In addition to being the master of beats (and the crossfader) Who'll cut off your hand (just like Darth Vader!), I've finally gotten around to making the epic account of my days in the first week of classes.

So Monday I'm at school from 9 to 9. (9am to 9pm. For real.) Such is how every monday will look from now on. Of course there are pretty nice spacings of breaks and all, but here's the clincher I didn't notice until Monday when Phenomenology prof starts ranting about the hardness of said course--

All five of my classes are 4000 level courses.
(ie: I'm a sophomore taking all Senior courses.)

O_O

Of course, that means I have eight and a half inches of reading to do (Or at least that's the textbook measure for this first week--I literally went home and measured it.) but that's not too bad, because I took out all the books I've read and/or am in the process of reading for this week, and that came out at eleven inches even, which is about my typical load anyway.

So the major difference this week?

ORGANIZATION.

I, being the person who's messy enough to cover ever surface and spare inch of floor, found this a novel idea. So far this week, I'm managing just fine. (Famous last words. It's only the FIRST week of course.) I was actually AMAZED at how well I was managing in fact.
Of course...the fact that I bought every textbook I could EARLY and read most of them beforehand generally helps. Especially in literature classes...

Turns out my first class of the day, American Literature is actually an in-depth study of "Poe's America."
Contrary to popular looks, I'm not terribly fond of Poe and his little melodramatic "ZOMG! Dying beautiful woman!" sort of thing. So I'm a little wary. Dr. Piggush is a fairly perky, skinny woman with a sort of troublesome quirky little grin. (Anyone who says to you "Oh come on, what could possibly be juicier than marrying your thriteen year old cousin?" Probably has enough midly mischeivious personality to sink a carrier. Not to mention today's "Midieval woman are pretty much just uncooked men." If I redo my bio anytime soon, I bet she's going to be a treasure trove of excellent quotes.)
I like her. So far we're running through Charlotte Temple which is more chick lit than just about anyting else I've read. *snort* I'm only half-way done with that as of the beginning of the semester though, so I'll have to fix that come Saturday morning. (It's a pretty short book, so no harm done.)
She expressed some concern since I was on her list as a Freshman, but I corrected her. Still, a glance at said list told me almost everyone in the class was at least a junior. Fingers crossed, there. I've done quite a bit of Poe in the past, yes. (Hence in part, why I'm a little tired of him.) i'm somewhat nervous, but as a future English teacher it's almost pre-written that I'm going to end up teaching Poe. So actually, this class will probably give me exactly what I need.
And I can write a paper rather than taking the test.
♥
How many people see that as a good thing? (Aside from me, I mean?)

Anyway, my next class after that is the African American Literature class. The first day, I couldn't even find the building. It was in the Arena, but the Arena recently underwent a name change, so I simply got rather lost. I found it Wednesday and we'd already started on W.E.B. DuBoise's The Souls of Black Folk. (This is the class that pretty much gave me a starting load of eight inches of literature. I've read almost everything for the class as of today.)
Dr. Andrade entered the room looking like a time-traveler from the eighties, with big hair, hoops, bellbottoms, and heels. (It looked good on her, though! And it's not like I can say anything in the fashion department. I look MUCH weirder myself.) She looks about forty or so.
Listening to her, I'd say she's been in America most of her life, but you can still hear the faintest roundness around the words, and by her features and the roundness, I'd say she's originally from the islands. Probably Jamaica in particular. (The accent is almost unnoticeable unless you really listen for it.) She also has the mix of features that are pretty usual for Islanders--a lot of the people from around there are a mix of everything: white, black, hispanic, asian, etc.
She's giving us a LOT of cool historical stuff at the moment. (I'm one of the paler kids in the class of course.) But I'm looking forward to it and catching up on DuBoise, and already thoroughly enjoying it. This'll also work out well for the future profession of doom and all that.

There's a break here for lunch, then onward i went to Phenomenology.
Of all the things I had on the list, I have to admit this one worried me the most. I don't ahve any official background or classes in Philosophy after all, and msot of my hobby of ancient things in general is just that, ANCIENT. So I have general concepts and background in classical philosophy, but almost none in modern philosophy.
Phenomenology is a school of modern philosophy centering around the use of objects, apparently, and Professor Torsen made it sound frightful the first day. She had us write in cards about what courses we'd taken already, and most of the class was comprised of Philosophy Majors.
Still, I talked to her after, and I'm feeling a bit better. Fortunately I come from the hosue I do. Reading Hegel isn't a problem for me, nor is getting my hands on his works for background understanding.
Dr. Torsen comes off as a sort of serious young academic. A sort of no-nonsense type, and she has this very slight british accent which is more evident in the way she structures her sentences and her choice of vocab than it is by the accent itself. (The accent's more prominant than Dr. Adrade's though. It's a little tricky to explain the nuances in text.)
She gave me some reading to look into, and after looking throught aht, I actually realized my rather shoddy general background knowledge isn't as useless as I thought. (Knowing what a solipsist is automatically helps, for instance...)
I actually met an indian girl while I was chatting with Professor Torsen. Archet. She's in both my philosophy classes--Philosophy major, Phsyics minor, FORMER physics major. She's pretty nice. I can make obscure physics references and she gets them, then makesmore obscure ones I have to ask her about. My number of nerd friends has increased again... (♥)

Philosophy of Time was the course I was most looking forward to. Ever since I was a nine-year-old and turned in a paper about the difference between einsteinian and newtonian physics to my rather surprised teacher (And got a B just because she didn't understand what I was talking about!) I've been waiting to actually go deeper into detail about this sort of thing. It's like destiny to find a course like this which will talk about the theories without all that math which befuddles my non-calculus brain.
Ironically, my first impression of my professor was that the Philosophy of Time professor was late to class.
(Which is priceless to me if you know how much I love ironies. I thought that was like the cherry on the cake. The possibility of more such ironies made me inexplicably love the class more.)
When she comes in, my first impression is of Jamie Lee Curtis with short, spiky red hair, a sweatervest and about forty extra pounds minus the makeup and face-lifting devices. Also make her about mid-sixties. Doctor Beer (pronounced "bear") is basically a physicist who went into quantum, started asking "Why" more than "How" and converted into a philosophy person. Our first classes have been about whether or not Time is simply a definition of change. (Obama fans--this is the class for you if you want change!)
And shock of all shocks, the textbook Travels in Four Dimensions is not only readable, but gave me the start of my life--Chapter one features a reference to uncle Oates.
GREAT-Uncle Oates, I should say. He's my grandfather's uncle, and he was actually a Philosopher and/or logician. I only knew of him rather vaguely. But there was no mistaking the smelling of the name, or the story of the man who questioned time. Uncle Oates actually had stories about "Frank and Milly" (Those are my paternal grandparents) to illustrate his points.
I knew Uncle Oates did philosophy, but this is the first time I've seen his work referenced.
I actually banged on my mom's door at about eleven o clock at night because it excited me. (Which didn't gain me any points might I add...)
I've hunted down the two books in the hosue written by him and have been trying to slough my way through those in addition to my reading.
Talk about cool.

The Milton class I'll have to get back to. (Phenomenology and Philosophy of Time are calling me right now...)
Let's just leave it at for now that I have a prof who looks like the spitting image of House M.D., only bald, with three earrings, and a gray suit.
let your brain tumble over that for now.

Where U at? kolledj Attention duelists! My hair is cheerful Listening to: Brave Saint Saturn--Shadow of Def tags: spring 2009 professors, spring 2009 schedule