Humanities...ugh.
I've just completed this semesters classes and I'm feeling a little dumbstruck. All I have left to get my degree at this community college so I can move on to UCF is five humanities classes. Psyche, Com II, public speaking, and two more misc. ones. On the surface when I read the course curriculum they seem almost embarrassingly easy, but when I actually take them boy, they sure defeat me.
Part of it is the writing. I think I approach a lot of writing the same way. It's either as a blog like this where I feel free to ramble in whatever direction I choose, or it's like a lab writeup where I have a formal question I'm trying to answer, body of work to support it, and then a conclusion to tie it all together. Neither of those methods seem to work for these classes. Partially I think I'm over-thinking everything, but partially it is the material.
All of the classes have these writing assignments that are very loosely directed, and those really seem to be a problem for me. When I get a 'write on anything that you want to but keep it 800-900 words' my mind goes absolutely blank. I know that I'm supposed to keep it on topic to the class, but a lot of these classes are about something that I never really gave a second thought too. However, when they do get specific it's even worse because then I don't know anything about what's going on. For some reason this process idea--> structure --> formated paper I fail at when trying to formulate how to write a paper, which dictates how I research for it. So I just get into this frustrating loop of reading stuff and not knowing how to turn it into something useful.
I finally had some success with my last paper on Frank Lloyd Wright. I read two books on him, and I don't know how many internet articles to try to figure out what the heck he was about, and then was able to back up enough to decide how the paper could be ordered. I filled a lot of it out and then found out I was doing some of it wrong. I did a little restructuring and brought it into the writing office at school, the one that helps out loosers like me, and let someone look it over. Other than some horrid misuse of commas she said it was pretty good and it didn't take much editing to turn it in. I would say that was the only successful paper I had this semester and it really took a lot out of me. I felt emotionally drained when it was done.
I'm going to buy a writing college papers for dummies book because I really think that I am missing some basic level of skill that most everyone else learned in high school or early college that I probably missed because I just did all the fun science and math stuff and bombed everything else.
The other dimension to my dilemma is the material itself. I really have such a low frame of reference for the humanities that I am absolutely lost when professors talk about it.
I'm teaching myself how to draw, but other than the mechanics of it I don't understand art. Maybe I should better say I don't understand other artists. I'm just trying to better draw all of the stuff that's in my head, I don't care if it's socially relevant, challenging, or engaging.
For writing, unless it's Sci-fi I usually don't get it. Maybe not quite that narrow but fantasy, sci-fi, cartoons, or comic books makes up the bulk of my interaction with culture. Those rarely end up as the topics in most literature. My analysis of novels or short stories are usually very simple and direct. Whatever the story is about, is what it's about. I thought Kafka wrote a story about a guy turning into a bug, and that all of the people around the main character just acted very bizarrely. I didn't get that he was trying to say some other story about life in general. Dr. Frankenstein? He was the flakiest mad genius ever to build a monster. That's how I analyze a book. I could care less what the writer was about. I usually don't put more into a story when I read it, but it seems that it's common for there to be all kinds of extra insight (baloney) that is to be discussed in class.
Music falls into two categories. Stuff that I like, and stuff that I don't. I like pieces of old time orchestral music, 60s rock, 80s rock, more recent country, movie soundtracks, and a category I'd call silly stuff. I've got CDs of Tchaikovsky, and Wagner along side of my Forrest Gump CD, and a whole large section of Weird Al Yankovich. I'd have Garth Books, next to a song from Abba, then Kung Fu Fighting, Barbie Girl, and followed up by Steppenwolf on my ipod. One thing I have discovered is that I don't have a good ear for lyrics in a song. What I mean by that if someone is singing, and they aren't enunciating well then I can't hear them and the music at the same time. I can either focus on one or the other, but not both. It's like trying to hear two conversations simultaneously. I can't do it. Mostly I try to tune out the singer, and it annoys me when they keep getting in the way of me enjoying the rest of the music. I think that is one of the things that turned me off music when I was growing up. In the 80s it seemed like everyone was just yelling into the mike, and not making any effort to be understood.
And then there is poetry.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
--Ezra Pound
Huh...what?
First I have to decode whatever it is they're trying to talk about. That means I can't just read poetry I have to actively decipher it, and that becomes really tedious when the thing is bigger than a page. Then, after I finish that, I have to find out the meaning of the thing which always seems to be vector dependent on whatever experience the poet has been through. That's just so god not interesting I don't even know what to do.
I would add that I have two personal issues as well.
One, I tune people out as well. I don't remember faces or names easily, I kind of don't like gossip, and I really don't like to read into people's motives. My hermitage has grown worse over the years and it doesn't make this stuff any easier.
Two, I have a really hard time focusing on stuff that I really don't care about. I mean my mind really wanders in every direction when I'm trying to do research or study this stuff. I've learned to discipline it for science, math, mechanics, history, and a number of other subjects, but not these topics. Here my ADHD really kicks into high gear. Internet style research doesn't help any. After an hour researching one of my psych papers I found myself studying the types of engines that were mounted in the P38 lightning.
