Academia
Classes started on Tuesday the 5th; unfortunately, I only have one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it was sort of anticlimactic. I have found off-campus parking (read: free) in a place I technically shouldn't park, because they have signs saying private parking, violators will be towed, etc. But it's the Scottish Rite Center, and nothing happens there during the day on weekdays, so there's this huge parking lot with, like, three Scottish Rite staff cars at the end of the lot closest to the building, and then this little cluster of students parked way down at the other end, nearest the road (and thus the crosswalks to get to campus). I think the most student cars I've seen there was, like, maybe fifteen or twenty. Even with the dire campus parking situation, most students don't seem to have caught on to this idea (or just don't want to tempt fate with someplace that says they'll tow your car), so I'm hoping that the Brothers won't begrudge the handful of us who are too broke to buy a campus parking permit - which doesn't even guarantee one a space - and who are willing to walk the extra block. Thus far they haven't towed anyone.
Anyway, classes are good. Child development isn't anything too radical and so far follows my expectations. It's in the same building as Russian, which is my next class on MWF, though there's an hour and a half between them so I end up getting out and going to the library or the Union to read anyway.
Russian is good. I've forgotten _so_ much in the three years I've been off, but the second homework assignment went much smoother than the first, so I'm hopeful that I'm getting it back. The professor recognized my name on his class list (I guess mine _is_ sort of hard to forget) and says he sent me an email welcoming me back, but I never got it. Then when he went to take roll on the first day, he was confused to find my married name there instead. So I've been using both this past week, because I'm not sure which anyone will have me under. On a related note, my SS card finally came in the mail, so I'll take it into Financial Aid tomorrow and the name change will be complete and everything will be under my married name. *grumble*
My last class on MW is Intro to Linguistics, which of course I'm all bouncy about. The structure is a little... less linear than I prefer, though. It's hard to take notes from the text because it just flows along, blah de blah, and then it says something like, "... linguists refer to this as X." So then I have to go _back_ and read the last paragraph or two, to pick out a concise definition for X. Which of course makes me lose my reading momentum. Luckily it's interesting reading, though, so I'm able to pick back up again without losing too much ground. The teacher is this... Amazon woman. She's tall and thin (she has the skinniest chicken-legs I've ever seen), with sort-of dreadlocks, and she's from Burundi and has a helluva French accent (she only started speaking English _after_ she got her BA, which was somewhat less than ten years ago). I can tell the rest of the class is utterly lost already, and truth to tell, I would be too if this wasn't something I was making a point of making sense out of.
Tues/Thurs, as I mentioned, I only have one class - and that's Geology and the Environment. And this is the one that's snuck into my blind spot. It's only moderately about geology itself (which is something I'm good at); it's more to do with how geologic events affect public policy (building dams on fault lines, etc). So there's a much bigger socio-political aspect than I would _ever_ have expected (which is something I'm _not_ good at), and is going to require lots of readings and response papers and heavy-thinking essays akin to a literature class. Guh.
But so far I've been getting all my homework done, and everything is making sense - with the exception of Russian vocabulary; I'm relying mostly on context for translations, though I did manage to inform профессор when he asked, that "Я не могу жить без лапши" ~ I am unable to live without pasta. Snerk! (The point of the question was illustrating that the preposition без takes the genitive case.) Rew is (re)taking German I, and when I showed him my homework, he was all, "Woo, cases!" and I had to snicker. Cases in Russian are pretty (once I remember the pattern). Cases in German, not so much. Though one can, of course, just stick -en onto the end of any adjective or noun and it'll be correct half the time. You just won't know why.
Anyway, classes are good. Child development isn't anything too radical and so far follows my expectations. It's in the same building as Russian, which is my next class on MWF, though there's an hour and a half between them so I end up getting out and going to the library or the Union to read anyway.
Russian is good. I've forgotten _so_ much in the three years I've been off, but the second homework assignment went much smoother than the first, so I'm hopeful that I'm getting it back. The professor recognized my name on his class list (I guess mine _is_ sort of hard to forget) and says he sent me an email welcoming me back, but I never got it. Then when he went to take roll on the first day, he was confused to find my married name there instead. So I've been using both this past week, because I'm not sure which anyone will have me under. On a related note, my SS card finally came in the mail, so I'll take it into Financial Aid tomorrow and the name change will be complete and everything will be under my married name. *grumble*
My last class on MW is Intro to Linguistics, which of course I'm all bouncy about. The structure is a little... less linear than I prefer, though. It's hard to take notes from the text because it just flows along, blah de blah, and then it says something like, "... linguists refer to this as X." So then I have to go _back_ and read the last paragraph or two, to pick out a concise definition for X. Which of course makes me lose my reading momentum. Luckily it's interesting reading, though, so I'm able to pick back up again without losing too much ground. The teacher is this... Amazon woman. She's tall and thin (she has the skinniest chicken-legs I've ever seen), with sort-of dreadlocks, and she's from Burundi and has a helluva French accent (she only started speaking English _after_ she got her BA, which was somewhat less than ten years ago). I can tell the rest of the class is utterly lost already, and truth to tell, I would be too if this wasn't something I was making a point of making sense out of.
Tues/Thurs, as I mentioned, I only have one class - and that's Geology and the Environment. And this is the one that's snuck into my blind spot. It's only moderately about geology itself (which is something I'm good at); it's more to do with how geologic events affect public policy (building dams on fault lines, etc). So there's a much bigger socio-political aspect than I would _ever_ have expected (which is something I'm _not_ good at), and is going to require lots of readings and response papers and heavy-thinking essays akin to a literature class. Guh.
But so far I've been getting all my homework done, and everything is making sense - with the exception of Russian vocabulary; I'm relying mostly on context for translations, though I did manage to inform профессор when he asked, that "Я не могу жить без лапши" ~ I am unable to live without pasta. Snerk! (The point of the question was illustrating that the preposition без takes the genitive case.) Rew is (re)taking German I, and when I showed him my homework, he was all, "Woo, cases!" and I had to snicker. Cases in Russian are pretty (once I remember the pattern). Cases in German, not so much. Though one can, of course, just stick -en onto the end of any adjective or noun and it'll be correct half the time. You just won't know why.