Thursday, August 27, 2009

First Week of School

It's almost the end of my first week at PSU (No one reads on Friday).

First off I underestimated the amount of people here. My neighbor's daughter who works in Career Services said there are about 43,000 students. I'm sure that is just undergraduates too.

Sometimes I sit in the HUB between classes and for almost an hour straight, it's a constant stream of people coming in. I may have to do a time lapse video for you all. I've never seen so many people in my life. Or maybe I've just forgotten what it's like to be surrounded by people.

Despite the enormous amount of people, I am finding that most people just keep to themselves or to people they already know. That's a bit disappointing but as Frances Mayes says in "Under the Tuscan Sun"; "It's only natural that making friends takes a while." Or something like that. *Sorry for the butchered punctuation.

I am super excited about all my classes. I am taking Early Jewish and Christian Studies. It's basically an unbiased examination of the bible and the context of the history from that time period. I've never read the bible and going to Church left me with a taste of bias instead of the truth. In order to run, you have to learn to walk. So this is the walk to my spiritual future. Plus I think it's really important to understand the Bible in order to understand the present. Everything I know about the Middle East is muddled. I can't form an opinion by listening to the news.

Next up is Intro to Art History. I originally thought it was history of art through the ages but it turns out the class teaches the aesthetics of art, why we learn it and how art affects our lives. It's a great primer and I'm super glad I took this one first. The teacher is AMAZING. I love her already. Even though the class is held in a semi-auditorium she effectively engaged the class in discussions ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL no less! She was amazing in her use of PowerPoint and multimedia to teach her lesson. She made us listen to two songs, one by the Indigo Girls called Galileo to honor his birthday which I never heard and thoroughly enjoyed. Later she played a Lauren Hill song which I also never heard. It was amazing! I only ever heard her in the Fugees and I am definitely going to check out her album.

The best part was that my teacher is going to provide any reading material online. She doesn't believe in propagating the cycle of ripping off students via an expensive book that is only good for one semester. She got a round of applause for that one.

Next is Linguistics. I'm sure this class filled a humanities requirement or something but I would have taken it as an elective anyways. I'm such word nerd. I love learning the origin or words and history and why they came to be and all that. This class is about the study of language and I love it already! On our second day we watched an episode of Star Trek. Talk about geeking out! I think my teacher is a grad student but he's pretty decent at teaching so I don't mind too much. He actually looks like I would be friends with him in real life.

Which brings me to my next point. I feel old. Seriously. I'm not old. I'm 24 but in college years, I am practically 30! Everyone around me are still teeny boppers and I literally want to bop them! But then I remember that this is their first time out in the real world and I'm sure I was just as annoying. It's hard to tell because I've always been more mature and reserved than my peers.

My last class is Microeconomics. This one I also electively took although I'm sure it fills some requirement. The only way I understand economics is through the Planet Money podcast. I want to take my education in my own hands so hopefully this class will help me understand money and society a little better. This teacher has like 600 students and she does pretty well. My only beef is that I can't remember where I sat the previous class so I'm having a hard time remembering who I met and making a class buddy.

There is a deaf or hard of hearing guy in class and in front of him is a lady translating with sign language. How awesome is it to have her job? It's like she gets to experience college again.

Dan and I have been riding the bus more often. We don't want to bother each other if we have other obligations on campus so sometimes one of us will take the car home and the other will ride the bus.

This morning I took the bus to school since I have an 8am class. This way it gave Dan some time to relax and drink his coffee. It makes me feel good. I feel like my small sacrifice of giving up my car is helping the environment. When we move again though I'll need my own car again. Charleston is just too sprawled out without an efficient public transit system.

I still have sleeping problems. I'm talking to my doctor in a week or so to talk about the results of my sleep study so I'm crossing my fingers that we can come up with a solution other than taking medicine at night.

I signed up for a few clubs on campus. I really want to join an athletic club to get fit again but I am so scared that I'll just drag the team down. Then I'm worried about time commitments. Will I be able to commit because I'm looking for a job too.

My first real stress was getting out of the library. I seriously could not find the exit, even after studying the maps for several minutes. At one point I thought I needed GPS but my phone hardly works in the library. As it turns out, the library has become my favorite spot to study and just get away. The carrels are dispersed within the stacks with an occasional computer and it's pretty quiet. I can take a quick call without bothering anyone. I'm sure I could get away with eating too but I like to eat my lunch in the HUB or outside in the sun.

One last thing. This University is filled with beautiful people! Most everyone is fit and tanned with perfect hair and makeup. Dan attributes it to the high cost of tuition so the rich come here. Makes sense. Luckily there are normal people here to make me feel less hideous.

If you read all of that, I hope you weren't expecting a cookie :P