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2004-09-13 - 6:59 p.m.
when will I ever learn?
Since I only need 8 classes to graduate, I’m only taking 4 this semester and 4 in the spring. And I only need a couple more courses to fulfill my English major, and a couple others for gen. ed. requirements, so for pretty much the first time in my college career, after 4 years, I have wiggle room for some electives. So this semester I’m taking one English class I need for my major, an English class and a Geography class for gen. ed.’s, and then a EMF (electronic media and film) class for the hell of it, figuring that it will be at best interesting, and at worst not very hard. The biggest difference in my class schedules this semester from the last few is that for the first time in a while I’m not taking any night classes. For a while I really liked them and took as many as I could. But since I don’t need many classes this semester and I like to schedule my on-campus work hours for the daytime, I found that I can pretty much get all 4 of my classes and my 20 hours of work done every week without ever needing to be on campus past 5p.m. And since I only work nights at my other job and I have band practice one or 2 nights a week, I like to keep as many nights open as possible, so when I don’t have to work or practice, I can just chill at home. I can kind of tell this is going to be an easy semester because every single one of my classes spent significant class time in the first 2 weeks watching some kind of movie or video. The English class I need for my major is a literary essay class, which is one I’ve been kinda looking forward to, because that’s kind of my biggest area of interest. I love writing creative nonfiction, that’s kind of what I do all the time in one way or another. I don’t know how much I’ll enjoy this class, though. The professor seems to know his stuff and is pretty open minded as to what he’s willing to accept as topics in our assignments. But sometimes when the assignment is too broad, it’s hard for me to focus on what exactly to write about. Also, even though the guy has worked as ivy league schools, he’s one of these guys who’s not very cut out for teaching no matter how much he knows. He talks very softly and it’s hard to hear him in a classroom full of people, and those are the kinds of professors who will always put you to sleep even if you weren’t the slightest bit sleepy when you walked in. But he at least seems laid back. We spend 2 of the first 3 class sessions watching Finding Forrester, for no apparent reason other than that it’s about writing. My Geography professor is pretty much the exact opposite, at least in terms of teaching methods. There’s always those teachers who like to run their classroom like a game show, and I have never seen a more extreme example than this guy. He spends the entire class period every class mugging and quipping away, asking people questions more like contestants than students. He even makes cracks about us being his “studio audience”. People like this are kind of exhausting to be around socially, so to be stuck in a room with one for an hour twice a week where they have free reign to be absolute attention whores can be kind of torturous. But again, he seems like a nice guy and the class shouldn’t be too hard. I have that Geography class on Tuesday, and the class I have after it is in the room directly above it, same place on the next floor up. It’s my other English class, which is something called Rhetoric And Science, although it’s still really an English class, there’s not much real scientific thinking involved. So far it’s mostly been reading articles about historic scientists and their discoveries. Since my girlfriend studies genetic engineering, I already knew a bit about Watson and Crick and that stuff already and it’s nice to be able to ask J.G. about stuff I might not understand. The professor is one of those sweet old ladies who’s probably plenty smart, but is a little too over the hill to be a very effective teacher. She’s been so occupied with the concern of learning the names and faces of her students at the beginning of the semester that she’s spent a ridiculous amount of class time asking all of us to either bring in personal photos or schedule time with her to come in and tell her about ourselves so that she can get to know us individually and learn our names. After barely anyone brought in any photos the first week, she actually spent 20 minutes of a class trying to schedule time for everyone to come in before or after class. It was such a waste of time - she probably could’ve just done it right there if she wasn’t worried about wasting so much class time. My film class is one long class session once a week like most night classes are, except it’s on Friday afternoons. The professor is, once again, a guy who has a lot of knowledge and experience (he works at the local NBC affiliate), but isn’t very cut out for teaching. He tends to stare at the floor while addressing the class. But since a lot of the class is just watching films in order to understand certain types of editing and narratives and such, it doesn’t matter that much. So far that class is pretty enjoyable. Of course, the one thing that always seems to loom over my head the first few weeks of the semester is not being able afford books right away. Every time, I tell myself that I won’t let it happen again and I’ll make sure I have some saved up. But the last couple months have been pretty rough on me financially. I bought one book, for one of my English classes, but realized it was completely useless and that I still really needed the money I’d spent on it to make rent, so I took it back for a refund. It’s the 3rd week of school and I’m going to finally be able to afford to buy some books when I get paid this week. Sometimes waiting can be beneficial because then you know which ones you’ll actually need to do assignments and won’t have to waste money on the ones you don’t. But I’m starting to fall behind in some of the classes. It just sucks that I work so much and money is still enough of a problem that it’s hurting my studies. Most of my friends at Towson have graduated in the past year or two, so I don’t see a lot of people I know in classes anymore, but I was surprised this semester to have a class with this guy Stu, who I work with at the sub shop. He just transferred to Towson this semester and I’d talked with him about it a bit at work, but he’s not an English major so I didn’t expect him to show up in one of my classes. The first day of class, he wasn’t there, but they called his name on the attendance sheet, so I knew he was in there, and he was kind of surprised to see me when he showed up the 2nd day. He’s a nice guy, kind of the quiet nervous type, but he’s always been pretty cool to work with and once or twice has invited me to come to one of his parties or something, although I’ve never made it out to one. After I’d told him about how I was in no position to buy any books yet the first week, he did something nice and photocopied the readings we needed for homework and brought a copy for me to work. Hopefully I’ll be able to afford a book of my own soon so I don’t need him to keep doing me any favors, though. This should be a good semester once I get going. I’m really so sick of school, though. I just want to get through this last year with the minimum required effort and get my degree and get out. -al
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