It was taught by the late John Findlay and while I loved him (he was about 80 at the time) and his class, I was often at a total loss as to what the heck he was talking about. About halfway down this page the award named after him is discussed, it gives a quick bio: http://www.bu.edu/philo/ugrad/Undergrad-awards.html

I kinda miss the old man, he was very patient with us (there were something like a dozen people in any one of his classes), but really, we were all pretty clueless as he went on about the Tractatus, etc.

Re: Little Fish, Big Pond

Hmm ... something like that happened to me recently.

When I was just a student, into my second year or something, I met this girl at some party. We had a great chat, decided to meet up some time later. So a coupla weeks on, we went to the movies, Toto le Heros, or however you spell that (I have a great memory for which movie I saw where and with whom). It was a sweet movie, a pleasant evening, we had a drink, and each went our own way. I think I saw her once more, and that would have been about it.

In about ... I was doing an internship making a web-course English literature, so ... 1998 or something? So six years on, more or less, I walked out of the university building and ran into her on the streetcorner. We recognized each other after a moment's hesitation, exchanged how's your life going's and nah, mine aint going anywhere either's, and when realising who I was, she said - yeah I remember you - and, shy for a moment: I named a teddybear after you.

<frowns>

So, I decided to go with the flow and consider that a Very Good Thing - perhaps she'd had a thing for me, after all, ey?

Week or two ago, I sat down on the sunny terrace of the cafe I always go to after my therapy session, and I look at this girl sitting opposite the table from me to my left - and I look at her again, thinking hard - then hesitantly asked her, is your name M****?

So, it was her again. We went through the list trying to find out how I'd met her/where I knew her from, but we didnt figure it out - she just didnt remember me. Not when I told her my name, either. Nothing.

At school we had a sort of debating group. There was a national contest for a TV Show ('Lagerhuis', you probably know it nimh), but we had too many people who wanted to be in the debating group. So, the leader of the group (a very good debater), decided he would give us all a chance; we had to debate and he would select the ones who were best. For 100% I knew I would be among the selected, I just knew it. I choose a difficult topic to debate about, to show the leader of the group what I was capable of. I didn't practice - STUPID! When the debate started, I was overwhelmed by al the counterarguments. I didn't make the selection. Although I didn't show it to my friends (who DID get through the selection - the pain, the pain...) I was broken inside. I couldn't believe it. After that, I totally retreated from the debating group. Last year I didn't participate. < SIGH >

That's kind of sad Rick. No, it's really sad. Dust yourself off, get back on that horse, study up on the next topic, and AMBUSH THE HELL OUT OF THEM.

The idea that someone tempered in the fires of a2k would be left out. . . !

Well I'm going to university now, so I'm not even able to participate in the debating group anymore. Besides that, I doubt whether the debating group will still be there next year. The groupmembers were all people who finished school this year, and I don't think there are people willing to take it over.

Take heart Rick, you'll always get plenty of argument on A2K! :wink:

Had an old tri-hull Comanche that I bought for a thousand bucks and was gonna trick it out and resell. I berthed it in a dock with its ass end out and , aas I left to go home, an old lobsterman told me
"Ya bettah reef aya boat tother way,stom comin"
I said Id be ok. Next morning the stom passed and my boat was siitting right at its mooring , except it was about 12 feet under water.
"Guess I look pretty stupid' I said to the old salt, as I went up the way to the harbor masters to get a crane to haul the boat up.

"Yep" was all he said.

I've gotten between 2-3 traffic tickets in about as many weeks (not sure if it's 2 or 3 yet because I'm waiting to see if the flash was a ticket).

Thing is, I'm neither a bad driver or a reckless one, so it's the lastest joke on me.

"My question to you is: have you ever experienced a moment or event which drastically deflated the size of your head? Some unexpected thing which just plain burst your bubble?"

my event is waking up each morning!

[by the way Rick; i never could understand debate, arguing a point for the sake of arguement, rather than applying your mind to seeking the 'truth' - anybody's. My question: was your possition 'correct' in your mind, or subservient to the challenge of 'winning'. In debate if the 'winner' is not 'right', everyone loses!]

Well I choose to debate about whether the Muslim head scarve is a violation of women rights. I believed it was not. But almost no one agreed with me on that. Most believed Muslim head scarves ARE a violation of women rights.

I have teenagers... My days are filled with finding out i'm not all that smart, creative, hip or rhythmic. What they don't "get" yet is that the more they laugh, the more I'm going to show these "truths" to their friends.

Heh heh. Ah, brings back memories! I fully plan to do the same to my own children one day.

Two or three tickets in a row, that happened to me once. Not a good pattern, yikes. I didn't change my driving as a result, my driving wasn't all that bad in the first place, as you say of yours, Craven. I haven't (please don't notice this, oh great highway patrolman of the universe) had a ticket since and that spurt of them was at least twenty years ago.

Speaking of teddy bears, my first gift from a fellow was a teddy bear a guy at the hospital I worked in after school gave me on Christmas eve, back when I was sixteen. That means I must've been working all of a month, the start to all these years of work. Anyway, I remember being confused, a teddy bear? but I was touched enough that when it came time for my junior prom, I asked him (I went to a girl's school). We had a nice time, but no romance followed. No problem, as by that time I had crushes on at least two other people.

