Spring 2005 Semester

I had my first classes of the new semester last week. Just to kill the suspense: I really like them all, and I'm certain that I will be sufficiently challenged (and at times overly challenged, I suspect).

Tuesday:
My first class was Chaucer, with Dr. Napierkowski. I've often wondered why UCCS would require all English majors to take a class on Chaucer: I read a decent portion of the Canterbury Tales in high school and did not find them to be particularly wonderful in any respect. The editions I read were in modern English, though, and Dr. Napierkowski stated again and again last week that all modernizations cannot even come close to representing the original middle English version. He even believes that Chaucer's poetry is superior to Shakespeare's. Having read Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen two semesters ago in Renaissance literature, I'm used to struggling through every line, so I have a good idea of what to expect.

I had advanced grammar with the other Dr. Napierkowski afterward (wife of my Chaucer professor). I have never taken a grammar class before or even an English class that emphasized grammar (unless you count English IV in high school when we learned the difference between independent and dependent clauses). I am able to write a ten page research paper without a single grammatical error, but I only know the rules from analyzing the writing of others. I can't point to a sentence and pick out predicate . . . whatevers . . . and demonstrative . . . things . . . or recite the list of correct ways to use semicolons. This class will remedy that, hopefully. I can already tell after only two periods that it will be a huge challenge. The funny thing is that I'm not even required to take the course! I really want to, though, so when I graduate and tell people that I have a degree in English I will have the knowledge of the mechanics of the English language that everyone expects an English major to possess (if that makes any sense at all).

Wednesday:
Advanced composition at 8 AM? Am I insane? Yes, I must be to have signed up for a class that early, since I have to leave my house at 7 AM to get a decent parking place. Advanced comp sounds quite a bit like English IV in high school; I'll have to write tons of papers then get into a group with other students and discuss them. Sounds cool.

Directly after, I had a gen-ed class called critical thinking. The professor, a middle-aged, extremely short and up-beat woman, was entertaining even though the subject material was not. For one thing, she kept switching to a strong British accent every few minutes, and she constantly used British slang. She kept calling students "chap," and "old boy." I'm really not sure if she was trying to be funny or if she has some type of personality disorder. I dropped that class. I did so mainly because I can take care of that gen-ed requirement in another way, but also because every class period, each of the fifty or so students in the class will have to go up to the board and work out a logic problem from the homework. I can't image the tedium of watching fifty people take turns doing problems we already did for homework. The professor said, with all seriousness, that she wouldn't leave anyone out. Never in all her years of teaching had she forgotten to "let" a student come up to the board and do a problem. I could deal with the "fish and chips" crap from the professor, but the class itself . . . no further comments.

Now for the class that I'll most likely enjoy the most (because of the subject) and hate the most (because of the sheer amount of reading required): contemporary British and American novels seminar (it's a senior/graduate level class). We will read numerous novels, most over 300 pages and two or three over 500, then discuss them in class and write a 15 page paper near the end of the semester and do a presentation over it. I read two of the required novels over Christmas break thinking that I would really be ahead, but it turns out that I read the last two novels we will be reading, and according to professor Pellow they are by far the easiest we will read. Grrrr.
One great thing about this semester: my classes will be over by 12:05 PM every day, so I'll always have time to come home, eat, and do a little homework before I go to work. Also, I don't have any classes on Friday (also my day off of work).