Well, the beast is done. My twenty-eight page free will paper, The Nature of Indeterministic Free Will (pdf file), can be viewed online for those who can stomach it. I essentially compare and contrast Robert Kane's and Timothy O'Connor's views on indeterministic free will, and find O'Connor's account wanting. I don't know that this is my best work on the subject, but it is my best under current conditions. I still think it's fairly decent. Your mileage may vary.
In other news, I graded all my final exams and final papers. I now just have to wing my way on over to Oakton's Skokie campus and turn in grades this evening. Then I am done, done, done. I am glad the semester is over, but not because I had horrible classes. Rather, I will now get to be home in the evenings, instead of gone two nights a week. Life will temporarily be at a less hectic pace--till the baby comes, of course.
My classes, as I said, weren't horrible. They were both pretty decent. Actually, my ethics class was very enjoyable. And though my logic class dwindled down to six members by the end (about half the original total), those who remained were, for the most part, the best of the starting bunch. That being said, overall I am disappointed with the performance of the class. I took some personal gut checks through the semester, changed course a couple of times, added extra in-class demonstrations and so forth. I offered help a gazillion times. No takers. In the end, the poorer performers have to take responsibility for their performance. That's not to say my logic class can't be improved, in fact, this semester is an improvement over the previous logic class last spring. But I can't inject the subject matter into their brains. Yet I can't shake the feeling that their performance is a direct reflection of my own.
Yesterday was a most productive day, I have to say. The family worshipped at All Saints as per usual. Then when we got home my daughter thankfully took a two hour nap. I got my paper done just minutes before she woke up. (Though I got up early again this morning to revise it a little bit more.) I also got done some of the honey-do list items that had been sitting incomplete for some time. One of which involved power tools. Or, at least, I made sure it involved power tools. (God bless cordless drills! Can I get an "Amen!"?) I also got done some laundry, made a pot of chili, and got to enjoy the regular evening routine with my daughter of bath, story time, prayers, hymns and sleep.
And to top off my productive day, I completed grading two sets of final exams and one set of final papers. And all by ten o'clock, when I climbed weary but satsified into bed.
(Good heavens, can you imagine if this sort of day became typical? I wouldn't know who I was anymore!)
Posted by Clifton at May 16, 2005 09:30 AM | TrackBack