Regularity Has Outed. New Schedule.

I can't post on Wednesdays. I simply can't. I leave my room at 9:15 AM and I don't get back until midnight. They're my busiest days, and as such, I'm going to slightly adjust my schedule. Instead of Mon-Wed-Fri, it'll be Tue-Thur-Sat. I like this way better anyway, it lets me tell you all of my Saturday-related hijinks that very day instead of making you wait until Monday.

So. Wednesday is a horribly busy day, with a 3-hour class in the morning, then a 1-hour class, then another 3-hour class. Nearly half my entire schedule is concentrated on Wednesdays. And yet, I have no problem with that. Why? Because both of those 3-hour classes are completely awesome. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm going to give a rundown of my five classes, and how much I think I'm going to enjoy each of them.

SPN2200, Intermediate Spanish I: This is the toughest Spanish course I've yet taken. It's complicated by the fact that the teacher, except under rare circumstances, speaks only Spanish in class. I find I have to devote my full attention, all of it, to listening, or else I miss too much and don't understand a word. This doesn't even allow for things like note-taking. We'll be giving oral presentations, that should be...well, not flawless, but quite good. I'm either going to finally grasp Spanish this semester, or fail and abandon it completely. No middle ground. I am delighted, though, that except for some minor vocabulary-related decay, I haven't lost any of my proficiency with the language during the two semesters that I didn't take it.

MMC2100, Writing for Mass Communication: My most important class this semester, as it's the ur-prerequisite for nearly all of the advanced journalism courses. This class, as I have previously reported, is going to make or break things. The grading system is draconian. For a "fact error" in the stories we write during lab, that is to say, if we misspell a name or get a date wrong, it's 50 points off. 50 points. Out of 100. For one error. This...this is going to take some serious proofreading. But I'm ready to accept the challenge, tough as it may be, and I'm quite confident of being able to write in the soulless, no-flair style that efficient news writing demands. Then I'll go into features and I'll be able to write as creatively as I desire. Here's hoping for a game-reviewer or Dave-Barry-esque job in the future.

POS4931, Honors Media and War: Hoo boy. I should have realized this was a 4000-level course before I signed up for it. It's going to be intense. For one thing, the professor's definition of a "short" paper is a mere 10 pages. A long paper, such as the one we have due at the end of the semester, is anywhere between 20 and 30 pages! But we have the option of doing something besides a paper, something like an oral presentation, a video, a series of photos, etc. This class is going to be very high-intensity, and it doesn't help that what I've read of the assigned texts has bored me to tears. I'm just hoping that I might be able to get journalism-degree credit for this class. That'd be nice. Then this difficult course will not have been taken in vain. It seems to be a lot more "war" and a lot less "media" than I would have judged based on the course description. Oh well. So it goes, I suppose.

Now we get to the fun two, the two I'm really excited about.

ENG2935, Artists in Several Media: I didn't know what to expect from this course. I feared that it might be a traditional English-major "understand the underlying motifs and the irreconcilable metaphorical sub-structure and super-structure, contrast with the overlying themes and qualify your statement. Be concise" style. I was terrified of this. Luckily, it was not this way. The professor, Sid Homan, is a real ball of fire. He's one of those theater teachers who's constantly sparking off with stories and directions. He could be 70, but he moves like he's 20; one of those old men that just gets harder with age, like oak. He's a joy to work with. There are only eight people in this class, which is perfect, because it means that we can all get a chance to do some acting. That's our entire grade, acting out the scenes he's set for us to memorize with our parters. (We all partnered up in the first class. A freshman girl named Mallory is my partner. She seems nice.) There were three reaction papers that were to be 25% of our grade, but he told us to scrap those, as he hated grading papers. So the whole grade is acting. It's gonna be great.

ENG2935 (again), American Sci Fi: This was the course I was born to take. For one thing, the professor looks more or less identical to my father, except that he's a bit thinner and has gray hair instead of red hair. He seems like the sort of professor that's more suited to writing papers and studying quietly in his office...he doesn't seem the sort that takes that well to teaching. But he does a good job, with what he has. The assigned reading list:

Science Fiction: The SFRA Anthology ed. Warrick, Waugh, and Greenberg
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Screening Space by Vivian Sobchack
Science Fiction After 1900 by Brooks Landon

And a packet containing many, many short stories, including The Last Question by Isaac Asimov and I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. (Yes, he's depressing as heck, but he's a superb writer and no sci fi course would really be complete without him.) We must do ten short "reaction papers," but these will be graded on completeness, rather than accuracy. Still, though, I'm going to go all-out.

We're also watching movies in class. We saw most of The Day The Earth Stood Still last class, and we're going to go on to watch The Thing, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and Blade Runner. So, y'know, I find it hard to imagine a course I'd rather be in than this one. Even the much-vaunted Honors course "Age of the Blockbuster," wherein one basically just watches movies and writes short papers on them, has the class watching movies that are much less interesting than these are. Couple that with the fact that I'm going to use my $45 in Barnes & Noble gift cards to brush up on my fantasy, starting on maybe the Wheel of Time or A Song of Ice and Fire series, I'll finally have read all those books I've been meaning to read. This will, in turn, make me that much better a writer when I go on to start publishing my own books, which I no doubt will in the future.

So that's my course rundown. Quite nice, eh? Yes, I thought so. Some tough classes, but some really fun classes. The long Wednesday I mentioned? First class is Artists in Several Media, second is Spanish (whatever), third is American Sci Fi. So, long, but incredibly awesome.

My Luke-Approved YouTube Link of the Day is something I've shown people before, but never here, so nyah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjUz8IT0CYg It's the Angry Nintendo Nerd, a guy who reviews old and terrible Nintendo games. Recently, he branched out (read: sold out) and became the Angry Video Game Nerd, but I liked him better as the Nintendo Nerd. This is one of his first videos, in which he rips into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. WARNING! He uses lots and lots of profanity, so, kind of NWS (Not Work Safe). But he's hilarious enough to compensate for this.

REPLIES.

Mom: Well, I consider it minor, in that we took the freaking Heisman Trophy with a sophomore star quarterback, so the year wasn't a total write-off. Besides, 9-4 is nothing to sneeze at. Better than the poor lamented Dolphins. Fisticuffs are part of the fun. I'm working out the financial troubles.

Vic: I think it's all square. I'll check for sure in the morning. I'll probably get used to the class, but I doubt very much I'll like it as much as some of the others I'm taking. What was this thing of which you speak? Yes, LEGO is awesome, as is everything that refers to it. Oh, and, er, we went to the gym. I overexerted myself and both my arms are still hurting.

Steve: I'll work something out. Why would you get a razor designed to scar your face? And playing in person is nice, if possible, and it currently isn't. Which reminds me, are you coming to the Morningtide prerelease? Almost the entire spoiler is up on mtgsalvation, and let me tell you, it's even crazier than Lorwyn was. I can't find a single bad card, no matter how hard I try. And the plot is one of the best parts in SPM.

Anonymous: My luck is too terrible at gambling to allow for that. And no shame in being unoriginal, if it results in money. You should understand that.

TJ: I thought it seemed...somehow...fatter in here.