First Week of Classes

It's hard to know where to begin. Zora has probably covered a lot of it in her post a little earlier so I'll try to talk less about the great time we had last night and more about my own classes so far. For the record, last night was a blast despite the hearing damage at Solus and having to do a lot of walking to get groceries so we could cook.

I'm getting a lot better at knowing my way around and it's taking me less time to get places. I do feel a lot more at home here than a week ago. The buildings themselves are all mazes of lab spaces and major lecture halls. There are a lot of labs for the record and most but not all of them are well appointed. Some are total crap. As a rule though none of the floorplans make sense so it is hard to find your room most of the time. You just have to budget at least ten extra minutes if you aren't sure where you're going.

I'm lucky on Mondays, no class till 1:10. Monday is Environmental Case studies, an examination of eco law and planning from a UK geologic perspective. Its not really my area of expertise but I'm enjoying thinking about how to merge the legal and scientific in a format your average councilman can understand. Like all of my classes, I have a paper assigned, though this one is my favorite since we're worried about trying to solve a case study and not some abstraction/ demonstration of a concept.

Tuesday is busy, Marine Conservation 10-12, animal senses, learning, and cognition from 12-1 and 4-5. Marine is a little hard to read but I think it will be a good time and within my ability. The animal bio class was a bit below me, very psych 150ish so far. I'm sure it will get more difficult but at least the first lecture I could have given myself.

Wednesday is my roman religion course 10-12. Awful and I want out. It seems like we're not going to learn about roman religion so much as how to research and discuss it, which has its place, but I would like a little content please. The prof just talked about what ancient writers she liked and that she wanted us to only use traditional theories, nothing "duff" which seems to mean Greek or anything controversial.

Thursday, today, though I nearly missed class trying to find my room, was animal physiological adaptations 9-10 and 2-3. Seems to be a biochem class in disguise. I knew enough chem to understand this first lecture without having to think too hard, mostly enzymes and misc aqueous reactions. Once it gets more difficult we'll see, but today it was basically the whole "enzymes make reactions easier" lecture, so nothing mind blowing.

As a side note, professors here, except for my history and animal phys prof, seem to be a lot more jokey and casual/ are fine with you being goofy because its your time and your grade you're hurting and so don't care. Generally they have been welcoming and ok with me needed time to get things figured out. I'm not too far behind in anything though I don't have as much background in some areas as I wish I did. Some have made fun of me, but I don't really mind.

Going to curry night later. All my best to everyone back home. Send me an email sometime.