Here is yet another post on optimism about the coming semester!
I got to campus last Sunday, and spent Monday doing errands and meeting with people about the course I’m CAing. Tuesday I worked on the website for that course and went to work, where I heard my boss’s excellent wedding story. His wife is a Quaker, so they did a Quaker ceremony by a river in Vermont at the exact time of the Winter Solstice, and then had a justice of the peace deal the next day. I’m a big fan of small/private weddings. I don’t think the act of getting married should be stressful.
Yesterday was the first day of classes, and I think it went really well. I had Organic Chem II first, which was not so great. It’s just like what we did last semester, but harder! This professor is cooler than Calter only in that one of his hands is fake.
After orgo I went to Introduction to the Environmental Sciences, which will be excellent, not least because Jeffrey, Jia, Lauren, and Dara are all in it. Also, it’s going to be about much more than rocks – lots of material on how humans are messing with the environment and such. The first chapter of the book is largely about sustainability and theory of saving the environment and such. I haven’t actually read it yes, but… eventually. Yes. Assigned reading WILL be completed. I just don’t know when.
The last class I had yesterday was Evolution in Human-Altered Environments, which is the course I’m the assistant for. It’s the first small, discussion-based, current science course I’ve ever taken. I think there are 15 people in it right now, and we’re using a seminar room instead of a classroom, so we all get to sit at one large table. I sat on the good side of the room, and so get to look at lots of beautiful pottted plants and trees outside the large windows. Professor Sultan, who is excellent, said that she had been asking around, and to her knowledge no one else had sone a course on this topic. The articles we’re reading are all very current, some not published yet. Our grade is based on paricitpation and a research project on one case study. Basically this class will be amazing.
After dinner a bunch of us went to see The Science of Sleep at the CFA. We all loved it (except Josh, who I think only liked it), I cried several times, etc. I would elaborate, but I have to go to my last class, Economics of the Environment. More later!