*Sigh.* I so miss math.
Part of it is the writing. I think I approach a lot of writing the same way. It's either as a blog like this where I feel free to ramble in whatever direction I choose, or it's like a lab writeup where I have a formal question I'm trying to answer, body of work to support it, and then a conclusion to tie it all together. Neither of those methods seem to work for these classes. Partially I think I'm over-thinking everything, but partially it is the material.
All of the classes have these writing assignments that are very loosely directed, and those really seem to be a problem for me. When I get a 'write on anything that you want to but keep it 800-900 words' my mind goes absolutely blank. I know that I'm supposed to keep it on topic to the class, but a lot of these classes are about something that I never really gave a second thought too. However, when they do get specific it's even worse because then I don't know anything about what's going on. For some reason this process idea--> structure --> formated paper I fail at when trying to formulate how to write a paper, which dictates how I research for it. So I just get into this frustrating loop of reading stuff and not knowing how to turn it into something useful.
I finally had some success with my last paper on Frank Lloyd Wright. I read two books on him, and I don't know how many internet articles to try to figure out what the heck he was about, and then was able to back up enough to decide how the paper could be ordered. I filled a lot of it out and then found out I was doing some of it wrong. I did a little restructuring and brought it into the writing office at school, the one that helps out loosers like me, and let someone look it over. Other than some horrid misuse of commas she said it was pretty good and it didn't take much editing to turn it in. I would say that was the only successful paper I had this semester and it really took a lot out of me. I felt emotionally drained when it was done.
I'm going to buy a writing college papers for dummies book because I really think that I am missing some basic level of skill that most everyone else learned in high school or early college that I probably missed because I just did all the fun science and math stuff and bombed everything else.
The other dimension to my dilemma is the material itself. I really have such a low frame of reference for the humanities that I am absolutely lost when professors talk about it.
I'm teaching myself how to draw, but other than the mechanics of it I don't understand art. Maybe I should better say I don't understand other artists. I'm just trying to better draw all of the stuff that's in my head, I don't care if it's socially relevant, challenging, or engaging.
For writing, unless it's Sci-fi I usually don't get it. Maybe not quite that narrow but fantasy, sci-fi, cartoons, or comic books makes up the bulk of my interaction with culture. Those rarely end up as the topics in most literature. My analysis of novels or short stories are usually very simple and direct. Whatever the story is about, is what it's about. I thought Kafka wrote a story about a guy turning into a bug, and that all of the people around the main character just acted very bizarrely. I didn't get that he was trying to say some other story about life in general. Dr. Frankenstein? He was the flakiest mad genius ever to build a monster. That's how I analyze a book. I could care less what the writer was about. I usually don't put more into a story when I read it, but it seems that it's common for there to be all kinds of extra insight (baloney) that is to be discussed in class.
Music falls into two categories. Stuff that I like, and stuff that I don't. I like pieces of old time orchestral music, 60s rock, 80s rock, more recent country, movie soundtracks, and a category I'd call silly stuff. I've got CDs of Tchaikovsky, and Wagner along side of my Forrest Gump CD, and a whole large section of Weird Al Yankovich. I'd have Garth Books, next to a song from Abba, then Kung Fu Fighting, Barbie Girl, and followed up by Steppenwolf on my ipod. One thing I have discovered is that I don't have a good ear for lyrics in a song. What I mean by that if someone is singing, and they aren't enunciating well then I can't hear them and the music at the same time. I can either focus on one or the other, but not both. It's like trying to hear two conversations simultaneously. I can't do it. Mostly I try to tune out the singer, and it annoys me when they keep getting in the way of me enjoying the rest of the music. I think that is one of the things that turned me off music when I was growing up. In the 80s it seemed like everyone was just yelling into the mike, and not making any effort to be understood.
And then there is poetry.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
--Ezra Pound
Huh...what?
First I have to decode whatever it is they're trying to talk about. That means I can't just read poetry I have to actively decipher it, and that becomes really tedious when the thing is bigger than a page. Then, after I finish that, I have to find out the meaning of the thing which always seems to be vector dependent on whatever experience the poet has been through. That's just so god not interesting I don't even know what to do.
I would add that I have two personal issues as well.
One, I tune people out as well. I don't remember faces or names easily, I kind of don't like gossip, and I really don't like to read into people's motives. My hermitage has grown worse over the years and it doesn't make this stuff any easier.
Two, I have a really hard time focusing on stuff that I really don't care about. I mean my mind really wanders in every direction when I'm trying to do research or study this stuff. I've learned to discipline it for science, math, mechanics, history, and a number of other subjects, but not these topics. Here my ADHD really kicks into high gear. Internet style research doesn't help any. After an hour researching one of my psych papers I found myself studying the types of engines that were mounted in the P38 lightning.
*Sigh.* I so miss math.