First Week of Classes

A week into this semester and I can already tell it's going to be a tough one. I anticipate that this will be my hardest semester yet. I am taking 18 hours (6 classes) plus an online class. Here are summaries of my first impressions of my classes:

American Foreign Policy: This class is taught by a young German woman who speaks nearly flawless English (leave it to me to be more impressed by her English speaking abilities than her teaching abilities or anything else that might be more important). This class is for the International Affairs major and I think it should go pretty smoothly. There is not a lot of reading, the teacher seems pretty laid-back, and it should be at least moderately interesting. One problem I already have with the course, though, is that the instructor seems very Euro-centric. I guess she has a bias being German and all, but she's always talking about Germany this, Germany that. She is working on her dissertation now and it's all about Germany too. Europe is fine and dandy, but I hope we talk about American foreign policy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America also in equal parts.

Introduction to Linguistics: I took two linguistics classes last semester (World Language Policy and Language in US Society), and am taking three this semester. I am surprised at how much I already knew in the introductory lectures for this class. We have talked briefly about the history of English and how linguists use comparative models to reconstruct language family trees and proto languages. It seems like this class is going to have a fair amount of overlap with the Language in US society class I took last semester, but hopefully we'll do some new stuff too. I can already tell that I am going to enjoy my linguistics classes more than my International Affairs classes though, I breezed through the readings this week much faster than for my IA classes.

Language Sound Structures: This linguistics class will be more about phonology and phonetics. We will be learning more about the sounds of human language, how we produce them, what the look like on a computer screen, aphasias (brain injuries or defects that affect language) etc. I actually already had a lot of exposure to this in a Science of Human Communication class that I took as a sophomore, but I remember it being interesting, so hopefully this class will be interesting too.

Study of Words: In this linguistics class we will be learning the etymology of English words. We will learn to identify different word bases, prefixes, suffixes, their origins and meanings. I think this falls more under the semantics branch of linguistics. The professor seems like a very smart lady who apparently knows (and teaches too maybe) Greek and Latin.

Political Geography: This class is for the IA major. I still don't really understand well enough what this class will be about to give a concise description. It is a 4000-level class that I am pretty sure I am going to work very hard in. There will be a lot of reading, and the tests are notorious for their difficulty. With every IA class that I take, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I just don't really GET international affairs. I mean, I understand the material well enough to get satisfactory grades in the classes and such, but I just don't feel that I have a deep enough understanding of anything to really participate intelligently in class discussions or anything. If I put in enough effort (which will be a lot), I think I will learn some interesting things in this class, but this class also presents my highest potential for failure this semester I think. On the up side, the instructor, a PhD student, seems knowledgeable and experienced and interesting, although one of my friends who has had a class with him didn't like him, so we'll see.

Problems in International Relations: My third and final IA class this semester is my only class on Tuesday and Thursdays (all my others are on Mon. Wed. Fri) and it's at 8AM, so maybe I'll even be able to go skiing during the week sometimes! This class will also be a struggle for me. The class's title should actually be "Warfare" because it seems that we will be talking almost exclusively about War during the entire course. I had this instructor last semester and enjoyed him which is why I decided to take this course this semester. This course will be a challenge for me mostly because it has a massive reading load of approximately 200 pages per week (that's in addition to the other 100+ pages a week in my other classes). So this will be the semester of reading for me; I don't think I've ever had to read as much as I will this semester. Also, this class requires me to participate in class discussions a lot, something that I've never been good at even in topics that I am interested and generally confident about, much less in classes about warfare.

International Economics: Finally, this is the online course I am taking, also for the International Affairs major. This class should be my last requirement for International Affairs, and so hopefully I won't have to take any more IA classes next semester, just linguistics (and maybe I'll even have time to take a new language class... perhaps Arabic?). I don't really know what this "class" will be like, but the instructor for it, Kaplan, is probably one of the most well-known professors on campus. I have heard his name probably since my first semester here. I have heard nothing but praise for what a wonderful teacher he is, so maybe I'll have to go into his office and get some 1-on-1 time instead of just corresponding through email.

So yeah, it's going to be a hard semester, but I think I am ready and willing to buckle down and do what it will take. Already in just this first week I've already learned a lot of interesting things. Here are a few of them:

• I learned that the word sacrilegious is not spelled sacreligious and in fact, has little to do with religion.
• The Assyrian Empire at its peak existed between the Mediterranean Sea to the east and the Persian Gulf to the southeast.
• The better-built chariots pulled by horses weighed less than 100 pounds. This was largely out of necessity because the anatomy of horses didn't really allow them to pull large loads (their shoulders weren't broad enough to support large loads, and so the harnesses would push on their windpipe effectively choking them).
• Hindi, Urdu, Pashto, and Farsi are actually very distant linguistic relatives of English. They all stemmed from Proto-Indo-European (the great-Grandparent of English).

Finally, on a completely unrelated note, here is a funny e-mail that my mom sent me. I think I have seen these before, but it never hurts to laugh again. Things to Make You Go "Hmmm..."

• If big breasted women work at Hooters....., where do the one legged women work at.....IHOP?
• Can you cry under water?
• How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
• Why do you have to "put your two cents in"...but it's only a "penny for your thoughts?" Where's that extra penny going?
• Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
• Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
• How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
• If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
• Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?
• Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
• How come we choose from just two people for President and fifty for Miss America?
• Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.
• If a 911 operator has a heart attack, whom does he/she call?
• Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural?
• Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet soup?
• Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out!"
• Or watch a white thing come out a chicken behind and think, "that ought to taste good."
• Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
• Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
• When your photo is taken for your driver's license, why do they tell you to smile? If you are stopped by the police and asked for your license, are you going to be smiling?
• What do you call male ballerinas?
• Can blind people see their dreams?
• If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
• Is Disney World the only people trap operated by a mouse?
• Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
• Why did you just try singing the two songs above?
• Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your butt?
• Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride; he sticks his head out the window?