Second Day of School!

Hello again!

Well, Wednesdays and Fridays are going to be very stressful days, that is for sure. I have four classes all in a row, which is something I have not had since high school. All of my classes seem as if they are going to be very interesting and I will learn a lot. However, the reading load for all of them is a bit overwhelming. >.< Have about 50 to 100 pages of reading for each of the history classes and other types of homework for the Japanese language. I suppose it is good that I am done with classes earlier in the day and have the majority of Tuesdays and Thursdays to play catch up. The weekends too will be spent preparing for the week's reading assignments and making sure all of my writing assignments are up to par.

In some ways, I like the assignment management philosophy here at Skidmore. For most of my classes, I am given a certain number of writing assignments, but I get to choose when I write them and about what I write. This gives me the flexibility to decide when I need to write these assignments, but also teaches me how to further time manage and figure out when it would be the best to get them out of the way.

On the other hand, most of my classes are very heavy on the discussion side of a class. For the benefits of being able to talk about my ideas in class, I also kind of prefer the "chalk and talk" method for some of the historical specificity and basic knowledge learning. But, we shall see what happens as I expand my brain usage to encompass fast analytical skills in the classroom. (Right now they are at a medium speed >.<)

Anyway, here is a break down of my classes:

First thing in the morning I have Medieval history, which is going to be a fun class. Whilst looking at the specificity, the professor also stressed how we will be looking at a lot of the themes and the mindset of the Middle Ages. Lots of reading.

Next I go to British History. So, going into this class, I thought it was both a domestic and empirical look at British history. Not really. It is more focused on British colonization and holdings within the world. So, I kind of did not read the syllubus carefully. But, nonetheless, it will be a fascinating course which does not have an exact match at UNC...something is should discuss with the history department, me thinks. Lots of reading.

After that, I go to Japanese language class. This shall be interesting. My sensei (teacher) wishes for me to take a placement test tomorrow (o.O) and see if the class is a good place for me. The only problem is that I am truly very rusty. I was able to understand him perfectly well today in class, but I could not speak as well as I had hoped I could remember nor am I able to recognize as many kanji as I think I ought to for that class. But perhaps this will be a good class and I will have to work hard to play catch-up for a bit in this class.

Finally, I go to my Enlightenment class. This will probably be the most amazing class for the semester. It is pretty much discussion based and will heavily focus on trying to understand how people in Europe thought in during this time period. Also, at the end of the class, we get to create our own Social Contract, which will be very exciting to see how that turns out. Lots of reading.

So, in all, this happens in the span of five hours in the morning to early afternoon. Hopefully, I will be able to keep my brain going all day and be able to think clearly for all of the classes. I am hoping as well that I do not mix Japanese into either the British history class (in preparation for Japanese) or in the Enlightenment class (having just gotten out of the class).

Also, this schedule is for Wednesdays and Fridays. On Mondays I only have the British history class and Japanese. So it will be nice getting back into the week, but will be an uphill struggle to finish. TT.TT

On a completely different note, I have noticed the way east coast people eat their pizza. Many people fold it in half and eat it like a sandwich. I have seen this at home, but it is much more frequent here. I am curious to know why this is and will have to inquire about it from my suitemates.

Well, until next time,

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." ~W. Churchill