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Mar. 5th, 2012 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI put this at the end before, but I suspect a lot of people don't get that far when I write so much. So I'm going to put it at the top too: I wonder how many people are still here reading my journal. If you happen to see this and wouldn't mind just dropping a note to say hi if nothing else, it would be neat to see who's around.
I suspect that if I keep away from Facebook and Google Plus more, as I have been in the last couple days, I'll be more inclined toward the sort of long-form blogging that I used to do a lot more of and that I often miss. If nothing else, I'll have a better record of the sorts of things I've been going through and doing these days. That was one of the main reasons I started writing here, and it's definitely not something that I'll get out of Facebook or similar venues. The occasional rambling glimpse into how life is going and what I'm thinking, as opposed to snippets of what's happening in the everyday.
There's been a lot going on since I wrote much here last. I'm going to school full time, and have been since the beginning of last semester, October of 2011. My first semester GPA was 4.0. I'm not assuming I'm going to manage as well this semester, but I can hope. I've managed an A on every exam so far. The only one I haven't heard back on yet is for Peoples of Southeast Asia, which is the class that most worries me. Unlike the other courses I've gone through or am in the midst of, this one seems rather more focused on analysis than fact. Fact is easy. I listen carefully, take good notes, and study. Analysis and a more unstructured format is, relatively at least, challenging.
But I feel that I did pretty well on the exam. In fact, I was much relieved when I learned the class period before the exam that the professor had put together a study guide. That made the whole thing seem much more approachable. As is my habit, I wrote up answers for each of the 7 questions that might appear on the exam. Questions about things how upland people's culture is different from lowlands, or about how ancient city states were organized around a devaraja and the concept of a galactic polity, or about just what all these diverse Southeast Asian nations have in common anyway. I'm hoping for a B. I'll keep you posted.
Tonight, I have studying to do for my upcoming Spanish exam tomorrow. We've lately learned a past tense (the preterit), and more about the grammer of verbs like gustar (to be pleasing to). I also have vocabulary relating to clothes and wardrobe to learn. The entire class, oddly enough, was expecting a test today based on what la profesora said, but it's actually tomorrow. I don't think we misunderstood; she said Lunes. But I won't complain about another day.
I've been feeling off-an-on overwhelmed by school. I cancelled plans to visit my girlfriends over the last weekend and devoted the entire period to school work. My biggest accomplishment was writing a first draft of a paper analyzing Nan Ensted's Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure, which was fantastic. I learned a lot, and not just about women's labor actions around 1900. The book taught me a lot about having an anthropological view of popular and consumer culture, and about there being a lot more to it than I expect most people think there is. That's one of the things I love about my history professor. The books she's assigned for this class and the last one have had a lot of the anthropological perspective in them.
I'm still nervous about the longish paper I need to write about the domestication of rice for my human evolution class, but I'm less so than I was about the four page paper coming up for my Peoples of Southeast Asia class. I picked an article to write (and present: I need to do a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation on it) on that's about the transformation of urban/rural space in three different places in and near Bangkog, and how they're being affected by modernization. It's very much my kind of thing. I wasn't sure if it would work at first, and I sent it, along with two others, to my professor and asked for her thoughts. She told me that I needed to pick the one, and I quote, that makes my heart go pitty-pat. *smiles* I like that. And I did. And you know, I read through it again earlier today, and it made rather more sense than it did after spending hours frustratedly combing through academic journals. I think it'll be ok.
My art history class has been pretty interesting. Not as interesting as a history or more loosely culturally focused class would be I think, but I've enjoyed it. I've been introduced to some works I didn't know by people I did, and I have a better understanding of why some of the masters are the masters. Michelangelo's Pieta is...really damned amazing.
We've talked about the concept of the studiolo; a personal suite where wealthy Italian men in the 16th century, as humanism and study was becoming very popular, could display the art and oddities they'd collected through their lives and travels and show them off to visitors. It's funny; it's the sort of thing I guess I've always wanted to have. When I was renting the house in Kenosha, I wanted the library to be that. It's where I kept all of my oddities, like my replica deck prism, or my Radioptican (a 1900 era picture-postercard projector), and random other antiquey or odd brick-a-brack. I wanted to have this place where I could look like a cool geek and show off my cool geeky stuff.
I was at a really different place at that point. I've downsized tremendously; all of that old computer stuff is gone. Hundreds of pounds of it. I have a lot more stuff of other types I need to find new homes for, but it's largely going to wait for the Summer. Right now, most of it is in boxes either in the little nook behind the wall in my room, or over in the middle room next to where Housemate Phil sleeps. In the Summer I'll have so much to sort through! Yet another new beginning in this series of new beginnings I've had since splitting up with my ex.
