Second semester has started! Hooray! Actually, you know, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I will unashamedly admit that I was not looking forward to this stage of my life--sophomore year did not treat me kindly until Interim, really, so starting a new semester looked like it was going to feel like having to get out of cool, ocean waters and stepping onto sun-baked sand with my bare, unaccustomed feet. But here I am, middle of week three, and still alive. And some might even suggest that I am thriving. Those people might be overreaching a bit, but I would definitely say I am enjoying myself.
The new classes I'm taking are as follows.
Creative Writing
Graphic Novels
Chaucer
Early American literature
History of the English Language
[Great Ideas, Great Texts]
That last class is only barely considered a class in my mind. It's my floor's class, and it's more like an extracurricular activity; you know, like that little-league baseball team your father wanted you to be on for seven years, even though you never found it in your heart to enjoy it. And somehow, every other kid on the team had been coerced onto it, too, so all you had was a baseball diamond filled with kids who would have rather been playing soccer, or maybe chess, or maybe just plucking dandelions in the outfield.
So...I only barely count it as a class.
I was signed up to take a jogging class, but after I sprained my ACL while snowboarding over Interim break, I dropped it.
And the end result of all this is that my semester looks like one giant book. Sometimes with pictures, and sometimes in an almost undecipherable version of the English language, but always open and always needing to be read. My, how beautiful it is to be an English major.
Dutifully, though, I refuse to complain too bitterly, because, not only did I sign up for this major, and more specifically, this course load knowing the page-count was going to break my slow-reading back, but I'm actually reading things I enjoy. I mean, Mary Rowlandson isn't exactly an energizing or exciting piece of literature, but I really do enjoy the conversation her writing prompts, and I'm glad to finally be learning the more private sector of my country's history after having lived in America for twenty years. And yeah, Chaucer's language is almost entirely different from my own, but it sounds beautiful (this is not the best recording I've found, but it gives you a good taste) and he's really quite imaginative.
My favorite class, though, has to be my creative writing class. It's set up in a workshop style, (which is bad for all the trees out there, because my professor insists that we print 16 copies of every story, all of which are 6-12 pages long...) and even though we've only gone over this one two-page character and setting development, I've already gotten a lot out of it and I really appreciate the class and the professor and how everything is working together. I don't appreciate that it's at 9:00 in the morning, but I'm beginning to consider it a good way to start my day, and since it's a MWF class, my week as well.
The hardest chore of my semester, I can already tell, is going to be trying to keep up with my "no homework on Sundays" rule that I implemented for the first time last semester. Last Sunday I had to break that rule just a little bit in order to proof and read my short story as well as finish a really quick-read graphic novel.
Generally, though, I'm really enjoying myself this semester. Amanda and I did a roommate switch with another pair of girls who weren't getting along, and that's really changed my dynamic at school. Carley, my new roommate, and I were friends before we moved in together, which is a brand new experience. Also, she's much more social than my other two roommates have been, so on the weekends, and sometimes on weeknights, our room is full of people. The first weekend we were together, that was really hard for me, because I was so used to having my room to escape to when I got sick of people. But I'm adjusting as best I can, and I think having a more social roommate has helped me get to know some people I wouldn't otherwise.
And Carley and I play fetus tag with a little plastic fetus that I inherited from someone who had had it thrown at him by some pro-life committee on campus or something. We call the fetus by a variety of "F" or "Ph" names (Carley's favorite is Philipe) and take turns hiding it in each other's things.
All in all, a good start to a new semester.
Even sunny days have their shadows though. There are some interesting discussions going on on my floor about our purpose as an "intentional community," and some of the ensuing conflict has caused rifts between people and caused more harm than good. Some people are working them through, and others are choosing to ignore them as a method of showing their apathy. It's hard for me, because I want to help mend the issues, but I realize they go deeper than people's beliefs about community into people's judgements about each other and all the tension that has built up over the past semester of living in too-tight quarters together.
In other news, I went and looked at an apartment for next year. I'm pretty (cough really exceptionally outstandingly unbelievably cough) psyched about that.
Anyway. Class now.
