a matter of courses
I am now through most of my first week of school and I have to say how excited I am and thankful that I decided to apply to go this year, I think I would be going mad without it, having something else to push my brain and encourage me to grow beyond just my own day to day efforts. My schedule is only three days a week, and this feels almost like a vacation, having more free time to read and write, doing something more engaging than work. Of course I know that soon enough this will be filled with homework, but even that is still exciting and different. I had to write a one page paper last night for my critical reading class, and I spent most of yesterday afternoon working on it, perhaps going much deeper into a critical analysis of the reading than the teacher probably expects. I cant help it, I love to push my mind.
Some of the highlights so far: All my classes are in the Cathedral of Learning, a tower of gothic architecture that looms over the city and already featured as a significant landmark in my dreams. Wandering its halls and arched vestibules feels like I am in another century or country.
My history class, Magic Medicine and Science, does not appear to be as much geared towards looking at the medical arts, but at how these topics relate to the scientific revolution in the 17th century, but going as far back as the Greek philosophers through the Rennaisance alchemists. Mostly reading assignments, but we will have to write one paper, which the teacher said if we had our own ideas on... I already am thinking about the relation between alchemical and astrological world views, or between alchemy and the beginnings of psychology.
My intro to psychology class may be a large lecture in an icebox, but we are asked to participate in four hours of research studies, which should be highly fascinating and enlightening, and much further out of my everyday kinds of activities.
My critical reading class is in one of the Cathedral's nationality rooms, specifically, Yugolslavia, carved wooden walls and chandeliers. As opposed to the classic European literature most of the critical reading classes assign, our teacher is focusing on modern African American literature, which I admittedly know much less about. It will be curious to see how the class reacts to this, as they (and the teacher) are mostly white.
I have not yet had my last class, and the one I'm most curious about, Myth Symbol and Ritual, which looks at those themes in a modern context and is supposedly taught by a crazy alchemist professor. I am hoping to find someone intelligent and well read enough to perhaps become some sort of mentor, or at least a sounding board for some of my own ideas on the subject.
Perhaps my biggest hurdle so far is that I used the refund money from my loan to buy a new computer, one of the latest macbooks. I haven't had a reliable piece of hardware in years and I can't stop playing around with all its possibilities. Since I am a student, Apple has a deal where they also give you an ipod and a printer/scanner/copier for free. I am really glad to have this functional machine, but since its wi-fi capabilities are powerful enough to pick up an open network in my neighborhood I have to be really careful not to fall into my old habits of bumbling around the internet late into the night when I could otherwise be productive or asleep.
Either way it's all really exciting, and being back in school is already helping me to focus my mind better and start looking more closely at my future.
Some of the highlights so far: All my classes are in the Cathedral of Learning, a tower of gothic architecture that looms over the city and already featured as a significant landmark in my dreams. Wandering its halls and arched vestibules feels like I am in another century or country.
My history class, Magic Medicine and Science, does not appear to be as much geared towards looking at the medical arts, but at how these topics relate to the scientific revolution in the 17th century, but going as far back as the Greek philosophers through the Rennaisance alchemists. Mostly reading assignments, but we will have to write one paper, which the teacher said if we had our own ideas on... I already am thinking about the relation between alchemical and astrological world views, or between alchemy and the beginnings of psychology.
My intro to psychology class may be a large lecture in an icebox, but we are asked to participate in four hours of research studies, which should be highly fascinating and enlightening, and much further out of my everyday kinds of activities.
My critical reading class is in one of the Cathedral's nationality rooms, specifically, Yugolslavia, carved wooden walls and chandeliers. As opposed to the classic European literature most of the critical reading classes assign, our teacher is focusing on modern African American literature, which I admittedly know much less about. It will be curious to see how the class reacts to this, as they (and the teacher) are mostly white.
I have not yet had my last class, and the one I'm most curious about, Myth Symbol and Ritual, which looks at those themes in a modern context and is supposedly taught by a crazy alchemist professor. I am hoping to find someone intelligent and well read enough to perhaps become some sort of mentor, or at least a sounding board for some of my own ideas on the subject.
Perhaps my biggest hurdle so far is that I used the refund money from my loan to buy a new computer, one of the latest macbooks. I haven't had a reliable piece of hardware in years and I can't stop playing around with all its possibilities. Since I am a student, Apple has a deal where they also give you an ipod and a printer/scanner/copier for free. I am really glad to have this functional machine, but since its wi-fi capabilities are powerful enough to pick up an open network in my neighborhood I have to be really careful not to fall into my old habits of bumbling around the internet late into the night when I could otherwise be productive or asleep.
Either way it's all really exciting, and being back in school is already helping me to focus my mind better and start looking more closely at my future.