Presentation at Reading, Jan. 2013

Presentation at Reading, Jan. 2013

2010年3月16日 星期二

Why "Drinking Saké with God"

"Saké" is a kind of Japanese alcoholic beverage that I like. You could find a pretty good entry of it on Wiki. And I don't really believe in God, but I am not going to explain why I am not a Christian. That said, I would like to say something about the name of this blog.
I am applying to philosophy graduate school for the entry of fall 2010 (I will say more about this after I get all the results). If you do not have any idea about how difficult it is, let me illustrate it with a quote from an anonymous writer: "
Yale law school gets roughly 2000 applications each year and admits 200 students, and that it's the best, most selective law school in the country. Cornell's philosophy department got 300 applications, and admitted 4, and they're ranked 17. 10% vs 1.3%."
Now, I am lucky enough to get admitted by University College, London, but almost shut out by the U.S. programs. For some reasons, I still prefer studying in the U.S., but the waiting is just too torturous, so at some point I shouted to myself, "just go to London for God's sake!" And suddenly the name of this blog came to mind. I noticed the "sake/Saké" pair long time ago, and now it's time to bring it on stage.
But the name also has a meaning distinct from its origin. By "God," I mean something like fate, though again I have no faith in it. Nevertheless, we agnosticists still often have conversations with "God" (whatever that means) when we feel despair. I am pretty despair at this point, so let's drinking
Saké with God. You are invited, but no pressure.


2 則留言:

  1. That's a good name for your blog!

    I study Japanese for almost 5 years, but I don't notice the 'sake/Saké'!! It's very interesting.
    But why is 'Saké'? In Japanese, it should also be 'sake'...

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  2. Many thanks. My mother tongue is Mandarin, and I know a little Japanese. I do not think the "spellings" of their phrases are that important. I invoked a probably idiosyncratic spelling because I hope to distinguish it from the real English word even at the syntactic level.

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