The jumbled mess of thoughts inside my mind

I just noticed a significant typo from my last post: by ‘tonight’ I meant tomorrow.  My only excuse is that last night I was studying for my English midsem, trying not to panic about its vagueness, and rapidly completing my NCAA bracket (Ohio State championship run?  I think yes).

This week was midsem week.  Last week wasn’t too hot either – two papers and a test last week, and then three happy, subjective, essay-based exams this week.  If there’s anything you’ve been dying to know about Cicero, basic sociology terms, or Puritans, you’re too late – I already flushed that information.  ;)

And now it’s rant time.  See, my English professor told us what we needed to know for the midsem today, so I dutifully learned it. Then I showed up to class.  The section about term identification?  Replaced with a section comparing modern pieces we read to Puritan lit.  It wasn’t quite what I had studied for, but I was too busy frantically writing to worry about it at the time.  Which brings me to my next point – our class is an hour and twenty minutes long.  We had six one-paragraph long responses to write, three three-paragraph comparative essays, and another essay which was to be as long as possible.  This is not feasible in an hour and twenty minutes.  My professor is absolutely brilliant, but clearly the concept of time is lost on him.

Midsems week was interesting.  It was significantly more intense than anything I’d experienced at Denison – I would go so far as to say midsems here is comparable to DU’s finals week, but as always, it depends on the individual and the course load.  I happened to have four tests and two papers, all within two weeks, but apparently this is the anomaly.  That being said, it’s not entirely fair to compare institutions – having now attended two colleges, I do know that there are differences, but college is so much an individual experience that I can’t say what’s better or worse, but only what’s better for me.  And despite the last two weeks of near-hell, I can still confidently say Grinnell is better for me.  I love it here.  The weather is finally nice, campus is beautiful, the people are amazing, academics are phenomenal, and opportunities are endless.

Also, the food.  For the longest time, the vegan section was great.  The food was edible and normal-colored, for one, and it didn’t generally involve large quantities of tofu.  Now, it’s strange, too-spicy, and often inedible.  However, despite this sad occurrence in the dining hall, there is a positive: my lactose intolerance seems to be lessening.  As a good friend can attest, I had a slice of pizza (GLORIOUS), cheddar-cornbread (with butter – butter has never tasted better), and weird chip/bread things with cheese.  I didn’t feel great at first, but I think that was mostly placebo effect.  If I could eat cheese . . . suddenly the dining hall would be exciting again.  :) 

To my loyal followers . . .

. . . I apologize for my silence.  I am still alive, but I've been dealing with three midsems (one of which starts in thirty-five minutes), doing laundry (it was desperate), and declaring my major (hint: IT'S NOT ENGLISH).

I will write more tonight.  Promise.  A reflection of midsems week, including perhaps brief commentaries on the differences from Denison and the recent drop in food quality at the D-hall.

OMG A PICTURE

My mom has inspired me, but don't expect this to last.  :)

I covered my OWN PAPER in ink.  I must be crazy.  On the other hand, I tend to do well on papers, so maybe there is some reason to this madness.

Also, shout-out to my grandparents who will be visiting shortly!!!!!!!  Can't wait to show them around Grinnell - I think the tour of the campus will take longer than the tour of town.  :D

Warning! Nerd alert!

It is with great joy that I announce my English professor will let us write about “a topic of our choosing” for our first substantial paper.  And why, you may ask, does the prospect of writing a six-page paper excite me?  Well, I might answer, it’s because once again I will be writing an English paper that will slowly but surely turn into a theological paper, thus making my dorky self quite happy.

We’ve been talking about Puritans and their religious views, which really is not good for Christianity as a whole, because the Puritans tend to be very confused, to ignore Biblical texts, and to make me angry.  Thus, in my paper I will be arguing just that, that the Puritanical beliefs do not have their basis in Scripture. 

Also, as you may have deduced from my writing style, I am once again alone in the German Seminar Room and am trying to psych myself up for some more late night reading.  J

Ramblings from the German Seminar Room

Last week was crazy.  I had a sociology research paper to tackle, which was an adventure in and of itself (I barely know how to write if I’m not analyzing metaphors or arguing for Biblical themes in books), way too many books of the Aeneid to read, and two chapters of bio.  However, I came out alive and unscathed, and I’m pleasantly surprised by the apparent calmness of this week.  Of course, I worry I’m forgetting something (like that bio presentation due next Monday or Wednesday . . . hmmm), but it certainly appears that the workflow will ebb and flow.

I believe it’s time for an update on my classes.  First of all, we’re entering the fifth week of classes.  Where did time go?  I feel as if I’ve been here forever, but not in a bad way.  Here are three reasons why time going by quickly is a good thing:

     1)   The weekends arrive that much sooner.

     2)   It means you’re really busy (which I am. Yay!)

     3)   By the time you process that you haven’t seen your family in two months, you’re back home for spring break.

But I digress.  Back to classes, in order of least favorite to most favorite.

