Life is good.
So, I should be reading, but I need to write about how great life has been since Thursday. Well, Wednesday night we went to Buffalo Grill with the gang after class, which was pretty awesome. So since Wednesday night I guess!
On Thursday I had my first meeting with Joan's Latin writings of Gregory the Great class, and let me just say, it is going to be a wonderful, relaxing, super informative, and interesting linguistic mind work out each week. I already knew this of course, but I had to smile and agree with Joe when he said during the break "It only took me about five minutes to adore Joan." We were going over the syllabus, and picking and choosing what topics relating to Gregory the Great we wanted to cover, and her attitude is just like "Let's be sure to cover the topics that you're excited about pursuing, and skip the ones that don't interest this group." Hallelujah! Sounds fantastic. There's like a million different fascinating ways to approach this man, his writings, his historical setting, his intellectual impact, and his papacy, so it only makes sense that if there's no way to cover it all, we should be sure to cover those topics which are going to really speak to the interests and specialties of the group. There's only five of us, and four of us are medievalists in the history department, so it wasn't hard to get us to agree on what sounded fun. I also love her philosophy that you get out of her classes however much you put in. And while this may sound like an open opportunity for laziness, the fact that she lets us be so self-driven and guided means that while I may work slightly less hard than I would, say, in Madden's class where he shoves multiple books down your throat a week, I definitely retain the information SO much better. I feel like I end up retaining MUCH more from Joan's classes, where we explore our historical interests within a topic, than in Madden's, where we're overwhelmed with tons of stuff, most of which I couldn't care less about.
So anyway, that'll be good. And then Thursday night we went Swing dancing at the Atomic Cowboy. We still got it! I love that when I'm dancing with Casey, and we're totally in the zone (which almost always happens when the music has personality like it did that night, rather than being boring like it often can be there!) I feel like the entire crowded floor full of dancers just completely fades away far into the background. We could be there alone for all I know. It's a captivating feeling. Plus we got a couple of fun blues songs in too, which was a welcome change of pace.
Friday was me teaching my Enlightenment John Locke lesson, which was really well planned I think, because it was a successful lesson with all three sections. Hopefully that sets the tone for the rest of the semester. Friday was also touring a prospective student and a boring CSF lecture and a jubilant happy hour.
Saturday after cleaning the apartment (so satisfying for some reason) Casey suggested we go out to Olive Garden to spend our gift card. We were both just in great moods. We'd had a fight the night before, so I think it just felt extra good to be back to being really happy. Every course, drinks, breadsticks, salad, dinner, and dessert was such a tasty joyful experience. Going out on a date night is so much more fun than cooking at home. Plus in the evening we started Lego Harry Potter, which promises to be a fun game.
And then of course today was great too, obviously. Pottery was very relaxing this morning (I got to try out a new clay!), the book I'm reading now for Tuesday is really well-written, and Casey and I just watched the first episode of Arrested Development off the netflix instant queue.
Vita bona est.
On Thursday I had my first meeting with Joan's Latin writings of Gregory the Great class, and let me just say, it is going to be a wonderful, relaxing, super informative, and interesting linguistic mind work out each week. I already knew this of course, but I had to smile and agree with Joe when he said during the break "It only took me about five minutes to adore Joan." We were going over the syllabus, and picking and choosing what topics relating to Gregory the Great we wanted to cover, and her attitude is just like "Let's be sure to cover the topics that you're excited about pursuing, and skip the ones that don't interest this group." Hallelujah! Sounds fantastic. There's like a million different fascinating ways to approach this man, his writings, his historical setting, his intellectual impact, and his papacy, so it only makes sense that if there's no way to cover it all, we should be sure to cover those topics which are going to really speak to the interests and specialties of the group. There's only five of us, and four of us are medievalists in the history department, so it wasn't hard to get us to agree on what sounded fun. I also love her philosophy that you get out of her classes however much you put in. And while this may sound like an open opportunity for laziness, the fact that she lets us be so self-driven and guided means that while I may work slightly less hard than I would, say, in Madden's class where he shoves multiple books down your throat a week, I definitely retain the information SO much better. I feel like I end up retaining MUCH more from Joan's classes, where we explore our historical interests within a topic, than in Madden's, where we're overwhelmed with tons of stuff, most of which I couldn't care less about.
So anyway, that'll be good. And then Thursday night we went Swing dancing at the Atomic Cowboy. We still got it! I love that when I'm dancing with Casey, and we're totally in the zone (which almost always happens when the music has personality like it did that night, rather than being boring like it often can be there!) I feel like the entire crowded floor full of dancers just completely fades away far into the background. We could be there alone for all I know. It's a captivating feeling. Plus we got a couple of fun blues songs in too, which was a welcome change of pace.
Friday was me teaching my Enlightenment John Locke lesson, which was really well planned I think, because it was a successful lesson with all three sections. Hopefully that sets the tone for the rest of the semester. Friday was also touring a prospective student and a boring CSF lecture and a jubilant happy hour.
Saturday after cleaning the apartment (so satisfying for some reason) Casey suggested we go out to Olive Garden to spend our gift card. We were both just in great moods. We'd had a fight the night before, so I think it just felt extra good to be back to being really happy. Every course, drinks, breadsticks, salad, dinner, and dessert was such a tasty joyful experience. Going out on a date night is so much more fun than cooking at home. Plus in the evening we started Lego Harry Potter, which promises to be a fun game.
And then of course today was great too, obviously. Pottery was very relaxing this morning (I got to try out a new clay!), the book I'm reading now for Tuesday is really well-written, and Casey and I just watched the first episode of Arrested Development off the netflix instant queue.
Vita bona est.