School Comes Back

You would think that after a semester spent teaching, going back to being a student would be a relief. I get to sit behind a desk; I only occasionally have to speak in front of others; and I am allowed to be completely self-centered again. So why did I spend the whole walk to school feeling like I was going to throw up, my hands slick with sweat?

Every first day is hard. It's a readjustment; by nature it is purely uncomfortable. Really, it's like decapitation: the best you can hope for is that it's quick and clean. On the bright side, though, you're usually in a better place once the messy bit is over with.
   
Late British Literary History
This is another one of those basic English major courses I've taken for years. We're studying the relationship between text and context - basically, how did the history of Great Britain in the last couple of centuries affect the literature produced in that time, and vice-versa? The class requires a ton of reading; my textbook is almost 3,000 pages long. However, my professor is hilarious and practical - "Sometimes, you just have better things to do than come to class," he admitted last week. "I appreciate that. Get the notes from someone else, and know that we'll miss your brilliance."

Doctrine and Covenants
I have loved all of my religion classes at BYU. The professor I have for this class is definitely up there on my favorites already - and I've only been in her class for one day! She is really fun and blunt - she'll frequently just say, "I need two volunteers to testify of Jesus Christ right now." - and I really like her class. The funnest thing we've done so far was this: we sang a hymn at the beginning of the class, but every two lines she would call out "Men only!" or "People from the East Coast!" and just those people would sing. (I got to practically sing a solo when she called on "People from Utah!" and she enjoyed it so much she had me sing four lines instead of two.)

Español 205
This is my third, and probably last, semester of Spanish at BYU. Once I've completed this class, my GE for Foreign Language will be complete. That's what kept me going on the first day of class, when I felt like a total idiot because I couldn't remember any Spanish. (That's an exaggeration; I remembered a lot. It just felt insignificant compared with how much I'd forgotten.) The Spanish is coming back to me rather quickly, thank goodness, but I still have a tendency to say "da" instead of "sí" or "spiciba" instead of "gracias." (Blurting out Russian in Spanish class is quite embarrassing, by the way.)

Church History Part Three
BYU offers three different courses on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I took the first two courses last year; this semester I'm finishing it off. It's been really interesting to me to learn the history of the church. I'm looking forward to this class - I might be doing a research paper on the history of the church in Russia!

Exploration of English Teaching
...yeah, this one deserves its own post. It is sufficient to say that this class takes up the majority of my time, energy, thoughts, and emotions. It is the course that will determine whether I continue in the English Teaching major, and it is all about getting my feet wet. That's right: field experience. Starting Wednesday, I will be spending my mornings in a public high school, finding out what it's really like to be an English teacher.

Quite enough to be getting on with, eh? In the midst of all that, where did I ever find time to write this blog post?

Oh yeah. I'm supposed to be doing homework right now. Lo siento, Profesor Parachoques.