Hey All,
Wow, the semester has gotten started with a BANG. Ok, not a huge life-changing event kind of bang that happens all at once, but a slow and subtle bang. Like thunder. Slow and loud thunder. The first week is always full of syllabi (is that the plural of syllabus?) and new classes, it lulls you into a false sense of security. Come week two, it's nose to the grindstone (which always sounded monumentally unpleasant). Right now my nose is being ground but I'm a taking a minute to update you about my life! Here's what I'll do. Instead of the boring, what are you taking bla bla I'll just run through my day. That should give all y'all a good idea of what's going on.
I woke up around 8am, took a shower, ate two fried eggs and a fruit smoothie and biked to campus. I live about 3 minutes biking from school, right on "the hill". My first class of the day was Western Art: Pre-Historic to Medieval. We're talking about the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom right now. We were discussing if there was a "standard" of art in ancient Egypt and looking at the different ways people were represented and the continuity of that representative style throughout their civilization. Also, this will blow your mind, did you know that from Cleopatra's perspective the pyramids were older to her then Cleopatra is to us? That is more time passed between the construction of the Great Pyramids at Giza and Cleopatra's lifetime then between us and Cleopatra. Pretty cool stuff.
I then headed directly to my next class called Origins of Life in the Universe. It is SO interesting. I am not majoring in any hard science nor do I have an interest in studying astronomy, biology, chemistry or what have you, but this class? Wow. The class is designed for non science majors and let me say, it is the perfect combination of "doing science" (aka it's not that dumbed down) and just super interesting fun science time (aka it's not as hardcore as a for-majors class). Today we talked about the formation of elements in stars via solar fusion. There was only Hydrogen and Helium and the rest of the elements were formed from them because of the intense heat and pressure at the heart at the core of stars. As a plus, to demonstrate how a star forms (spinning gas goes faster and faster as it is compressed) our professor got on this spinning device and actually had someone spin him. When he pulled his arms in, he went faster, therefore spinning gas spins faster as it gets smaller and more compressed. It was a great visual example and we got to watch our professor spin! Also pretty cool stuff.
I left that class with my head spinning (get it? spinning?) with the awesomeness of it all and headed to the library. I took the next 4 hours to finish reading for tomorrow and write two reading responses. One was for my class called The Anthropology of Violence (I'm proud of this so I'm going to share it: our professor assigned 200 PAGES of reading for Thursday and I did it all. Gahhhh). In that class right now we're talking about the Hunger Strikes in the 70's in Ireland. I also did a response for art history. Nothing too fancy, just a discussion about an article we read. I was a bad person and ate a sandwich in the library while doing my work. Just don't tell anyone! I then wrote a proposal for my final class, Social Theory, for how and when I will write certain papers. Our professor realizes that everyone has very different schedules so instead of assigning a fixed due date, he's letting us decide when to do the paper. Once we tell him when he's going to hold us to it, this is just a way for us (who are all upper level Sociology/Anthropology majors) to work when we can.
After the library fun I biked home and had some snacks. I watched an episode of The West Wing (*note: it is very important to take some "me time" every day. Just one thing that is fun. My thing is my afternoon snack and TV time) and kicked back for a bit. I then was picked up by my friend who volunteers for the Campus Activities Board (CAB) and worked on my Origins of Life homework while she set up for an event. The event we were there for was a talk by Jerry from Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream! It was really interesting and afterwards we all got free ice cream. I then called my mother to say hello (everyone remember to call your parents/guardians sometimes!). Since my friend was staying on campus to work in the library I went to the Campus Safety office and they gave me a lift home so I wouldn't have to walk alone at night.
That brings us to now. I'm eating some dinner and writing this (rather long) account of my day. Tomorrow will be another fun one, in addition to class I'm tutoring for Spanish and giving an admissions tour in the afternoon!
As always send me your questions comments and concerns to smiller@lclark.edu!
