One Month Off

New classes for springtime:

HIST408N – History & Memory in Medival Islam
Wednesday 10:00am – 12:00pm
My senior methodology class that I have to take. I also needed a non-Western focused class (cause otherwise I’d be a racist?) so this seemed like the coolest. Representation is a cool concept and I think it will factor in heavily judging by the course name.
Excitement Level: 6/10 I have to take it and it could be awesome but there is a 40 page paper due at the end of it.

ARTH346 – 19th Century European Art History
Tuesday & Thursday 12:30pm – 1:45pm
I’m slightly terrified of this class. My high AP score junior year of high school was the last time I thought about Art History. I have a feeling the stuff I do understand will be great and most of the content will whiz by my head at surreal speeds. Ha ha. I’m hilarious.
Excitement Level: 7/10 sometimes that is also the Dread level score…

ENGL379R – The Jazz Paradigm
Tuesday & Thursday 2:00pm – 3:15pm
I’ve heard nothing but good things about this professor and the class. I couldn’t google him with any success and he seems like the only UMD English teacher without a bio on the department website.
Excitement Level: 9/10 Talking about Jazz as culture is so cool. Plus: A good reason to listen to Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk

ENGL312 – British Literature: Romanticism to Modernism
Tuesday & Thursday 3:30pm – 4:45pm
I have no idea what this will be like. It replaced a sociology class on gender that I thought better of at the last moment. The teacher is supposed to be nice, and I like some authors from this period. T.S. Eliot is really the only one I know well but we’ll see.
Excitement Level: 5 to 6/10

This will be the first time since 2005 that the amount of history classes I take have been outnumbered by the other subjects… I hope I can handle it. After a Spanish class over the summer and possibly a Germanic Studies course in Scandinavian Women (also over the summer and yes it is a real class) I will be done. I’ll be a graduate, an alumnus, a former student. No more homework, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks!

Also on my mind lately but unrelated: moving somewhere not on the east coast, taking up a trade, the various pros and cons of nepotism and OBAMA WON THE ELECTION!!!!!!

Laura Marling is worth checking out. She’s got the whole singer songwriter been there done that thing going on but I like her voice a lot and the video for “Ghosts” is amusing. With lyrics like “Lover please do not / fall to your knees / it’s not / like I believe in/ everlasting love” I was bound to like. Haven’t heard the whole album yet but its at least youTube worthy…

Battle Star Galactica is sweet. And addicting. Ceylons are awesome. I’m a nerd…

Listening to Intimacy by Bloc Party. New album. Highly recommend it.