fermentedphil

Driving Through South Africa on a Road Trip: From Pretoria to Stellenbosch Through My Camera

You wake up at 3 am. Outside of your window, everything is still dark. This early, 3 am, has always been a strange hour in the morning. Some call it a devilish ...

"Luck is Limitless Horizons"

The words were printed on someone's shirt. "Luck is Limitless Horizons". I think it is a gym slogan, or so it looked. It was just a random scene I walked past. ...

The Speeding Up of Life: A Book Contract, A Post-Doctoral Fellowship, and Chaos

I have been wanting to slow down for a while now, especially after my PhD, but it feels like things are just moving faster and faster. I was awarded a short ter...

Day 2 in the Kruger National Park: Driving to Tindlovu Restaurant Berg-En-Dal Rest Camp

The second day of our Kruger National Park drive started as the previous one: early morning arriving at the gate with the sun barely breaching the horizon. It w...

Leaving Behind 2025: Thinking Back on a Crazy Year

Thinking back on the crazy year on the eve of the new year has become a normal part of ending the year off. Maybe this is because of the ingrained normalcy of t...

Day 1 in the Kruger National Park: Driving to Tshokwane Trading Post & Picnic Site

The Beginning of a New Journey We woke up early, as always. Kruger National Park vacations are always linked to getting up early in the morning. We had some pre...

My absence: A year of reading and writing (a lot)

The year of opportunity I finished my honours degree this year at the University of Pretoria specialising in Afrikaans, but it was the most difficult and busies...

Can we breathe now?

The journey is finally over. It is definitely bitter sweet. It is over, but not the end. It is in fact a new beginning, a new journey, or one that I am merely t...

Somehow I Survived the Academic Nightmare | Diary of a Struggling and Failing Philosopher

Somehow, I just managed to survive. My story is by no means unique, or different. Absolutely not. In fact, I think I might be better off than most. Either way, ...

Celebrating 8 Years on Hive - Looking Back at the Journey (and Becoming a Doctor)

I am not going to lie. I forgot about my Hive birthday. I haven't been able to write anything in a month. I have been planning on writing something along the li...

What Even is Philosophy? And Who are Philosophers?

A question has been bothering me, burning itself into my mind from all of the thinking about it: "What even is philosophy, and who is a philosophy?" Let us begi...

Somehow Managing To Survive AI Slop and Crumbling Academia | Diary of a Failing Philosopher

Somehow, I managed to survive 30 or so days of academic hell. The hell is still with me, but I have a small breather in which I can now reflect on my inability ...

I Am Failing to Keep My End of the Bargain ...

It is not often that I write about my writings on Hive. It is even less often that I write about my life beyond what I already share. Yesterday, I told my fathe...

Apparently I am a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Now...

I was asked to come back into the hallroom (or more specifically the MS Teams meeting link where I just defended my PhD). "It is with great pleasure that we can...

What Even is This World?

I am stuck in a strange feedback loop where what goes in does not translate to what comes out, but I am addicted to this strangeness. Yet this strangeness is no...

Have I Taken On Too Much? - Diary of a Struggling Philosopher

Saying no is an artform that I have not yet mastered. On a regular basis, I receive CFAs and CFPs. In academia, these are call for abstracts and call for papers...

Finally Submitting My PhD After 4 Years ...

It has been almost exactly 1520 days since I registered as a PhD student without a research proposal. I never planned to do a PhD, as I made my family promise m...

Being Engaged for One Year and Drowning in PhD Nonsense | Diary of a Struggling Philosopher

it has been a year my dear and we have seen the world but we have also come to know the smallness of our room the thoughts plastered against the wall only to fa...

AI ChatBots are Ruining Education Because Educational Frameworks are not Changing (Or Because Lecturers Do Not Want to Change Their Ways)

In the last six or so months, I have marked about 500 examination papers or essays. (In philosophy, we mostly write essay examinations, and most of them in Sout...

Marking 500 Philosophy Exam Papers Will Crush Your Soul | A Philosopher's Diaries

I did not know what I expected. But my situation is also not unique by all means. I am in fact luckier than others - but that then brings me back to the first s...