If anyone actually cares what I am studying:

I'm taking "Early Modern Europe" covering 1600-1789. We're looking at the development of the modern state. It should be interesting. The class is located in a strange room, in the law school's building. It's got three tiers in a semicircle, with two doors. I suspect that the room was designed for debating and public speaking.

Next up is "The Early American Republic" covering 1789-1848. (Notice how that date lines up with the prior course?) That one has a bit of a throw-back in that we're going on a field trip. Just like high school! The reason is that the instructor is a War of 1812 specialist, and there are bunches of relevant sites nearby. That professor is also teaching one of the "Discovery Seminars" this semester. Those are one-credit hour pass/fail courses, meeting once a week for one hour with no homework. The idea is to expose underclassmen to other fields; so each department has a Discovery Seminar, with competition to make it seem cool to lure students to the department. Anyway, this guy's class is called "Pirates!" He admitted being annoyed that there are no actual freshmen or sophomores in his class. Apparently that subject was exciting enough that all seats were taken by upperclassmen. Perhaps UB should only allow underclassmen to join the Discovery Seminars? Not my problem, I suppose.

For my seminar, I signed up for "The Great War in Europe" whose dates should need no explanation. But when I got there, the professor apologized and said that there had been a copy-and-paste error in the course catalog, and this course was actually "The Thirty-Years War" and if we didn't like that we could get the hell out. Me, I am more interested now than I was when I thought it was about WWI. The Thirty Years War is unusual in that it actually did last for the specified number of years, as opposed to the Hundred Years War, the Seven Year War, the Eleven Years War, and probably a few others I've forgotten about. For those who don't recall offhand, it ran from 1618-1648, and of course partially overlaps with the Early Modern Europe class I'm taking. They even have one book in common, which will save me money and reading time.

Lastly, I'm taking German 102, not because I love studying languages, but because I have to. Sadly, my schedule this semester precluded taking Chorus. I feel a but guilty about that, because I talked a girl I know into joining it, despite her nervousness about never having been an organized singer. Ah well, I hope my friends have a good time singing without me.

I also am at only 14 credit hours. I don't want to take another history class: I'll be reading 400-500 pages per week as is, and then of course writing papers and doing an hour or so of language drills a week. This is why I don't go to parties. I'd like one more credit hour, though, as you need to have 15 credit hours to get on the dean's list. And gym classes don't count, otherwise I'd be in Intermediate Backpacking already. Or maybe Ballroom Dancing. Either way. At any rate, I am on the lookout for an easy-looking class to top off my schedule.

For Christmas, I got myself a subscription to Amazon Prime, making a single payment in exchange for getting everything I order from Amazon.com delivered second-day air. I'm getting all my textbooks from them, at substantial savings over the university bookstore. I feel a vague twinge of guilt in that two of my friends are full-time employees of university bookstores, but I assuage my guilt by realizing that I saved about $100, even including the cost of Amazon Prime. Prime also lets me do more shopping online; two-day shipping replaces a trip to the store in a way that seven-day shipping does not. I got a new potato masher, a new watch, and a replacement baking rack that way.

Posted by: Boviate at 07:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 677 words, total size 4 kb.