School Days, School Days...
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears ... ahem... eyes.
I've been meaning to set this up for a while. You know, since I'm up here and you're down there... or over there... or to the other side... or maybe you're floating above me in the sky, having mastered human flight... well wherever you are, I know that at least some of you like to keep track of me, my goings on and non-goings-on. The most common and frequent are, of course, the non-goings-on.
Let's see. Classes are officially one week done, and yet, it's still too early for me to be able to tell how they're going to go. A quick run down would look something like as follows:
Latin II: As I mentioned at the end of last semester, there is a reason that the Romans aren't around anymore, and I firmly believe that it has more to do with the fact that they spoke Latin and less to do with any other more (so-called) historical factors. And whoever created the third declension ought to be shot, maimed, tortured... either that or make them recite the appropriate forms, genders and meanings for all of the third declension nouns and adjectives! That would be sufficient torture for anyone. But I digress... as I was attempting to say, I'm not quite sure about this class yet. The instructor seems to be a masters student with "naught but a BA to his name". And of course, when it comes to teaching experience, his experience seems a bit lacking. That and it's a foreign language, which always seems a tad foreign. Particularly when it's also known as a "dead" language. (See Roman joke above)
Digital Systems: One day I thought this would be a breeze. The next day I didn't think so; or at least, not nearly as much as I had previously. I will have a better feel for this as of the end of this week, when we should have finished reviewing pertinent topics from the courses I took at "the other school" As of this moment, I'm not sure if we covered all of the prerequisite knowledge or not, though I am fairly confident that we did. More than anything, I'm anxious to get onto the real deal.
History of Christianity (200-800): Before classes started, I really wasn't feeling all that confident about my decision to do a degree in (what amounts to) Religious Studies. After all, there's not a whole lot of related work you can do with just a BA, and for what I'm interested in, not only do I have to finish this degree, but I have to go on and get an MA or PhD, as near as I can tell. Add to this that I've already finished one degree in a subject area that I'm not all that keen on, and you can see where the uncertainty would begin to set in. However, I am happy to report that at this particular moment in history, I'm feeling pretty good about this one. Granted, I've only had one actual lecture in this class, but it sounds and feels "right". And of course, I've enjoyed the previous courses I've had in related areas. The instructor for this one seems really very good, and bonus! she's the undergraduate advisor, so someone I should probably get to know fairly well.
A run down of the truly important stuff in all of this: I only have one final exam, one true midterm, a series of quizzes (I prefer to call them "term tests"), and papers! of course. Two minor papers (about 1500 words each, if memory serves me correctly), a term paper and three assignments. That's spread amongst three courses. And the sad thing is that when I say those are the "only" things I have, it actually seems like quite a light load! But you might need to remind me of that when crunch time hits. Oh, and have I mentioned that I still am looking for an need a job?
Well, that's all the school related updates I have. Other than that, there's not really much to report. My goal is to be a somewhat decent blogger, posting updates as I have them. Which of course precludes that I have updates to post. Which means that I need to have events happen to blog about. Which means that I need a life. Which means... well... I'll let you fill in that blank.
I've been meaning to set this up for a while. You know, since I'm up here and you're down there... or over there... or to the other side... or maybe you're floating above me in the sky, having mastered human flight... well wherever you are, I know that at least some of you like to keep track of me, my goings on and non-goings-on. The most common and frequent are, of course, the non-goings-on.
Let's see. Classes are officially one week done, and yet, it's still too early for me to be able to tell how they're going to go. A quick run down would look something like as follows:
Latin II: As I mentioned at the end of last semester, there is a reason that the Romans aren't around anymore, and I firmly believe that it has more to do with the fact that they spoke Latin and less to do with any other more (so-called) historical factors. And whoever created the third declension ought to be shot, maimed, tortured... either that or make them recite the appropriate forms, genders and meanings for all of the third declension nouns and adjectives! That would be sufficient torture for anyone. But I digress... as I was attempting to say, I'm not quite sure about this class yet. The instructor seems to be a masters student with "naught but a BA to his name". And of course, when it comes to teaching experience, his experience seems a bit lacking. That and it's a foreign language, which always seems a tad foreign. Particularly when it's also known as a "dead" language. (See Roman joke above)
Digital Systems: One day I thought this would be a breeze. The next day I didn't think so; or at least, not nearly as much as I had previously. I will have a better feel for this as of the end of this week, when we should have finished reviewing pertinent topics from the courses I took at "the other school" As of this moment, I'm not sure if we covered all of the prerequisite knowledge or not, though I am fairly confident that we did. More than anything, I'm anxious to get onto the real deal.
History of Christianity (200-800): Before classes started, I really wasn't feeling all that confident about my decision to do a degree in (what amounts to) Religious Studies. After all, there's not a whole lot of related work you can do with just a BA, and for what I'm interested in, not only do I have to finish this degree, but I have to go on and get an MA or PhD, as near as I can tell. Add to this that I've already finished one degree in a subject area that I'm not all that keen on, and you can see where the uncertainty would begin to set in. However, I am happy to report that at this particular moment in history, I'm feeling pretty good about this one. Granted, I've only had one actual lecture in this class, but it sounds and feels "right". And of course, I've enjoyed the previous courses I've had in related areas. The instructor for this one seems really very good, and bonus! she's the undergraduate advisor, so someone I should probably get to know fairly well.
A run down of the truly important stuff in all of this: I only have one final exam, one true midterm, a series of quizzes (I prefer to call them "term tests"), and papers! of course. Two minor papers (about 1500 words each, if memory serves me correctly), a term paper and three assignments. That's spread amongst three courses. And the sad thing is that when I say those are the "only" things I have, it actually seems like quite a light load! But you might need to remind me of that when crunch time hits. Oh, and have I mentioned that I still am looking for an need a job?
Well, that's all the school related updates I have. Other than that, there's not really much to report. My goal is to be a somewhat decent blogger, posting updates as I have them. Which of course precludes that I have updates to post. Which means that I need to have events happen to blog about. Which means that I need a life. Which means... well... I'll let you fill in that blank.
