Sooo... first week
I can accept my nerdliness prize at any time.
At the last second, I switched up my whole schedule to make room for Ancient Greek and Middle Egyptian, because I have had my eye out for Middle Egyptian for the past 3 years, and of course the one time I don't check is when it gets offered and all 5 seats snapped up. Why 5 seats? It's a class taught via conference video by a person in Penn State. I wasn't sure how I felt about that until the moderator told me that 2 people dropped the class and would I like a spot and I was like, "hell with it, I'm going to take Ancient Egyptian IF I WANT TO." because I would be kicking myself if I didn't.
The Ancient Greek came in earlier, when I was trying to console myself for not getting a spot in the egyptian class and so enrolled in the other ancient language that I had wanted to take. It is interesting, and I'm glad I spent some of my long slow hours at WB studying the alphabet, so there's one less step to worry about. My clarinet teacher's husband is also taking the class, which is fun. He worked at WB for a long time and is now going back to school for psychology/rel. counseling, and is taking Ancient Greek to... read the original versions of the new testament I think? He actually wanted to take Hebrew to read the original Old Testament (after several classes of course), but there was no room in the class. Brock Sampson told me that he and Bethany (my clarinet teacher) just got new kittens! I really want to meet them :3
I've been able to go to one lecture, and the video conference thing doesn't throw me off as much as I expected. It's just like watching a video of a lecture except that you can interact via microphones etc. There are two other schools taking part in this as well; several kids from Iowa state and one moron from Ohio who leaves his mic on so that there is a ton of echo-y feedback for everyone. It took one of the Penn State IT guys telling him step by step how to turn off his microphone and disconnect it for him to finally accept that he was the one causing all the noise.
Anyway... other classes.
Orchestra was a bit crap, because I don't like fulfilling the role of "stupid harp player." I kept jumping cues, so everyone would look at me like I'm a complete idiot, so I'd be nervous and then miss more cues because we're sightreading this stupid music and it's very sparse orchestration so every sound sticks out. It's going to be a song for voice and orchestra (minus voice for now) so it had better be a really good vocalist. I don't think I can sit through a month of warbley vibrato rehearsals. (unfortunately, warbley vibrato passes for good in music land, and is even glorified in some circles. guh.)
Adv. Etching - this is going to be a fun class, I like the professor and the process. yay!
Adv. Ceramics - I still have to talk to the prof. in person about how we're going to coordinate the class meeting times. It was originally in a spot that I could do easily (T/R 1:20-3:50) but because there were only 3 people enrolled in the advanced ceramics class, it was stacked on top of a ceramics 2 class on Monday and Wednesday, during my etching class. I have spoken with her through email about setting it up as an "independent study" where I meet with her once or twice a month to discuss progress updates. We'll see. I want to keep access to the ceramics studios, and basically the only thing I want to do is finish the cup/bowl/plate project I started for people last year...
I decided to not take Ancient Med. Religions b/c they only covered a little bit of what I wanted to know as I discovered in the first lecture. The professor is a Roman scholar originally, so he focused only on areas that he knew well, which makes sense in a way, but not for what I want to learn. Essentially he was only going to cover ancient Greece, (3 weeks) Ancient Rome (5 weeks) and spend the remaining time on early Christianity, with one lecture planned out for ancient Judea. Um... not fair? He also completely ignored the near eastern civilizations... Assyrian anyone? Egyptian? Corinth? Anyway.
