10 Years After

School House Rock

It's been a week now since classes have started and I have yet to find the time during all this chaos to post a single thing. Partially that's because I am taking 18 hours with three classes each day back to back. That means no convienant pocket of time between classes to slip off to the library to post. Also, since I have such long days in class I leave after my last class to go to work. That said, I think I am managing to allocate some time to postings.

First, a quick overview of my MWF classes:

U.S. HISTORY Since 1877 This class is an overflow room for the class. It is being taught by a previous head of the department that is now working on writting a book and not wanting to be bothered (by students and office politics). The class is a televised course. There are a few good things about that. First, I don't normally ask questions in such classes. These general education lecture classes are often too large to accomodate an inquisitive student. If I have a question I'll rack down the professor and ask personally. Secondly, the classes are videotaped and copies of each lecture are available in the media-center of the library. This should make studying for the class somewhat easier. I am considering checking out each lecture and make a dub of it so I can re-watch the lecture to get all the bits out of them. (Realisticly, this probably won't happen.)

SPANISH This is the second semester of Beginning Spanish. While I signed up for the same instructor I had last semester she was let go by the University for unkown reasons. The new instructor is also a past high school teacher. This is her first college level class and she only teaches the section I am taking. That'll mean she'll be spending little time on campus, which means getting to her will be a bitch. Otherwise, she seems nice enough. Neither too strict nor too lenient. Definately her style is different than the previous instructor's and, also, the books. I actually think I like her way of explaining this better. She goes a bit more into the details of why things are the way they are. The downside is that she is much more into oral participation. I really don't understand why this class isn't listed as oral intensive. It should qualify based on the workings of other oral intensive classes.

POETRY This is an odd class. Instead of the reading being split up into eras the poems are split up into how they illustrate aspects of poetry. Not so unusual. The class is oral intensive and that means a lot of class participation. No problem. We also have to oral projects to do. The first is to read and explicate a single poem. The second is to read and explicate 3 poems by a single modern American poet. The first needs to be a five minute presentation and the second presentation must be 15 minutes. Not terribly difficult. I've already been called on to red a poem outloud to the class which we were discussing (Longfellow's "Aftermath"). The instructor is interesting. When I have more time I'll post some of my observations.