Compulsive Beginning-of-the-Schoolyear "I'm totally loving on college" Squee!post
Wow, that title was a mouthful.
Anywho, I did one of these last year, and it seems that, despite my TOTAL WILLINGNESS to spend the rest of my life lounging around, watching TV, reading artsy comic books and writing pron, now that I'm actually *at* school again, I've remembered why I want to stay in academia forever.
First off, my classes are less random and eccletic this year. I've got a tentative religious studies major, so more of my classes are fitting together, and that's really cool.
I'm taking Religions of the West, which is generic but still fun, and Dualism in the Ancient World with the Professor who made me consider this major in the first place, and that's *awesome* - all these early radical philosophies from the Zoroastrians to the Gnostics, and how completely different their conceptions of things like good/evil, body/soul, order/chaos, etc were from ours.
Also, my Honors Shakespeare class is just as COMPLETELY AWESOME as advertised. (Should work on that paper due Tuesday...I already know some of what I want to say =D) The professor is really big on context and Renaissance life, and brings in all this other art from the period to analyze to demonstrate the Elizabethans conceptions of lust, (we're doing Midsummer Night's Dream first) and makes us read lines and discuss how we'd direct the characters in a production for one effect or another, how it would fit with the text, and the impact that would have on meaning.
And of course, the Elizabethan stuff connects pretty well to the religious studies stuff too. Everytime I answer a question on Christian theology, I feel awkward, like I'm cheating or something, because, hello? Militant atheist, here. Either I really do know more about it than most actual adherents, no one in my shakespeare class is christian, or the Christians in my class are hesitant to discuss their faith in an academic setting. (Of course, I get really annoyed when they try to finnagle and rationalize things when we're studying the philosophical problems objectively in the rlgst classes, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.)
Even Hindi, the Class of Dread, is going OK so far. I'm making a serious effort to study and keep up and work on it every night, and it's going pretty well. Definitely an improvement over last year.
Although I haven't hit my marathon Saturday yet (six hours omg, psych and phil), I think this schedule is really working for me. My Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays have a lot of class, but my MWF schedule is VERY light - only 1 one hour class. It's a nice up day, down day rhythm. I can relax, do my reading and homework MWF, and just enjoy lecture TThSa.
Also, I've been seriously glued to the Democratic National Convention - not just the primetime speakers either, but a lot of the other people that speak earlier each night. At first I was furious because MSNBC isn't on basic in the Pittsburgh area anymore, and CNN made me tear my hair out the first two days. They spend *hours* talking-head-bitching about what the Democrats need to convey, instead of, oh, I don't know *actually fucking broadcasting the speeches going on behind them so the Democrats could convey something*. Nope, let's just talk over the seriously awesome female senators no one not from their home states has ever heard of and whine *again* about how disunited everyone is, and *not* listen - or let *me* listen - to what these fantastic stateswomen have to say about the party and the nation.
Yesterday I switched to streaming the whole show live from the DNC website - *much* better - although I'll probably attend the local Students for Obama party to watch his finale speech tonight.
Hopefully, I'll be able to start writing again once I get back into the swing of things - I was fairly prolific last year, and I want to keep that going.
I'm reading, arguing, learning fulltime. I'm in geek heaven, y'all.
Anywho, I did one of these last year, and it seems that, despite my TOTAL WILLINGNESS to spend the rest of my life lounging around, watching TV, reading artsy comic books and writing pron, now that I'm actually *at* school again, I've remembered why I want to stay in academia forever.
First off, my classes are less random and eccletic this year. I've got a tentative religious studies major, so more of my classes are fitting together, and that's really cool.
I'm taking Religions of the West, which is generic but still fun, and Dualism in the Ancient World with the Professor who made me consider this major in the first place, and that's *awesome* - all these early radical philosophies from the Zoroastrians to the Gnostics, and how completely different their conceptions of things like good/evil, body/soul, order/chaos, etc were from ours.
Also, my Honors Shakespeare class is just as COMPLETELY AWESOME as advertised. (Should work on that paper due Tuesday...I already know some of what I want to say =D) The professor is really big on context and Renaissance life, and brings in all this other art from the period to analyze to demonstrate the Elizabethans conceptions of lust, (we're doing Midsummer Night's Dream first) and makes us read lines and discuss how we'd direct the characters in a production for one effect or another, how it would fit with the text, and the impact that would have on meaning.
And of course, the Elizabethan stuff connects pretty well to the religious studies stuff too. Everytime I answer a question on Christian theology, I feel awkward, like I'm cheating or something, because, hello? Militant atheist, here. Either I really do know more about it than most actual adherents, no one in my shakespeare class is christian, or the Christians in my class are hesitant to discuss their faith in an academic setting. (Of course, I get really annoyed when they try to finnagle and rationalize things when we're studying the philosophical problems objectively in the rlgst classes, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.)
Even Hindi, the Class of Dread, is going OK so far. I'm making a serious effort to study and keep up and work on it every night, and it's going pretty well. Definitely an improvement over last year.
Although I haven't hit my marathon Saturday yet (six hours omg, psych and phil), I think this schedule is really working for me. My Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays have a lot of class, but my MWF schedule is VERY light - only 1 one hour class. It's a nice up day, down day rhythm. I can relax, do my reading and homework MWF, and just enjoy lecture TThSa.
Also, I've been seriously glued to the Democratic National Convention - not just the primetime speakers either, but a lot of the other people that speak earlier each night. At first I was furious because MSNBC isn't on basic in the Pittsburgh area anymore, and CNN made me tear my hair out the first two days. They spend *hours* talking-head-bitching about what the Democrats need to convey, instead of, oh, I don't know *actually fucking broadcasting the speeches going on behind them so the Democrats could convey something*. Nope, let's just talk over the seriously awesome female senators no one not from their home states has ever heard of and whine *again* about how disunited everyone is, and *not* listen - or let *me* listen - to what these fantastic stateswomen have to say about the party and the nation.
Yesterday I switched to streaming the whole show live from the DNC website - *much* better - although I'll probably attend the local Students for Obama party to watch his finale speech tonight.
Hopefully, I'll be able to start writing again once I get back into the swing of things - I was fairly prolific last year, and I want to keep that going.
I'm reading, arguing, learning fulltime. I'm in geek heaven, y'all.