Sara
Wow, the semester has gotten started with a BANG. Ok, not a huge life-changing event kind of bang that happens all at once, but a slow and subtle bang. Like thunder. Slow and loud thunder. The first week is always full of syllabi (is that the plural of syllabus?) and new classes, it lulls you into a false sense of security. Come week two, it's nose to the grindstone (which always sounded monumentally unpleasant). Right now my nose is being ground but I'm a taking a minute to update you about my life! Here's what I'll do. Instead of the boring, what are you taking bla bla I'll just run through my day. That should give all y'all a good idea of what's going on.
I woke up around 8am, took a shower, ate two fried eggs and a fruit smoothie and biked to campus. I live about 3 minutes biking from school, right on "the hill". My first class of the day was Western Art: Pre-Historic to Medieval. We're talking about the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom right now. We were discussing if there was a "standard" of art in ancient Egypt and looking at the different ways people were represented and the continuity of that representative style throughout their civilization. Also, this will blow your mind, did you know that from Cleopatra's perspective the pyramids were older to her then Cleopatra is to us? That is more time passed between the construction of the Great Pyramids at Giza and Cleopatra's lifetime then between us and Cleopatra. Pretty cool stuff.
I then headed directly to my next class called Origins of Life in the Universe. It is SO interesting. I am not majoring in any hard science nor do I have an interest in studying astronomy, biology, chemistry or what have you, but this class? Wow. The class is designed for non science majors and let me say, it is the perfect combination of "doing science" (aka it's not that dumbed down) and just super interesting fun science time (aka it's not as hardcore as a for-majors class). Today we talked about the formation of elements in stars via solar fusion. There was only Hydrogen and Helium and the rest of the elements were formed from them because of the intense heat and pressure at the heart at the core of stars. As a plus, to demonstrate how a star forms (spinning gas goes faster and faster as it is compressed) our professor got on this spinning device and actually had someone spin him. When he pulled his arms in, he went faster, therefore spinning gas spins faster as it gets smaller and more compressed. It was a great visual example and we got to watch our professor spin! Also pretty cool stuff.
I left that class with my head spinning (get it? spinning?) with the awesomeness of it all and headed to the library. I took the next 4 hours to finish reading for tomorrow and write two reading responses. One was for my class called The Anthropology of Violence (I'm proud of this so I'm going to share it: our professor assigned 200 PAGES of reading for Thursday and I did it all. Gahhhh). In that class right now we're talking about the Hunger Strikes in the 70's in Ireland. I also did a response for art history. Nothing too fancy, just a discussion about an article we read. I was a bad person and ate a sandwich in the library while doing my work. Just don't tell anyone! I then wrote a proposal for my final class, Social Theory, for how and when I will write certain papers. Our professor realizes that everyone has very different schedules so instead of assigning a fixed due date, he's letting us decide when to do the paper. Once we tell him when he's going to hold us to it, this is just a way for us (who are all upper level Sociology/Anthropology majors) to work when we can.
After the library fun I biked home and had some snacks. I watched an episode of The West Wing (*note: it is very important to take some "me time" every day. Just one thing that is fun. My thing is my afternoon snack and TV time) and kicked back for a bit. I then was picked up by my friend who volunteers for the Campus Activities Board (CAB) and worked on my Origins of Life homework while she set up for an event. The event we were there for was a talk by Jerry from Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream! It was really interesting and afterwards we all got free ice cream. I then called my mother to say hello (everyone remember to call your parents/guardians sometimes!). Since my friend was staying on campus to work in the library I went to the Campus Safety office and they gave me a lift home so I wouldn't have to walk alone at night.
That brings us to now. I'm eating some dinner and writing this (rather long) account of my day. Tomorrow will be another fun one, in addition to class I'm tutoring for Spanish and giving an admissions tour in the afternoon!
As always send me your questions comments and concerns to smiller@lclark.edu!
Sara