(new) umass class!
Shortly after my last entry, I decided that I'd had enough of that class I had signed up for. The one on Major Texts for the Study of American Culture that had zero literature on the reading list. I got the first book last Tuesday in the mail from Amazon (I forget whether I mentioned in my last entry that the bookstore didn't have it), and I settled down Tuesday after work to spend the night pouring through it, and oh my god, it was miserable. It was called Culture in the Age of Three Worlds, and it was all about how culture changed and evolved in the Cold War era of 1945-1989. You know, that weird part of history that high school courses never get up to and that time in my life before I was eight years old? And it was boring. The only time he talked about literature was when he discussed the global trend of novels being written by people who weren't professional writers or something. Which would have been ok if we'd actually been reading one of those novels rather than a critical commentary on it.
Brian got home later that night after I'd been reading for five hours straight, and he said I looked totally dead and that I should probably think about dropping the class if I'm not getting anything out of it. I think that was all the convincing I needed. I hate feeling like I'm taking the easy way out of anything, but when I thought about how I was just going to hate the class for the entire semester and not get anything out of it, it seemed to make sense to at least try to drop the class and switch into a better one. I knew that the only other night class that had been available was 16th Century Lit, and at first I'd wanted to avoid that one because I didn't want to be squinting through olde Englishe texts every week. :P But at that point, I didn't care anymore about rereading the Faerie Queene. It at least is actual literature, not sociology or "culture studies" or whatever my last readings could be considered. So that night I checked online to make sure the course was still open (thankfully it was) and emailed the professor to make sure that it was ok if I added the class. And the next morning I talked to the English graduate secretary and dropped that horrible American Culture class and added 16th Century Lit.
That was Wednesday afternoon, which means class day, so I went to 16th Cenury Lit and didn't even need to attend a second meeting of the original class. It was nice. The only weird thing is that my new class had moved from the usual English building on campus to the Renaissance Center, which is I guess this library/resource center in Amherst that all five colleges have access to even though I think it's technically owned by UMass (I could be wrong on that though). It's way out in the middle of nowhere on the extreme edge of the campus map, probably a 20-25 minute walk from the bus stop. It's fine now, but in the winter I can imagine it being significantly less fun. Someone the class offered me a ride back to the campus bus stop on the way home though, which was very nice of her. The Renaissance Center looks like this little old farmhouse sort of. The grounds are beautiful and overlook the mountains, and I saw a bunny hopping around. Plus there's a courtyard with little statues and flowers. The room our class meets in feels like a seminar room in Fenwick at Holy Cross, which is nice. It's basically a library reading room, with an adjoining kitchen where people were making coffee. The overall vibe of this location and class is just better to me. There's a LOT of really smart PhD English nerds though. Which is great, but I kind of feel like I'm in over my head in comparison. A lot of them are Renaissance concentrators and have like presented at conferences and everything, and then there's me. There are others without a Renaissance background though, so that is somewhat comforting. I actually saw one of the MFA girls from my original class sitting behind me in this new class, and I wonder if she'd bolted out of that first class as fast as she could as well. :)
So anyway, that's how everything is as of now. I'll have to elaborate more on the new class later. I have the second meeting tomorrow night, where we're discussing Catholic writers. woo. I have a ton of reading to get done still, but tonight is Brian's late class night so I'll have all night to devote to John Skelton and co. fun times.
Brian got home later that night after I'd been reading for five hours straight, and he said I looked totally dead and that I should probably think about dropping the class if I'm not getting anything out of it. I think that was all the convincing I needed. I hate feeling like I'm taking the easy way out of anything, but when I thought about how I was just going to hate the class for the entire semester and not get anything out of it, it seemed to make sense to at least try to drop the class and switch into a better one. I knew that the only other night class that had been available was 16th Century Lit, and at first I'd wanted to avoid that one because I didn't want to be squinting through olde Englishe texts every week. :P But at that point, I didn't care anymore about rereading the Faerie Queene. It at least is actual literature, not sociology or "culture studies" or whatever my last readings could be considered. So that night I checked online to make sure the course was still open (thankfully it was) and emailed the professor to make sure that it was ok if I added the class. And the next morning I talked to the English graduate secretary and dropped that horrible American Culture class and added 16th Century Lit.
That was Wednesday afternoon, which means class day, so I went to 16th Cenury Lit and didn't even need to attend a second meeting of the original class. It was nice. The only weird thing is that my new class had moved from the usual English building on campus to the Renaissance Center, which is I guess this library/resource center in Amherst that all five colleges have access to even though I think it's technically owned by UMass (I could be wrong on that though). It's way out in the middle of nowhere on the extreme edge of the campus map, probably a 20-25 minute walk from the bus stop. It's fine now, but in the winter I can imagine it being significantly less fun. Someone the class offered me a ride back to the campus bus stop on the way home though, which was very nice of her. The Renaissance Center looks like this little old farmhouse sort of. The grounds are beautiful and overlook the mountains, and I saw a bunny hopping around. Plus there's a courtyard with little statues and flowers. The room our class meets in feels like a seminar room in Fenwick at Holy Cross, which is nice. It's basically a library reading room, with an adjoining kitchen where people were making coffee. The overall vibe of this location and class is just better to me. There's a LOT of really smart PhD English nerds though. Which is great, but I kind of feel like I'm in over my head in comparison. A lot of them are Renaissance concentrators and have like presented at conferences and everything, and then there's me. There are others without a Renaissance background though, so that is somewhat comforting. I actually saw one of the MFA girls from my original class sitting behind me in this new class, and I wonder if she'd bolted out of that first class as fast as she could as well. :)
So anyway, that's how everything is as of now. I'll have to elaborate more on the new class later. I have the second meeting tomorrow night, where we're discussing Catholic writers. woo. I have a ton of reading to get done still, but tonight is Brian's late class night so I'll have all night to devote to John Skelton and co. fun times.