Since I moved in to Grove City, a lot of things have happened. I auditioned for Les Miserables and (thank God) I got in. Since I am in the ensemble, most of my time is taken up either studying or at rehearsals. But, of course, there are all of the traditional college activities, too. Football games, walks into town, dances and other parties, rush events... the list goes on. Since it has been seven weeks since I published a post on this blog (sorry, Mom), I think I'll give a series of posts about my life at college. So here's part one of To New Beginnings.
So let's start with the actual college part. I'm taking 16 credits this semester (six classes, since one of them is only worth one credit). On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I take Chinese 101, Brit Lit, and Basic Music. On Tuesday and Thursday I take Western Civ, Fitwell, and Stagecraft.
Chinese has definitely been an adventure. Think of it this way: I'm basically learning two languages at once. There's pinyin (the romanization of Chinese), and then there are 中文 characters. (That's Zhongwen - Chinese.) I haven't honestly decided yet if I like it or not. In a lot of ways it's super interesting, and I know it will be super useful in the future if I want to do anything internationally, but it's not easy. Although, God has definitely given me a gift for languages, so it's not nearly as hard as it could be. Right now, Chinese is a gen ed credit, so I guess taking it any further will just depend on whether or not I have the credits free.
Brit Lit is the only class I'm taking for my major this year. Technically, it's "English Literature Survey", but no one calls it that. I can't decide how I feel about Brit Lit so far. The idea of the class is awesome, but we've only studied Middle English Literature so far, and that's definitely not my forte. However, there is my impending England trip keeping me engaged in the class. Dr. Brown (my Brit Lit prof) is leading a trip to England during May Intercession that I'm going to be going on. The picture on the right is Exeter Cathedral, one of the sights we'll be seeing. Since I committed to the trip, it seems like she likes me even more than normal, so I'm trucking my way through the class until we hit something I'm more interested in.
Basic Music just might be the most tedious class I've ever taken. Effectively it's music theory, to an extent that is barely greater than the 8th grade class at Trinity. And while I'm definitely learning new terms, I'm pulling an easy A in the class. Not that that's a bad thing, of course. Everyone needs an easy class, right?
Western Civ is a survey of Western History, beginning with the Paleolithic Era, and ending... well, I assume we'll end somewhere in modern times. Right now, however, we've hit the Holy Roman Empire, but a good chunk of our time focused on Greece and Rome (hence, the Colosseum). Even though Civ is my one 8am class, it's been alright.
If only our Fitwell gym was this cool. So far, Fitwell has been a series of lectures on healthy eating and how it's really important for us to exercise. Which is all well and good, but often seems like a waste of an hour. After break next week, though, we start our Fitwell "labs" (i.e. exercise sessions), so hopefully that will feel a bit more fulfilling.
Finally, there's Stagecraft. By far my favorite class, this is more or less what the set shop looks like when we're hanging out in there. So far, we've learned how to use all of the power tools, made a model "robot" (named Anna 2.0 - it doesn't move quite yet), and made a giant inflatable pyramid. Now we're working on making huge models out of foam. I'm enlarging one of the guy's pistols from Les Mis. Supposedly we'll be done before break, but I can tell you right now that's not happening.
So there it is! A basic overview of my first almost two months of classes. This coming week we only have three days (woo!) since it's fall break. I get to spend the weekend with my lovely friend Rachel, whose family was cool enough to open her house to a poor girl from Minnesota so she wasn't stuck on campus. My next post will (probably) appear sometime during break, and I'll update you all on the fun stuff I get to do at school. Cause after all, college isn't really about studying, is it? ;)
