12.1.09

The Golden Ass!!!

Well, my first day of classes went really well! Kendo is going to be really awesome. It's not learning to fight with the sword, but learning the way of the sword. Meditation, focus, asking questions, building strength, and learning about ourselves and fighting the self we don't like. I haven't thought about myself in that way, really. Nothing irks me about myself...but that doesn't mean I won't be able to grow or better myself. I may just find that part of me I don't like that I've never noticed before and fix it. I guess that would mostly be the part of me that is just too lazy. lol.

Then Hebrew. As soon as I walked in, irritating Kevin sprang on me with his "How are you?"'s and "How was your break?" and "Got all your applications done?!" *sigh* But the good news is - lol, joke with dad and Eric - he volunteered to move to the first Hebrew section, so I don't think I'll be seeing any more of him. *phew* Dr. Knauth basically reorganized the class syllabus a bit. We'll be focusing on more reading. I'm glad, the class was rather unorganized. Though I still thoroughly enjoyed learning how Hebrew works! We'll be getting into the nitty-gritty of the language this semester. Just to bring everyone to understand, we didn't get into the nitty-gritty of Greek until the 3rd semester. We learned it all in a rush 1st and 2nd semesters, and then really worked on getting it down the 3rd and 4th semesters by doing rote translations from the Bible. With Hebrew, we're doing both simultaneously, and it seems like I'll as good of a grasp on Hebrew in just 2 semesters what it took 4 semesters for Greek. I like Hebrew! So easy! lol.

Ancient History is going to be a BLAST. It's going to be a lot of work, but it's going to also be a lot of fun. Most of the class is composed of the Archie students, much to Dr. Chandler's dismay, lol. Which means I know most of the people pretty well, and they're all a lot of fun. The first day was actually pretty ridiculous. Golden Ass...lol. Man, I'm glad that Chandler's just as immature as half the students in the class because it makes for an amusing time. And he gets it when we make jokes...or at least responds with intense laughter and more jokes. We'll be doing a lot of reading of primary sources, translated of course, from the Greek and Latin! We'll be going super fast through the ancient ancient stuff (namely, the part of archaeology I am most interested in) and focusing on the Greek and Roman worlds (the part I've always found to be just...overdone). BUT this is a history class and not an archaeology class. History deals primarily with texts over anything else, whereas Archaeology looks at physical evidence from excavation along side of ancient texts. Historians and Archaeologists normally don't get a long, or at least mostly disagree upon how history should be studied, and that is the primary difference between the two diciplines. I chose Archaeology over History because of that difference. But I'll get into all this another time...if you're really interested, ask me about it. It'll be at least an hour conversation...erm, lecture. Haha.

So, so far this semester seems pretty good. A lot of reading for Ancient History with an interesting internet partner project again, a better organized Hebrew, and a stimulating Kendo class will make for a nice beginning and end to a week of classes, I think. We'll see how German and Ceramics go tomorrow. German's going to be a lot of work, too, but I should hope to enjoy everything we'll be doing, namely reading "uncanny tales" in German, plus at least some Poe! And it's writing intensive, which will be a lot of work in German. Ceramics I think will take up a lot of time, but very enjoyable - I hope. I can't imagine it not being that way. The only time I didn't enjoy an art class was because I didn't like the professor. But then I took the same class with a different professor and had the time of my life. But I know two students who've taken ceramics and they've enjoyed it and the professor, so I think I may, too. Besides, it'll be nice being back in an art class. I miss art.

Man, I forgot what it's like to be finished with classes early...This is the first time in a long while since I've not had a class past 4pm. It's still pretty bright outside...It's still quiet...No rushing to get to places...I like this! haha.

Heather and I saw Sammi when we were leaving History. That made me happy. She left late last semester because of a depressive episode, which I had no idea about and felt like a really bad friend for not noticing that anything was wrong. But I guess that's not really my fault. Well, this semester I will have a bit more free time than the last, so maybe I'll be able to hang out with her some more.

That being said, I still have about an hour until dinner time...I guess I'll unpack a bit more...I'm nearly finished!

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