School started again. On Wednesday.

The first few days have been an absolute blur, for reasons I'm sure all my university-attending friends can relate to. Figuring out last minute adds and drops, book purchases, bad profs, good profs, figuring out which classes will require the most work, which classes are easier than anything, which people are the absolute freaks, and which are relatively sane has been kind of an interesting process.

Geography is going to be the most labor intensive, but I think once I get into the roll of studying and time-management, I should be okay. The professor is great (even if he is a srong proponent of evolutionary theory), and it's actually kind of interesting to see how continents and regions are laid out, keeping human culture in mind. I'm not looking forward to exams and papers (one due every week!), but considering my past academic record, I should be able to pull through okay. I think I can pull off an A.

History is by far the largest class, but the prof is fun enough to make up for it. There are no papers, only exams, which is a huge gift considering all the other writing I will be doing this quarter. There are some interesting books included, and we're studying mainly the Civil War, with which I've always been fascinated. I don't forsee this being a terribly difficult course.

English has been an adventure so far. I changed classes at the last minute because I realized that putting off English 110 for another quarter will not make it go away. Shucks. So the first class I tried was, shall we say, horrific? I didn't know anyone could be that bad of a lecturer. I can't even explain how bad it was. (Prof: "Ok, so people, it's not I SEEN, it's I SAW. We're going to be working on that this quarter." Nellie: "Tell me this isn't happening.") I decided halfway through the class that I would die if I had to sit through one more period of that highly evolved version of Chinese water torture. Then, I thought I might take an honors course, but when I met the professor, he reminded me of a shorter, more-educated version of a...certain radically left-minded, liberal-thinking relative. And the course was focusing on torture throughout history. How cheerful. (Nellie: "Have they considered the practice of making every bloody student in the Uni sit through English 110?") So, I ended up with what I consider to be the best possible alternative under the circumstances: a decent (albeit easy) 110 course taught by a professor I've had before and liked.

Oh, I joined Chorus! Yay! I didn't realize when I signed up for it that you had to audition, so I spent a very stressful 24 hours singing "Silent Night" non-stop. Fun. But my bellowings evidently didn't scare the director off, because he didn't kick me out. I'm so happy I get to do something music related that I can look forward to while I'm sitting through lectures and exams. Look for further postings about chorus, because it looks like it could shape up to be quite amusing.

[ insert brilliant closing paragraph here - I have history to read ]