4.  Biotechnology and social impact (Code for insanely annoying technical terms and liberal-leaning opinions):

Technically it’s my ‘easiest’ class, because the homework is minimal, but it is also science and therefore rather foreign to me, considering my last science class was chemistry on-line approximately three years ago.  Everything makes perfect sense in class with Prof. Robertson, an adorable little-old-lady with an awesome collection of stylish boots, but then I leave and am overwhelmed by nightmares of transcription, translation, reproduction, hybridization, and all the other processes that occur on the microscopic level.  So far it’s been a lecture class which, while straightforward, means it’s not always particularly interesting.

3.  English American Lit (currently known as “Apparently Puritans are the only Americans worth reading”):

I will give the Puritans credit – they wrote a lot about God, which was good.  My favorite kind of English paper involves bringing religion into novels in slightly tenuous ways, but the Puritans do that for me.  Sadly, they seem to miss the main point of Jesus most of the time, which means I often find myself, while studying alone, yelling at Puritans for misrepresenting Christianity to all the atheists in my class (of which there are many).  Instead of answering the professor’s prompt (oops), I happily argued that the Puritans were picking their favorite parts of both the Old and New Testaments and ignoring the rest.

Anyway, the class is pretty good.  The professor is passionate without being crazy (it’s a nice change), but man, does he go in-depth over the most ridiculous little things.  I think the constant over-analysis of EVERYTHING is what has finally disillusioned me as to the English major.  Eventually you have to ask yourself . . . “perhaps Mary Rowlandson didn’t MEAN anything with the change of pronouns.  Perhaps she just couldn’t WRITE properly.”  But no, we analyze everything, and this class more so than others.  It’s a bit excessive, even for me.

2. Humanities 102: Intro to GreekImeanRoman World

Speaking of crazy, Professor Mease.  Wow.  We’re in the Humanities class pertaining to the Roman world, yet she’s disappointed when we can’t answer her questions on the Greeks, and every other tangent involves Greeks I’ve never heard of and who I hope won’t make a surprise appearance on the midterm.

I complain about her teaching methods (a lot), and sometimes I wonder if I’m learning anything, but when I’m reading so much awesome, classic literature, I feel that it’s worth all the suffering.  I’m nearly done with “The Aeneid,” an epic poem I always meant to tackle, and I enjoy it quite a bit.  Even if she doesn’t teach me much, I’ll have significantly broadened my horizons. 

Also, the Romans should pick one name for their characters and stick with that.  Please.

1.  Intro to Sociology (aka “Dad is always right”)

I. LOVE. SOCIOLOGY. 

It’s the reading I start with every night.  ----  I actually love participating in class.  --- Our world is not at all what I thought it was. --- I can analyze everyone even more!  --- the readings address all my questions about humanity (minus the religious element) --- the novels I’ve already written deal with the stuff I’m now officially learning --- I can’t wait for linguistics

English

"And then Aaron and the magicians had a, a . . . a magic-off."

- Professor Andrews explaining the Biblical story where Aaron challenges the Egyptian magicians to turn their staffs into snakes.  :)

Writing (or is it editing?) 101

      I just finished the rough draft of a sociology paper, and I can tell you right now, I’m sure it’s crap.  I have zero confidence in what I wrote, yet I also know I HAD to get these ideas, however undeveloped and off-point they might be, onto paper.  I needed to immerse myself in the style of a “sociological report” which involves writing in first person (something I avoid at all costs when writing academic papers) and drawing conclusions from data I collected first hand (wait, this is suddenly sounding very scientific . . . ).  Basically, I had to give this paper a whirl.   

      And then I realized something.  I write by editing.  For creative works, I’m all about writing – getting those ideas out on paper and then letting them sit there for a healthy amount of time before attacking them with a red pen.  Not so with essays. 

      I’ve known this for awhile, that I need to edit to refine my writing, but it wasn’t until now that I realized how much I rely on editing to complete my writing.  Sometimes I’ll print out a paper, cover it in red ink, and then wonder why I wrote the draft in the first place if I decided to completely change it.  But if I’d never written the bad stuff, I couldn’t have uncovered the good. 

     

      I know this may not make sense to all of you, and trust me, I envy you students who can write a pretty spectacular paper on the first try.  Sometimes this happens to me, and then I panic that I’ve lost my editing skills when I’m not making enough changes.  At the same time I envy you, however, I do want to say that I adore editing, perhaps even more than I love writing.  Honestly, it’s not always the paper itself I look forward to; it’s those feelings of power, improvement, and excitement that rush through me when I pick up that wonderful red pen and attack my own work.

      Sorry, I let my nerdiness come out there.  :P  But still . . . it’s exciting to think I can take a paper I don’t like, written in a style I’ve never used before, about a research assignment that doesn’t thrill me, and turn it into something worth handing to my professor.  It’s a different approach, a different skill.

    

      So while you’re pulling an all-nighter writing that brilliant paper, I’ll be sleeping . . . and waking up a little earlier than usual so I can look over that paper one last time.