first week of classes

Hi everyone!
So it's Thursday night after the first week of classes and I figured I'd do a post about my classes. Here's my schedule:

MONDAY
Astronomy 1:15 - 2:20
Art History 2:30 - 3:45

TUESDAY
Theatre History 11:50 - 1:05
Intro to Buddhism 1:15 - 2:30
Intro to Movement Studies 2:45 - 4:15
Pan-African Choir 4:30 - 6:00

WEDNESDAY
Astronomy 1:15 - 2:20
Art History 2:30 - 3:45

THURSDAY
Theatre History 11:50 - 1:05
Intro to Buddhism 1:15 - 2:30
Intro to Movement Studies 2:45 - 4:15
Pan-African Choir 4:30 - 6:00

FRIDAY
Astronomy 1:15 - 2:20

Here's the low-down on all of my classes so far:

Astronomy: What a fun teacher. He has a really dry sense of humor and goes on long tangents. Tons of my friends are in this class too, which makes it even more enjoyable. However, on the academic level, I hate math, and all we are concentrating on the first few classes is scientific notation. It gives me horrible flashbacks to chemistry sophomore year of high school. Hopefully my bio/math genius quadmate can give me some support with metric conversions and such.

Art History: The thing about this class is that, due to the nature of the material, people are always making lofty statements and trying to impress one another. ("Art is an expression of the soul which does not serve and immediate purpose, thus differentiating it from crafting..") Since I know nothing about art history, my goal is to make one intelligent statement per class. Our class yesterday was canceled due to snow yesterday, so I'm hoping it gets a little better. While there's a lot of reading, the textbook is actually pretty fascinating. It's making me itchy to go back to Italy though -- some of the stuff we're learning about I've seen in person. I'm expecting to walk away with a greater appreciation for it, and know a lot of cool things to make me seem well-read and intellectual!

Theatre History: The second level of this course is a lot better! It's more centered around class discussion, and I like that. The textbooks are SO dry, but the plays we're going to read are more avant-garde and I'm hoping that that will make it more worthwhile.

Intro to Buddhism: I already love this class. I've learned so much through only two classes and can't wait to read about it more. Our professor is an adjunct who just got his PhD from Columbia in Buddhist Studies. He speaks with a real passion for the material and truly listens to us when we speak. The whole class is really invested in what we're learning which is exciting, especially since we're afrom all different religious/spiritual backgrounds.

Intro to Movement Studies: This is my second dance class with one of my favorite dance instructors. Last semester was about musical theatre, and this semester is very Martha Graham (if you don't know who she is, read this or try searching youtube for videos of her performances). That means we do a lot of rolling around on the floor and explaining motions in metaphors. There are far too many of us in the small lower dance studio, but we have a lot of fun and it's nice to just move around and stay warm.

That's all from campus! Hope all of you are doing well. Feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment :)

-- Christina