Today was the first day of my return to Kwantlen and it went fairly well.

My bus pass worked, which was a relief. I am always worried when I used it for the first time in a year. I worry that some stupid administrative snafu might mean that it wasn’t renewed when I paid them and now I have to go through hoops to make the damned thing work like it’s supposed to do.

Not that I am cynical or anything.

And it felt good to be back at Kwantlen. Just walking through the door made me feel like my life made sense and had purpose again. My mood had already been boosted.

Damn does my mind wander a lot lately. I wonder if it’s a sign of something. Got a lot on my mind, I guess. But the last few days, my mind keeps wandering off while I blog. Then I have to drag it back to the task at hand. It’s getting annoying.

Anyhow, back to my first day. I had one class today, Introduction to Ethics. ^[1] The prof reminds me of my Psych prof from last semester, Doctor Kristie Dukewich, in that she is petite, energetic, and intense. And seems to be willing to be pretty hardcore about teaching ethics. She explicitly stated that her policies are designed to make sure that everyone pays attention and nobody can just coast through the class.

I, of course, am fine with that. In fact, I am thrilled.

Not so thrilling is that the exams will be group exams. That means we will be divided into groups of two or three and said groups will submit a single exam that is the product of everyone in the group.

This really throws me for a loop. I really don’t like it. I supposed I have the smug aloofness of the elite, because I honestly believe that working with others can only lower my mark. I get high marks on my own. Mars that are a lot higher than average. Statistically at least, my objection makes sense.

However, the groups will not be assigned entirely randomly. There’s going to be a test to determine our level of readiness for the program, and people with the same score will be grouped together.

I have never felt more motivated to ace a test in my life. Never before have the results of a test determined whether or not I would be saddled with dolts, lazy people, and dumbasses for an entire semester. I really, really want to be in that top group.

Luckily, the score is measured on a scale of 3, so it’s not that unreasonable. You can bet your butt that I will study hard for that test. Turns out that’s how to motivate me to work hard instead of coasting on my natural abilities : make the stakes worthwhile to me.

Plus, of course, my ego demands that I be in the top group in a class like this one. I mean, it’s ethics. That’s totally my thing. Being in anything but the top group would be humiliating and demoralizing.

It’s weird to feel all elitist about this. But what the fuck, this is something I can do.

Another strange feeling from that class : at one point, as she was explaining all the rules and I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed, I felt the urge to assert my dominance over the professor. Or if not exactly dominance, I felt I needed to demonstrate to her that I was a force to be reckoned with.

What an extraordinary thought. I am not used to such primitive impulses. But I consider it a sign of growth in my malnourished id, and so it’s a good sign in the long run.

Meanwhile, I am intrigued to find that I have found a field in which I feel so strongly about my own capacities. I didn’t feel this way in the two Psych classes I took, even though that’s another field where I am confident in my ability. But make it philosophy and apparently, I sudden feel like I am The Best In Teh World At It and need to prove that in front of everyone.

That should make for an interesting semester, seeing as I am taking three Philosophy classes.

And it’s true that I have never met anyone who could out-think me, and Philosophy is all about thought. That’s why I love it so much.

But fans of this blog know that I would love to meet someone who could. When it comes to thought, I have no mentor, role model, or peer. It’s pretty lonely, and I have nobody to test myself against. I have longed for a teacher smarter than me my entire life, but even in university, my profs didn’t seem to have the kind of mind I have and I could out think them fairly handily.

So in a way, in some primitive part of my brain, I want to shout out to the world how awesome I am so that I will attract challengers who might prove to be worthy adversaries.

But I don’t even know the right words to describe my particular sub-specialty. It involved thinking quickly, but also deeply, synthesizing a lot of information into a theory as to how things connect. As a result, there’s a battleship-like quality to my thoughts, or maybe a frigate…. power and maneuverability combined into one deadly package. And so on.

Oh, and creative thinking. I pride myself in going straight for the answer without any unnecessary preconceived notions and this lets me come up with superior solutions, or at least, ones that seem obviously superior to me.

So clarity of thought is in there somewhere too.

Anyhow, it’s time for me to eat, so I will end this unintended ego trip by saying that I have learned a lot about myself today, and look forward to learning more in the future.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.