Sunday, September 2, 2012

School days

It has been six years since I have been in school during the fall--and here it is. It's not really back to school for me, since I did summer classes. But it's back for everyone else--it amazes me how many people there are! I'm used to a summer population, so it's pretty crowded now. I could be wrong, but it seems like there are more people than there were in the winter. I don't remember as many traffic jams.

Unfortunately, I got sick this week. I pride myself on not getting sick, but I did. I woke up on Wednesday with a sore throat, on Thursday it transferred to my nose, and Friday was the worst day--I went to class but I didn't go to work. I think it may have been the sickest I've been since junior high. Since my working career is so much shorter than my school career, this was the first time I've ever missed work because of being sick. But I think I'm on the mend now. I almost ended up going to Idaho this weekend, but I stayed here because of my calling. I'm glad I did; it would have been no fun going while I was sick.

I started my new classes this week; I have six of them.

Empirical Methods in English Linguistics (ELang 273) is basically a class about researching ELang stuff. I don't think it will be too bad.

Varieties of English (ELang 468) is about dialects and even some pidgins and creoles. In a class of twenty-something students, there are only four or five guys. I think all the other guys are Linguistics majors; I'm the only male ELang major in the class. I think most of the girls are ELang majors, and I'd say well over half of them (maybe even more than three fourths) are Editing minors. That makes me glad I decided on the geology minor, so that I'm not like all those girls...

Genre and Substantive Editing (ELang 410) has the same professor and the same TA as my editing class during the winter. It's a lot bigger than that one was. Hopefully it will be easier, because ELang 350 (the one I took in the winter) was way too much work for a three-credit class. I think this one will be better, though; in 350 we had six midterms but in this one we only have one.

Environmental Biology (PWS 150) is a GE class and is the biggest class I've had since Music 101 my first semester. The professor looks and sounds like he could be an apostle. I thought it would be more interesting than Bio 100, but now I'm not so sure. We'll see how it goes.

Jogging (STAC 139) is an activity class I'm just taking for fun. Tuesday was the introductory class; Thursday I was sick so I couldn't participate, even though I attended. I felt pretty dumb. Hopefully I'll be well enough on Tuesday to participate. 

Geomorphology (Geol 411) is the study of landforms. Not only am I the only ELang major in the class, I'm the only major from the College of the Humanities. There are a couple of geography majors and some other science majors, but most of the students are geology majors. I hope it doesn't put me at too much of a disadvantage.

On Monday this week our ward had an opening social at the home of the second counselor in the bishopric, up in Alpine. They had dinner and then that night there was karaoke. Someone called the cops, which I find a little ridiculous. It wasn't even 10:00, and the backyards in that neighborhood are huge, so it's not like everyone's on top of everyone. Furthermore, police have better things to do than to respond to complaints of "I don't like the music that's going on next door." Really, people?

August has traditionally been my least favorite month, although its status is getting higher. We are presently in my second favorite month, although the first half of the month is pretty boring. I'm so excited for September!

(I'm sorry this was so choppy today.)

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