:: My Urban Eyes ::

:: Friday, September 03, 2004 ::

Back to the School Thang

The first week of classes has now ended... it went okay. I was working three jobs at the beginning of the week, but now that's ended and I have two days of uninterrupted bliss. And homework.

My classes:

• Development of Theatre and Drama I - Such a freshman class. Tried to scare the class via syllabus, but the phrases just ended up sounding empty:

  Your continuation in this course confirms that you understand and accept the condtions of the syllabus.

  Well... duh. And the next class she gave a fake "quiz" on the syllabus, asking questions like, "What percentage of your grade is test number two?". We have a syllabus to consult, not to memorize. And the class material is not interesting, not hard, and not well taught. Icky class. Third day and I'm already doing my Japanese homework during it. ~sigh~

• Asian American Communities - Now this is how you scare people with a syllabus. The exams are take home, but essays that she expects to be near perfect because hey, you brought it home. A 15 page research paper. An oral presentation. She described the class along the lines of "rewarding, but rigorous", and I believe her. I've never taken a Soc class besides Intro, and this one is looking cooler by the minute. I can't remember the last time I had a discussion class, and needless to say, I'm enjoying it. ^_^
• Transportation Policy and Planning - Neato class. The prof is well respected in the department, and she started the class by saying, "Depending on what kind of work we get done in this class, there's a chance that a paper, published in a national journal, will come of it." Basically, she was saying, "You can change the world". What a breath of fresh air! Too often it feels like, "You're still learning what you need to know in order to have half a chance to do anything worthwhile". She's had journal articles come out of classes in the past... so who knows! ^_^
• Advanced Japanese - Wow, I wish I had time to study this summer. I need to work sooo hard. Kaya-sensei said I hit a wall, and she was so right. I only kinda felt it then. Now I can feel the wall closing in on all sides. Only fierce studying will fend it off... here goes!

First time I've only had four classes. I'm loving this free time. Can you say... pirates? ^_^

I've been trying to grab the free New York Times newspapers that show up in the dorm every morning. You gotta be early, that's for sure! Today I went through a couple back issues and cut out cool pictures to go on my wall. Down with institional white, up with newsprint! -_^

I read the paper, too, of course. Some scary stuff is going on in Russia with that school held hostage... so sad. The hostages being kids only adds to the horror of it. It's going to be interesting how the Russian government handles this whole thing. Apparently a lot of info that was originally given out was way underestimated--a number of about 200 hostages was reported at first, and now they're saying the number was close to 1,200. So scary sad.

I yanked out the crosswords... I stink at them, so I can only get anywhere on Monday and Tuesday puzzles. Forget Friday. :P