Thursday, September 17, 2009

my week in a whole lot of words

I started off this week by thinking that I absolutely had to have finished up this response journal entry of at least 2 pages for one of the courses I'm taking this semester. It's the class that had the Aristotle POETICS lecture and discussion that's been swimming around in my head that inspired one of my recent posts. Was it the last one?

Doesn't matter. Anyways, I'd been thinking that I've screwed up entirely by not completing it. It turned out alright because there are only a few actual dates when my class has to turn in the response journal. The journal isn't required to be submitted after every entry. After 3 or 4 entries and about the mid point of the semester it has to be submitted once. The only other time after that when it has to be submitted is in the end of the semester.

My other English course for the semester is focused on comedy. Aristophanes' The Clouds was the initial major piece that I was required to read. I really enjoyed it. It's a good mix of verbal, high comedy, farce, and slapstick physical comedy. No wonder that those who have done translations of it have such a fun time making the jokes work for different languages.

My Traditional East Asia History course has been really interesting. I've been learning about Neolithic China. Our class has had a bit of an ongoing annoyance because one of our texts that we're required to read hasn't come in yet. I'm really curious about the philosophy of Mencius seeing how he was somewhat similar to Confucius. I think that I really just want to find the faults in his philosophy. Always been a quirk of mine. Finding the inconsistencies and parts of philosophies that could be quite harmful if taken to the extreme.

My early Canadian History course has been much more interesting than I thought it would be. We decided on essay topics this week through this instructor's usual method of a random number raffle. I got number 8, so I pretty much had my choice of topic. I picked the Metis. The Metis are interesting in that they are a First Nations (North American Indian or hmmmm...aboriginals. Does that term work for everyone?) group that wasn't recognized as such for a long time. That's because they are actually of mixed race. They're different First Nations peoples mixed with mainly French and other European immigrant countries as Fathers. They were able to set up their own individual culture in an area called The Red River Valley. Their struggles and conflicts with the earliest Canadian Government led to the creation of the Canadian Province of Manitoba. I just need to focus on whether their culture was truly unique or if they were just mixed up biracials acting rebellious towards what was called at the time British North America. This course is technically everything before Confederation on July 1, 1867. This is the date that is generally accepted as the day that Canada became a Country. Technically we became a Dominion of the Commonwealth which means that we're an independent ally nation of Britain however you can guess how much that counts anymore. I think any Aussies that might be reading this know what I'm talkin about when I say that.

My cousin Amanda turns 20 in about 15 minutes. Knowing that I have 20 year old cousins. Lets call them the primary reason I'm concerned for my odd fixation for a 20 year old female residing in Australia that I like to call my Youtube + Twitter crush, hah hah

Oh, one last thing. I nearly finished a whole crossword in the hour before my first class today. I try to get on campus prior to my class starting since I commute to school in a mixture of trains and buses on 4 out of 5 weekdays.

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