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My Classes for this Semester
Jan. 14th, 2016 05:45 pmThe first day of classes was rainy, but it was a light rain, little wind, and I had an umbrella, so that was no problem.
My first class was British Literature. We’ll be reading Mrs Dalloway, Hard Times, Frankenstein, and several others (the teacher actually forgot to tell us about one, which means I’ll have to buy an additional ten-to-fifteen dollar book off Amazon), and we’ll get to be creative in addition to being analytical. My idea of a perfect class! I’d had the teacher before, a peppy blonde woman who’s very enthusiastic about literature, and I like her, and I also was surrounded by several English major friends of mine that I’d had in previous classes. We sat around and had a lively conversation, talking and joking, before class started. The great thing about English majors is that they’re always up for discussion -- you never feel stiff, intimidated, or bored in their presence.
My business class, Promotional Strategy, was a little different. No one spoke or raised their hand at all -- I was the only one who raised my hand with a question for the entire class period -- and there was this intimidating kind of silence that no one wanted to break. The teacher, an older woman, talked really fast and then suddenly shot questions at us -- I could barely keep up with her. But I did raise my hand, and I talked with her after class about what assignments I should do, and she asked for my name and recognized it from an email about textbooks I’d sent her over the summer. So I think I made a good first impression.
I had very little homework that night, and then came a Thursday and Friday (no-homework days), and on Friday I had no second Promotional Strategy class, and then came a three-day weekend! So I was feeling pretty optimistic after my first day.
My second day of classes was also good. Sunnier, and I had a longer amount of time to sit and eat breakfast before heading out for the day.
I had been a little nervous about my Shakespeare studies professor -- besides the fact that he was an expert in Shakespeare, he had also seemed intimidatingly strict and old-fashioned in his beginning emails. But what actually happened is kind of funny. He’d mistaken the classroom number so we had to go find him because he’d been wandering the halls, lost. Once he got in there he turned out to be a nice, sharply dressed little old man. There was one moment of nervousness -- we’d filled out information cards for him, and he kept reading excerpts from the cards for the class, which we hadn’t known he’d do. But he just asked me about where I was from. Called the place name “exotic.” He seems to like the word “exotic.” Everything that’s not an English major from the school’s general region is “exotic” to him.
I took the bus back home for lunch and an hour and a half relaxation at my place. Then I went back out for my Advanced Poetry class, which was with the same professor I’d taken Intermediate Poetry with last semester.
Still the same guy -- had an existentially fraught hip flask (it doesn’t know whether it contains vodka or water, and neither does anyone else), liked the building where no one ever went, lots of interesting stories, hated assigning grades. It was soothing being back in an intriguing, familiar environment again analyzing poetry, so I really enjoyed that class.
The students in that class are always funny, too. We were in the geology building, and there was a picture of the Mt St Helens eruption in the classroom, and someone said that was like putting a picture of Hiroshima in a classroom in Japan.
"The circumstances were a little different," another person pointed out in amusement. "More people were killed in Hiroshima. There's also the problem of Big Intention versus Natural Disaster."
I love English majors.
I always reward myself after making it to that class, though, because it’s always in the late afternoon after I’ve already gone home from school -- I always have to go back to campus just for that one class. So as my reward afterward, I go to Starbucks and get myself a delicious little coffee. I sat at Starbucks for a while, just letting my mind unwind.
Now I’m back at home, and guess what? No homework, a short day tomorrow, and then a three-day weekend! And tomorrow I might be getting some new pajamas!
It’s been a great start to the semester!
My first class was British Literature. We’ll be reading Mrs Dalloway, Hard Times, Frankenstein, and several others (the teacher actually forgot to tell us about one, which means I’ll have to buy an additional ten-to-fifteen dollar book off Amazon), and we’ll get to be creative in addition to being analytical. My idea of a perfect class! I’d had the teacher before, a peppy blonde woman who’s very enthusiastic about literature, and I like her, and I also was surrounded by several English major friends of mine that I’d had in previous classes. We sat around and had a lively conversation, talking and joking, before class started. The great thing about English majors is that they’re always up for discussion -- you never feel stiff, intimidated, or bored in their presence.
My business class, Promotional Strategy, was a little different. No one spoke or raised their hand at all -- I was the only one who raised my hand with a question for the entire class period -- and there was this intimidating kind of silence that no one wanted to break. The teacher, an older woman, talked really fast and then suddenly shot questions at us -- I could barely keep up with her. But I did raise my hand, and I talked with her after class about what assignments I should do, and she asked for my name and recognized it from an email about textbooks I’d sent her over the summer. So I think I made a good first impression.
I had very little homework that night, and then came a Thursday and Friday (no-homework days), and on Friday I had no second Promotional Strategy class, and then came a three-day weekend! So I was feeling pretty optimistic after my first day.
My second day of classes was also good. Sunnier, and I had a longer amount of time to sit and eat breakfast before heading out for the day.
I had been a little nervous about my Shakespeare studies professor -- besides the fact that he was an expert in Shakespeare, he had also seemed intimidatingly strict and old-fashioned in his beginning emails. But what actually happened is kind of funny. He’d mistaken the classroom number so we had to go find him because he’d been wandering the halls, lost. Once he got in there he turned out to be a nice, sharply dressed little old man. There was one moment of nervousness -- we’d filled out information cards for him, and he kept reading excerpts from the cards for the class, which we hadn’t known he’d do. But he just asked me about where I was from. Called the place name “exotic.” He seems to like the word “exotic.” Everything that’s not an English major from the school’s general region is “exotic” to him.
I took the bus back home for lunch and an hour and a half relaxation at my place. Then I went back out for my Advanced Poetry class, which was with the same professor I’d taken Intermediate Poetry with last semester.
Still the same guy -- had an existentially fraught hip flask (it doesn’t know whether it contains vodka or water, and neither does anyone else), liked the building where no one ever went, lots of interesting stories, hated assigning grades. It was soothing being back in an intriguing, familiar environment again analyzing poetry, so I really enjoyed that class.
The students in that class are always funny, too. We were in the geology building, and there was a picture of the Mt St Helens eruption in the classroom, and someone said that was like putting a picture of Hiroshima in a classroom in Japan.
"The circumstances were a little different," another person pointed out in amusement. "More people were killed in Hiroshima. There's also the problem of Big Intention versus Natural Disaster."
I love English majors.
I always reward myself after making it to that class, though, because it’s always in the late afternoon after I’ve already gone home from school -- I always have to go back to campus just for that one class. So as my reward afterward, I go to Starbucks and get myself a delicious little coffee. I sat at Starbucks for a while, just letting my mind unwind.
Now I’m back at home, and guess what? No homework, a short day tomorrow, and then a three-day weekend! And tomorrow I might be getting some new pajamas!
It’s been a great start to the semester!
