Envy and congratulations

Through Leiter Reports, I found out some news about a friend of a friend from undergrad. She is currently wrapping up a Philosophy PhD at Stanford, and looks like she could probably beat me up. More importantly, she has just been hired for a tenure-track position at UVic.

Envy! Getting on a tenure track back in Vancouver (Victoria would be close enough) is one of my longterm dreams.

I say "dream" rather than "plan" because there's really no reason to suppose that the opportunity will arise for me to even compete for (let alone actually get) that sort of job in the area. Job openings at particular philosophy departments are sporadic, and job offers are made according to philosophical subfield. If my chosen subfield (whatever that turns out to be) doesn't show up in the job listings at those places, that's the end of that. And even leaving chance aside, I'm not sure I'm going to end up with interests that would ever find a home at, say, SFU, seeing as how I keep getting obsessed by oddballs like Kierkegaard and Freud.

Which is a shame. I've decided that Vancouver really is the best place to live. Something to do with Commercial Drive, having large majestic chunks of rock standing between me and the horizon, and wanting to live forever. This has nothing to do with my personal attachment to the place--I'm abstracting away from that and talking about objective fact.

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My number-two-sister and volleyball superstar, Kumi, has accepted a scholarship offer from Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida. Bethune-Cookman has an NCAA Division I volleyball team, which makes it a great opportunity. Not only that, it's a Methodist and historically black college--all in all, it's like the whole college was designed specifically for her.