Decades go by and I see his name in the paper for having done some animation for a Disney movie. (I also remember that he did a great big drawing of me as a heavy washerwoman, as they were called in those days, for my high school year book.. so I guess he was destined for an art career.) From the info in the article I called him and he was thrilled to hear from me.

After a while though, I figured out that he thought I was someone else. Glub.

Schniff.

My brother is laughing. See, I've sped so few times in my life you can count it on one hand (I only remember 3 times and I have gotten 2 speeding tickets). I drive very safely (never cut people off, swerve etc). He speeds everywhere and drives like a madman and never gets any.

I drive like a granny (not mine, she drives like a maniac) dammit! I was speeding because of being late and only on empty desert highways on perfect straighaways.

Arg. Anywho, I now drive at 65 mph on the freeways, and get a bunch of dirty looks. <shrugs>

Sucks that I have had to budget for tickets.

Do you know about traffic school? This is IMPORTANT, sorry for shouting but I am in the quick reply box - if you go to traffic school, the ticket is erased re insurance records.

One of my three tickets was for going 68 on the 405 in a volkswagen - I remember it well, it was near an overpass as one approaches the huntington beach turnoff going south.

Another was for turning left at an intersection it was always ok at... I had been on vacation, to Yosemite as I remember, and didn't notice that that was a no no with a new sign posted, the day I got back in town. That was at Westwood and Santa Monica Blvds in west l.a, one block, one gd block, from my apartment.

I forget the third, something about a stop sign. Gag.

I drive highway 101 a bunch and have been known to myself to go 93 around Hollister...

I try to stay in the zone just above the speed limit, in CA usually 65-70, oh, ok, sometimes up to 74, especially when 100 other cars are cramping their speed down to 70-80 mph.

Really, I drive for control. It depends on the car. The rental van I took to Sacramento a week or so ago felt high on the road, showed little of whatever forces make a porsche hug curves at high speed, in fact the opposite, it felt tiltable. So, in that case I am not a curve speedo.

I was lucky, sooooo lucky, on that trip, as it turned out the chp was out in force and each time I spied one I was just coming down from, say, 74....

As a general rule, I try not to be the fastest car within a grouping. That doesn't always work, though. My friend Marina was pulled over with a whole line of speeders from Vegas to LA, all of them going about 85-90. The chp pointed you you you and you and you and you...

It's tricky, because one feels like an about to be smashed bug if everyone else is doing 90 and one is trying to adhere to posted speed, at least somewhat. Highway 5 between LA and the Sacramento area is troublesome for this, what with the trucks bearing down.

I see I am riffing in a tangential fashion here!

Lord - there are so many ongoing episodes of cutting down my ego that I can hardly count them as they blur past.

Passing out from alcohol for the first - and only - time in my life, at age FORTY!!!! - and not quietly crashing on a sofa as others did that night, but falling like a goddamned axed tree on a table full of glasses in full public gaze - and having my nearest and dearest sobbing "Don't die, Deb! " anguishedly over my unconscious form (oh how people love to share stories of which one was thankfully unconscious) because every one KNEW I would never get drunk like that, so it had to be some 'orrible medical thing, is right up there.

Another doozy was years ago - when, for reasons which I shall bore nobody with, I had to obtain a 24 hour pee sample.

I was at me fella's place that night, but had brought a nice jar.

At around 3.00 am the inevitable happened. It was hot - and I had cycled round to me fella's place after work - in full evening clobber,as that particular job demanded.

Not wishing to struggle into the dress - and having ascertained by listening that the house was fast asleep, I padded out naked to go to the outside dunny (poor student share house this was - lucky to have walls).

On the way, I looked at the bathroom - and figured that it was not worth braving the spiders out there just to pee in a jar - so I did the necessary on the floor in the bathroom (I was VERY accurate with my jar by that time.)

As I squatted in the full moonlight coming through the bathroom window, contemplatively, I began to have that feeling one gets when watched. I glanced through the open door, through the kitchen, to the similarly open door of the living room opposite.

There - gazing in open-mouthed amazement - was the fella who I had believed safely ensconced in the bed of one of the women of the household. He was lying on the sofa - propped up on one elbow, looking his fill.

Mustering what dignity I was able to - and unable to reach the door - I finished what I was doing, waved airily, and padded back up to beloved's bedroom - where I was laughed at HEARTLESSLY as I squirmed in embarrassment.

That damn man turns up in my life from time to time - and always says in a puzzled way: "Don't I know you?" "No!" I always say firmly. After all, seeing someone peeing naked into a jar in the moonlight is not really KNOWING them, is it?

I shall draw a veil over the sad fate of that jar when I turned a corner sharply on my bicycle on the way home - with the jar in a paper bag in the basket on my handlebars - as it flew out and smashed at the feet of some poor fella waiting at a stoplight, I grimly cycled home, pretending none of it ever happened.

Oddly, when I got home, our front door - which was NEVER locked - was locked - and I had to climb in my narrow bedroom window in full evening dress - at 2.00 pm.

Well, that was an invigorating tale!

Not for me....

Most entertaining, though! Thanks for sharing, Deb!