Learn a Language.. fills in plenty of free time.. increases social circles and Job prospects. opens up new ideas and things you didn't know existed? I quit my Job to go back into Education and I'm currently Living in Japan, studying Japanese.. and it's for want of a better word fucking awesome. (also in same time zone as Korea.. with immense internet speed... GSL's while I eat my Dinner? yes please) Not one single regret at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_684 Short but pretty interesting article about a bunch of South Korean prisoners who were recruited to assassinate Kim Il-Sung. Not much information because a lot of the stuff was covered up by the government... Basically anything about North-South relations is pretty interesting to me.
I used to spend hours on Wikipedia just reading up on anything interesting.
@Gingerninja - taking up time isn't the main point, learning shit is. A language is cool but way too time consuming to do right. Thx though.
@darkponcho - I will definitely read up on North/South relations, thx ^^
@imBLIND - cool skills are neat too - I'm currently learning the running man and shuffling - but I'm looking for more... "academic" things. Thx though, pen spinning is sweet.
On December 29 2010 16:22 imBLIND wrote: Pen spinning videos on youtube take up a lot of time for me. Check it out if you're too lazy to do anything else
@Sauwelios Online courses are a great idea too, I think I still have access to a bunch of McGill ones as well, thanks ^^
@Deckkie thanks for the philosophers, and I will check out those videos, especially with Carnac's blessing ^^
@Nfi: Learning a programming language would be sweet, I'll see if I can handle it. My only experience was trying to learn C++ (intensive course) without knowing C. That didn't go so well. Thanks.
@Views without posts: Everyone thinks something is cool, don't be shy. If you think the politics of Warhammer 40k is awesome, let me know. History of the dildo? Cultural impact of WWE wrestling? anything!
Well since I study philosophy I thought I might recommend some stuff to you.
Read Descartes "The Meditations" which is pretty much the starting text for most university level philosophy classes.
Rousseau is quite good, read his Second Discourse and Social Contract. The first discourse is pretty much his worst work even though he won an award for it. It's the 2 above that are really his masterpieces in terms of philosophy/political philosophy.
I would also recommend Jean-Paul Satre's Being and Nothingness as you've notably left out existentialism from your list of philosophy. He was vastly important in philosophy in the 20th century.
Finally if you have time I'm mainly a theology student. Perhaps even if your non-religious you'd find it interesting as many do.
Read the Christian gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) , the Qu'ran (key text of Islam) and perhaps...the Upanishads(key text of hinduism). You should be able to find most of these online. Again even if your a non believer you can appreciate the teaching, poetry, morality and philosophy of these things and learn how people vastly different from yourself think. E.g. Muslims, Hindu's and Chrsitians in this case. Which may later help you to interact with people.
TED and PBS (especially Frontline and NOVA) are your best friends. There's hours and hours of good material on random stuff there.
Also, watch speeches by Michael Sandel, as well as his Harvard lecture series on ethics and political philosophy (the first video of 12 can be found here) if you are somewhat new to philosophy.
An interesting historical figure to learn about is Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. Had to do a report on him, an amazingly intriguing figure, your first-link in google search definitely won't tell you the whole story.
Tycho Brahe was also a hilarious historical person . Oh, Pope Paul VI, winner of "the most infamous pope" title. And poor Charles II [of the Hapsburgs/of Spain], oh Charles.
EVERYTHING written by William Faulkner. Some of his notable books include A Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, Absalom Absalom [absolutely recommend that you read Absalom, Absalom! after you've only read a ton of other Faulkner stuff, hella hard to understand fully].
I personally don't find reading philosophy, although I find the ideas intriguing, the writing is often unnecessarily dense per the self-niche'd style of philosophical thinking. But throwing out some random philosophers that popped into my head:
Foucault [on biopower] Sartre [existentialism], Baudrillard [trippy stuff in general, The Real] Heidegger [ontology/technology] Wittgenstein [language/epistemology]
EPT
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. Oh, Pope Paul VI, winner of "the most infamous pope" title. And poor Charles II [of the Hapsburgs/of Spain], oh Charles.
