My First Two Days of Class
Aug. 25th, 2015 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grimrose_eilwynnI have taken many college classes over my career as a university student. I’ve taken western art history, college writing as it relates to rhetoric in politics and the media, and literature as it intersects with science. I’ve taken several philosophy classes, studying Nietzsche, Plato, Descartes, and Sartre. I’ve taken world history classes (one of them a fascinating course in ancient history with an ancient military specialist, and another on the modernization of China), psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology. Then there’s been algebra, computer science, macroeconomics, and biology. I’ve taken personal and exploratory writing, two courses in western literature, a marketing course, and a course in French cinema.
Well, I just finished having my first classes of all my courses for this semester. I’ve adjusted to getting up at 7 AM, walking to school, buying groceries for myself, catching the bus, etc.
My first three classes were on Monday: American Literature, Fiction Writing, and Microeconomics.
American Lit is taught by a hunched-over old man. He’s very enthusiastic about literature, but he has the habit of trailing off muttering in the middle of a lecture... and then suddenly switching to an entirely different subject. He loves Moby Dick. He says we’re going to be reading eight full books, instead of little bits and pieces from hundreds of different ones, including some Native American poetry.
Fiction Writing is taught by a young grad student. She’s still in her “I’m going to change the world” phase of her teaching career. She thinks she’s up on our lingo and incorporates Twitter and Instagram into her coursework.
Microeconomics is taught by a calm and reasonable Hispanic lady with glasses. She didn’t exude much obvious personality, which could be an attempt on her part to remain neutral in her subject or at least seem that way.
I did find out there were three textbooks and some technology for my classes that I was supposed to have but didn’t. I got so stressed and anxious I went into a full blown episode, crying in public, arguing with my sister, and hanging up on my parents to keep from yelling at them when they told me they couldn’t afford to buy me my materials immediately.
It all worked out in the end -- I’ve emailed my teachers and ordered the materials to come later in the week -- but it was still really bothering and embarrassing.
Tuesday was better -- less nasty surprises. I had African American Literature and Poetry Writing.
African American Literature is taught by this cool white lady who has been in a band, studied African American culture in New Orleans, and is learning the Nez Perce language. She says we’re going to be studying African American music and psychosocial elements alongside their literature -- this might turn out to be my favorite class this semester. I was sort of afraid I would be the only white girl, but the class was actually mostly white girls, to be honest.
Poetry Writing was interesting. The teacher came in and he told us to arrange our desks in a Circle of Friendship (he didn’t call it that, but that’s basically what it was) and he told us to call him Bob and he said he didn’t like the idea of grades. So I thought, “Okay, hippie.” But he actually turned out to have a really calm and droll sense of humor. Think Robin Williams in one of his more serious roles. He drinks out of a hip flask and hates places with lots of people. His voice was very deep and almost hypnotic as he read different poems to us. He’s not going to assign us a book, he just wants us to pick at least one book of poetry out of the library at some point and read it. I appreciated that so much, I’m actually going to pick out a book this very week. I simply adore not being told what to do. We're each going to write and workshop one poem per week. Poetry seems like it’ll be awesome as well.
My sister and I made a good friend at the end of our second day. There’s a girl we met at the bookstore while I was trying to buy my extra textbooks; she was the checkout clerk; she seemed really nice and felt very sorry that I was so upset and we couldn’t afford them. So she came up to us today, and we got into a conversation, and I don’t know how but by the end of it we’d agreed to go out clothes shopping with her and attend a party her Church was putting on. She wants to give us new makeovers, immediately seeing her opportunity when she spied that we wear jeans and no makeup. She seems a little overbearing, but nice. She claims to have adopted us.
So at least we made a friend.
I'm also planning on meeting up with an older friend, from my last year of college, this weekend. And I'm going to start going to the local feminist club meetings. So there's more fun stuff on the way!
Well, I just finished having my first classes of all my courses for this semester. I’ve adjusted to getting up at 7 AM, walking to school, buying groceries for myself, catching the bus, etc.
My first three classes were on Monday: American Literature, Fiction Writing, and Microeconomics.
American Lit is taught by a hunched-over old man. He’s very enthusiastic about literature, but he has the habit of trailing off muttering in the middle of a lecture... and then suddenly switching to an entirely different subject. He loves Moby Dick. He says we’re going to be reading eight full books, instead of little bits and pieces from hundreds of different ones, including some Native American poetry.
Fiction Writing is taught by a young grad student. She’s still in her “I’m going to change the world” phase of her teaching career. She thinks she’s up on our lingo and incorporates Twitter and Instagram into her coursework.
Microeconomics is taught by a calm and reasonable Hispanic lady with glasses. She didn’t exude much obvious personality, which could be an attempt on her part to remain neutral in her subject or at least seem that way.
I did find out there were three textbooks and some technology for my classes that I was supposed to have but didn’t. I got so stressed and anxious I went into a full blown episode, crying in public, arguing with my sister, and hanging up on my parents to keep from yelling at them when they told me they couldn’t afford to buy me my materials immediately.
It all worked out in the end -- I’ve emailed my teachers and ordered the materials to come later in the week -- but it was still really bothering and embarrassing.
Tuesday was better -- less nasty surprises. I had African American Literature and Poetry Writing.
African American Literature is taught by this cool white lady who has been in a band, studied African American culture in New Orleans, and is learning the Nez Perce language. She says we’re going to be studying African American music and psychosocial elements alongside their literature -- this might turn out to be my favorite class this semester. I was sort of afraid I would be the only white girl, but the class was actually mostly white girls, to be honest.
Poetry Writing was interesting. The teacher came in and he told us to arrange our desks in a Circle of Friendship (he didn’t call it that, but that’s basically what it was) and he told us to call him Bob and he said he didn’t like the idea of grades. So I thought, “Okay, hippie.” But he actually turned out to have a really calm and droll sense of humor. Think Robin Williams in one of his more serious roles. He drinks out of a hip flask and hates places with lots of people. His voice was very deep and almost hypnotic as he read different poems to us. He’s not going to assign us a book, he just wants us to pick at least one book of poetry out of the library at some point and read it. I appreciated that so much, I’m actually going to pick out a book this very week. I simply adore not being told what to do. We're each going to write and workshop one poem per week. Poetry seems like it’ll be awesome as well.
My sister and I made a good friend at the end of our second day. There’s a girl we met at the bookstore while I was trying to buy my extra textbooks; she was the checkout clerk; she seemed really nice and felt very sorry that I was so upset and we couldn’t afford them. So she came up to us today, and we got into a conversation, and I don’t know how but by the end of it we’d agreed to go out clothes shopping with her and attend a party her Church was putting on. She wants to give us new makeovers, immediately seeing her opportunity when she spied that we wear jeans and no makeup. She seems a little overbearing, but nice. She claims to have adopted us.
So at least we made a friend.
I'm also planning on meeting up with an older friend, from my last year of college, this weekend. And I'm going to start going to the local feminist club meetings. So there's more fun stuff on the way!