I am also sitting in on a class in Greek pottery, which I really wish I could take for credit, but the professor was nice enough to let me sit in without registering for the class (since I'm at 17 credits with etching/ceramics/greek/egyptian/harp/orchestra). I enjoy his lecture style (even though he does stutter sometimes - well, that gives you time to write!) and the topic is not just fine-art examination of the surface, he also goes into the use of certain forms, the approach to the artists themselves as painter vs. potter, cultural clues found in scenes of everyday life, the relationship of images to the use of the vase they're on and how they tie into other images on the form, etc. It should be fun. :)
At the last second, I switched up my whole schedule to make room for Ancient Greek and Middle Egyptian, because I have had my eye out for Middle Egyptian for the past 3 years, and of course the one time I don't check is when it gets offered and all 5 seats snapped up. Why 5 seats? It's a class taught via conference video by a person in Penn State. I wasn't sure how I felt about that until the moderator told me that 2 people dropped the class and would I like a spot and I was like, "hell with it, I'm going to take Ancient Egyptian IF I WANT TO." because I would be kicking myself if I didn't.
The Ancient Greek came in earlier, when I was trying to console myself for not getting a spot in the egyptian class and so enrolled in the other ancient language that I had wanted to take. It is interesting, and I'm glad I spent some of my long slow hours at WB studying the alphabet, so there's one less step to worry about. My clarinet teacher's husband is also taking the class, which is fun. He worked at WB for a long time and is now going back to school for psychology/rel. counseling, and is taking Ancient Greek to... read the original versions of the new testament I think? He actually wanted to take Hebrew to read the original Old Testament (after several classes of course), but there was no room in the class. Brock Sampson told me that he and Bethany (my clarinet teacher) just got new kittens! I really want to meet them :3
I've been able to go to one lecture, and the video conference thing doesn't throw me off as much as I expected. It's just like watching a video of a lecture except that you can interact via microphones etc. There are two other schools taking part in this as well; several kids from Iowa state and one moron from Ohio who leaves his mic on so that there is a ton of echo-y feedback for everyone. It took one of the Penn State IT guys telling him step by step how to turn off his microphone and disconnect it for him to finally accept that he was the one causing all the noise.
Anyway... other classes.
Orchestra was a bit crap, because I don't like fulfilling the role of "stupid harp player." I kept jumping cues, so everyone would look at me like I'm a complete idiot, so I'd be nervous and then miss more cues because we're sightreading this stupid music and it's very sparse orchestration so every sound sticks out. It's going to be a song for voice and orchestra (minus voice for now) so it had better be a really good vocalist. I don't think I can sit through a month of warbley vibrato rehearsals. (unfortunately, warbley vibrato passes for good in music land, and is even glorified in some circles. guh.)
Adv. Etching - this is going to be a fun class, I like the professor and the process. yay!
Adv. Ceramics - I still have to talk to the prof. in person about how we're going to coordinate the class meeting times. It was originally in a spot that I could do easily (T/R 1:20-3:50) but because there were only 3 people enrolled in the advanced ceramics class, it was stacked on top of a ceramics 2 class on Monday and Wednesday, during my etching class. I have spoken with her through email about setting it up as an "independent study" where I meet with her once or twice a month to discuss progress updates. We'll see. I want to keep access to the ceramics studios, and basically the only thing I want to do is finish the cup/bowl/plate project I started for people last year...
I decided to not take Ancient Med. Religions b/c they only covered a little bit of what I wanted to know as I discovered in the first lecture. The professor is a Roman scholar originally, so he focused only on areas that he knew well, which makes sense in a way, but not for what I want to learn. Essentially he was only going to cover ancient Greece, (3 weeks) Ancient Rome (5 weeks) and spend the remaining time on early Christianity, with one lecture planned out for ancient Judea. Um... not fair? He also completely ignored the near eastern civilizations... Assyrian anyone? Egyptian? Corinth? Anyway.
I am also sitting in on a class in Greek pottery, which I really wish I could take for credit, but the professor was nice enough to let me sit in without registering for the class (since I'm at 17 credits with etching/ceramics/greek/egyptian/harp/orchestra). I enjoy his lecture style (even though he does stutter sometimes - well, that gives you time to write!) and the topic is not just fine-art examination of the surface, he also goes into the use of certain forms, the approach to the artists themselves as painter vs. potter, cultural clues found in scenes of everyday life, the relationship of images to the use of the vase they're on and how they tie into other images on the form, etc. It should be fun. :)