So anyway, it does not appear to be nearly as tough as the GRE that I’ve been studying hellishly for. I just took a practice exam with 90 multiple choice questions and I only missed one, and that one was estimating length based on a given scale. On the real test I would tear some paper and use it to figure out exactly what it was, but here I was using my fingers on a computer screen. So, I sort of feel ready.

In any event, wish me luck!

Since our presentation was on terrorism, I included this little gem:

Needless to say, it went over quite well.

After a moderately fine lecture in the first half of class, he announced that we would be forming a large discussion group for the second hour of class. Mind you, this is the second day of class with one reading assignment under our belt and zero context in our pre-class knowledge banks. Before we rearranged the tables to make a square, he admitted that he spent 12 hours yesterday, Monday, preparing to meet our questions. He had troubles with the English translations of primary sources and went back to the original Chinese to cross reference and verify.

Poor, poor teacher … little did he know how few actually read the assignment (I read it, sad to say), how little comprehension there was beyond the surface level (I’m in that group), and how few people care enough to comment on it. The second hour degenerated into Dr. Kang essentially berating us/himself for the class’s lack of comprehension and interest.

Hopefully this might lead him to lowering his expectations and (please!) not spending 12 hours in prep for one class session.

My first of the two is a history class: East Asian Societies. It’s essentially a compressed history of China, Japan, and Korea from prehistory to the magical date of 1600 (what happened then, I do not know).

This is the class I believe I am going to have the most trouble with. First of all, it’s a 100 level class (109 specifically), and as such should carry 100 level work. It does not. The professor has assigned 25 dense textbook pages and 40+ primary source pages with appropriate commentary for the next class, tomorrow. In my limited experience in such matters, this feels like 200 to 300 level classwork. He seems to be asking for the same amount of insight, analysis and depth that a 300 level class demands.

When I signed up for this class, I did not know who the professor would be. This was a big mistake. The previous professor got a job as an ambassador to China or some such and I was told that this class (with him) was great. So I signed up. I found out a week or two ago that they had finally hired a visiting professor, one Wenqing Kang, to teach the class.

A little googling determined that he was a first-year professor who had just finished his dissertation on “Male Same-Sex Relations in Twentieth-Century China.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with his topic of choice nor the implications with which that leads, I just don’t like the first-year professor part. Admittedly, he did teach undergraduates while he was a graduate student.

First-year teachers don’t know what to expect. They base everything on their own experience as a student. Thus they tend to set the bar a little high–since they were doctoral students, their acumen in educational pursuits was quite lofty–and don’t understand why their students can’t match their expectations.

I took this as one of my “easy” and “fun” classes. A 100 level to balance my two 300 level classes and my frickin’ Latin class (even though that’s a 100 level, foreign language classes require much work and memorization). I don’t think this is going to be either easy (described above) or fun (described next).

My second issue with professor Kang is partially no fault of his own, and partially his teaching style. He is obviously Chinese and with that comes the English as a second language problems. He’s a bit difficult to understand when he is speaking. He does have some humorous mispronunciations (like switching “w” and “v” sounds), but I like to think of myself as being above ridiculing him because of his speech (I’m not really though).

My real issue is that he rambles and goes on tangents far too often. He will be talking about a subject, say the language groups of prehistoric China. Then he will quickly delve into something only slightly related, like Japan and Korea borrowing written Chinese. Then he quickly moves into something else only slightly related to that, for example when the Japanese developed their own written language. Again, then to something else, the Japanese idolized Chinese culture. Then they didn’t. Then on and on to something else and different, all in the same subject material but unconnected to the original topic which he finally returns to five minutes later.

This is a nightmare for note-taking, and coupled with his speech patterns make it a class that is going to be very difficult to sit through. Plus, he seems the type who will grade tough and give hard tests. Bleh.

My other class is much more to my tastes. It’s a political science class: International Relations. It’s with a professor I had last semester and really enjoyed, so there should be no difficulties there. The work level and expectations seem appropriate and I like the classmates I know. My only slight grief is that it’s once a week for three and a half hours. That’s a long, long class.

We watched a documentary titled, Why We Fight, our first day in the class. Funny, we could watch a 90-minute movie and still have more than half the class remaining. The documentary was a radical outlook on contemporary American international policy in the wake of 9/11. It focused heavily on the influence of the military-industrial complex and its stranglehold on foreign affairs.

It reminded me quite vividly of George Orwell’s 1984. Here is an extrapolation: America is at war with Iraq because it has to be at war. Without war there is no survival for the upper echelon of the American political actors. Their success is inextricably linked with (A) propaganda and (B) military spending. In Bush’s mind his purpose is to make war. With anyone, really, but Iraq is a plum target due to it’s petroleum resources, an identifiable “Bad Guy” in Sadaam, and recent bad form with Kuwait. Without this war, Bush would not be able to ask congress for billions, secure his and his families futures with oil, and help his friends’ companies when he spends those billions. All the while, Bush and others attempt to manipulate and use the American and world public with propaganda shaping current events and rewriting history. Orwellian indeed.

Anywho, the documentary brought that to mind. This is far too long a post, I best cease it here.

For those of you who don’t know me (and there are only two people who read this, both of which know me), I’m still in college. This is my final (read: Senior) year at Pacific Lutheran University, or good ‘ol PLU.

I’m finishing up my super-useful history major and will soon be embarking on the quest of (A) applying to grad schools, (B) earning a Masters in Education, and (C) getting a job as a high school teacher in a Washington state public school.

All of this is cool and interesting, no? But you fine folks want the nitty-gritty on my first day back to school.

First of all, my mom walked me to the bus stop and held my hand until … er, no. I’m reminiscing. Rather, my first class is not until 11:15 on MWF, so that means a fantastic amount of sleeping-in will be taking place.

I had two classes today, Wednesday, the first of which being Latin 101. The professor is one of the two I hadn’t had before, so I was slightly apprehensive about meeting him. I am of the firm belief that the professor makes far more of a difference in the enjoyability level of a class than the subject. But, I was soon soothed as Dr. Nelson was fast, fresh, and funny. He even imparted an old Latin learners’ adage:

Latin is a language / As dead as dead can be. / First it killed the Romans, / and now it’s killing me.

I’ve already done my required homework teaching me all about imperatives, infinitives, and simple conjugations. I’m already confused. I now am supposed to know about 11 different endings to words. That’s right. One word, eleven different endings. For example:

“Laudare” is the Latin imperative for “to praise.” The -are ending denotes the infinitive. Then we have: laudo (I praise), laudas (you praise), laudat (he/she/it praises), laudamus (we praise), laudatis (you all praise), laudant (they praise), lauda (You! Praise!), laudate (You All! Praise!), laudavi (I praised), and laudatum (I had praised). Now if this seems excessive, and it should, it looks like there are about 80 other possible endings for this one verb. What have I gotten myself into?

My other class was one for my major: History Research Methods. Sounds like a fun class, no? Yeah, it sounds just as fun to me. But the professor is good, I’ve had him twice before. And as much as I hate to admit it, classes that teach rudimentary boring stuff like research turn out to help so much in future classes. Ah well, c’est la vie.