First impressions:
Biblical Hebrew: My teacher, Carli, is cute, young, smiley, and fun. We meet in a beautiful roundtable conference room in the JFSB with a big, sunny window and my class is small and mature. Even if the subject matter weren't fascinating, I'd be happy to attend every morning at 8 AM. Also, Biblical Hebrew has nothing to do with speaking (the component of Arabic with which I struggle most). Reading? Translation? Writing? I am all over that. Weekly quizzes might creep up on me, but at least they're all laid out on the syllabus. I've never been happier to take a four-credit class.
Linguistics: Okay, seriously? This 300-level class should be listed as 100 for the number of freshmen there are in my section. It's taught by a grad student not much older than I am and looks to be a freaking cakewalk, but not a useless one. Honestly, these humanities kids have it so ridiculously easy I want to scream. Appreciate it! Please! You're incredibly lucky! People are nice to you!
Organic Chemistry: I've never been so freaked out by a professor on the first day, and not because the subject matter is particularly intimidating. Dr. Ess is very young and looks quite unassuming, but opens his mouth to unleash a hurricane of contradicting words while scribbling five equations out of order and out of context on three chalkboards without bothering to define any of the variables. It's obvious this is the first time he's taught ANYTHING, and it doesn't help that the course is entirely graded in competition, which is totally going to kill my peace of mind when I, along with the entire rest of the class, receive below 60% on my first midterm (as this crazy man intends, as smugly stated on the syllabus). Fully 50% of my grade will be determined by the final exam, and 40% will come from three other exams. There's no graded homework, just some recitation-session quizzes of which you can drop exactly none. As long as I stay in the top 20% of the class, I'm "guaranteed an A or A minus" (that cutoff isn't even explained). This guy is going to be the death of me, and I'm mad because I think I have a decent shot at mastering the material. In the words of the kid behind me, "It was nice until right after we finished going through the syllabus."
Second-year Arabic: In the words of Emperor Kuzco, "Scary beyond all reason?" And I haven't even attended the large-section grammar lectures yet. My comprehension is reawakening, but my verbs and my spelling are simply gone. Stay tuned for my fear to take a more definite shape. As for today, it took me three tries to correctly pronounce "?بتشتغلي أي"
3 comments:
Subtract 200 from every Linguistics course, and then you've got the right number. I'm still trying to puzzle out why the heck my freshman intro class was a 300 level. Made me feel cool, though. For about three minutes.
I love Carli! You'll love this semester with her.
so I stumbled upon your blog and I think it is fascinating. I am also currently in dr Ess's class. May God save my soul. I have a couple of questions for you, however, i am typing this at 10.00pm when I should be doing homework. Very nice blog.
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