I have tons more stuff to write about, but I'm going to stop here for the moment. If time allows, more will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I wonder how many people are still here reading my journal. If you happen to see this and wouldn't mind just dropping a note to say hi if nothing else, it would be neat to see who's around.
I suspect that if I keep away from Facebook and Google Plus more, as I have been in the last couple days, I'll be more inclined toward the sort of long-form blogging that I used to do a lot more of and that I often miss. If nothing else, I'll have a better record of the sorts of things I've been going through and doing these days. That was one of the main reasons I started writing here, and it's definitely not something that I'll get out of Facebook or similar venues. The occasional rambling glimpse into how life is going and what I'm thinking, as opposed to snippets of what's happening in the everyday.
There's been a lot going on since I wrote much here last. I'm going to school full time, and have been since the beginning of last semester, October of 2011. My first semester GPA was 4.0. I'm not assuming I'm going to manage as well this semester, but I can hope. I've managed an A on every exam so far. The only one I haven't heard back on yet is for Peoples of Southeast Asia, which is the class that most worries me. Unlike the other courses I've gone through or am in the midst of, this one seems rather more focused on analysis than fact. Fact is easy. I listen carefully, take good notes, and study. Analysis and a more unstructured format is, relatively at least, challenging.
But I feel that I did pretty well on the exam. In fact, I was much relieved when I learned the class period before the exam that the professor had put together a study guide. That made the whole thing seem much more approachable. As is my habit, I wrote up answers for each of the 7 questions that might appear on the exam. Questions about things how upland people's culture is different from lowlands, or about how ancient city states were organized around a devaraja and the concept of a galactic polity, or about just what all these diverse Southeast Asian nations have in common anyway. I'm hoping for a B. I'll keep you posted.
Tonight, I have studying to do for my upcoming Spanish exam tomorrow. We've lately learned a past tense (the preterit), and more about the grammer of verbs like gustar (to be pleasing to). I also have vocabulary relating to clothes and wardrobe to learn. The entire class, oddly enough, was expecting a test today based on what la profesora said, but it's actually tomorrow. I don't think we misunderstood; she said Lunes. But I won't complain about another day.
I've been feeling off-an-on overwhelmed by school. I cancelled plans to visit my girlfriends over the last weekend and devoted the entire period to school work. My biggest accomplishment was writing a first draft of a paper analyzing Nan Ensted's Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure, which was fantastic. I learned a lot, and not just about women's labor actions around 1900. The book taught me a lot about having an anthropological view of popular and consumer culture, and about there being a lot more to it than I expect most people think there is. That's one of the things I love about my history professor. The books she's assigned for this class and the last one have had a lot of the anthropological perspective in them.
I'm still nervous about the longish paper I need to write about the domestication of rice for my human evolution class, but I'm less so than I was about the four page paper coming up for my Peoples of Southeast Asia class. I picked an article to write (and present: I need to do a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation on it) on that's about the transformation of urban/rural space in three different places in and near Bangkog, and how they're being affected by modernization. It's very much my kind of thing. I wasn't sure if it would work at first, and I sent it, along with two others, to my professor and asked for her thoughts. She told me that I needed to pick the one, and I quote, that makes my heart go pitty-pat. *smiles* I like that. And I did. And you know, I read through it again earlier today, and it made rather more sense than it did after spending hours frustratedly combing through academic journals. I think it'll be ok.
My art history class has been pretty interesting. Not as interesting as a history or more loosely culturally focused class would be I think, but I've enjoyed it. I've been introduced to some works I didn't know by people I did, and I have a better understanding of why some of the masters are the masters. Michelangelo's Pieta is...really damned amazing.
We've talked about the concept of the studiolo; a personal suite where wealthy Italian men in the 16th century, as humanism and study was becoming very popular, could display the art and oddities they'd collected through their lives and travels and show them off to visitors. It's funny; it's the sort of thing I guess I've always wanted to have. When I was renting the house in Kenosha, I wanted the library to be that. It's where I kept all of my oddities, like my replica deck prism, or my Radioptican (a 1900 era picture-postercard projector), and random other antiquey or odd brick-a-brack. I wanted to have this place where I could look like a cool geek and show off my cool geeky stuff.
I was at a really different place at that point. I've downsized tremendously; all of that old computer stuff is gone. Hundreds of pounds of it. I have a lot more stuff of other types I need to find new homes for, but it's largely going to wait for the Summer. Right now, most of it is in boxes either in the little nook behind the wall in my room, or over in the middle room next to where Housemate Phil sleeps. In the Summer I'll have so much to sort through! Yet another new beginning in this series of new beginnings I've had since splitting up with my ex.
I have tons more stuff to write about, but I'm going to stop here for the moment. If time allows, more will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I wonder how many people are still here reading my journal. If you happen to see this and wouldn't mind just dropping a note to say hi if nothing else, it would be neat to see who's around.
