Babble

I have to tell you something. It's a great feeling when the clouds start to break and a section of philosophy starts becoming clear. Not least because academia is a constant vacillation between feeling grossly, grossly inadequate and discouraged ("I have read nothing/Everyone has read more than me"; "I understand nothing/Everyone understands more than me"; "I am a terrrible instructor/Everyone is a better instructor than me"; "I will never publish"; "I have no work ethic"; "I should just quit") - between that and a beaming sense of pride and accomplishment. It's probably 70/30, but the 30 is pretty damn good. And nothing else would be a challenge.

Went to see Babel this weekend, which was gratifying not only because it's an engrossing flick, but because it was a limited release (major US cities only, I guess) and afterwards I got to fill out a form about what characters I liked and what scenes I didn't and how I heard about the movie. Apparently sometimes they use that information to actually recut the film and sometimes (more likely in this case) they just take it as advice on how to market it better.