Spring 2008
Well, I haven’t really pounced upon this return to blogging with quite the enthusiasm my previous announcement might have suggested. Nevertheless, here I am, and starting off with a mildly mundane post about myself. In later entries, however, you may anticipate musings on the universe and bread baking.
Since the academic calendar basically regulates my life, I might as well give a quick review of this semester’s courses.
It’s a good mix: In Human Skeletal Biology II, we are moving onto the post-cranial skeleton tomorrow, after a semester of the cranium and three weeks of teeth (yes). The most consistent feature of that class is that we eat Jelly Belly beans while examining the skele
tal material. Also on the physical/biological side of things is Behavioral Neuroscience with lab–the last effort towards fulfilling my lab science requirement. So far in the lab we have handled sheep brains, and I get a bit of a thrill out of finally examining just what goes inside those skulls I spent so much time with last semester (but smaller, less groovy, and more sheepy).
Hindi-Urdu is still what it is, a language I’ll probably never be fluent in. But I’ve become pretty fond of my handwriting in Urdu script, even if I can barely read it.
Then there is American Literature since 1945, with a great reading list including The Invisible Man, Lolita, On the Road… It’s good to have novels among my reading since going through them seems a lot more like leisure than theoretical treatises on world-systems theory or whatever.
Also, Ancient Empires–a comparative anthropology/history course on Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Inkas, the Mayans. So far, we’ve only done theory and Rome, but I’m enjoying the professor’s lectures and getting exposure to some more of the archaeologist types in the department.
And last of all, a swimming class, which Richard is also taking, and which is geared towards a level of beginner with far less experience than either of us have. I don’t know any proper strokes well enough for the Lap Swim class, and, anyway, it wouldn’t fit my schedule. It’s still fun to be in the water, even though half the class can consist of essentially jumping in place.
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Well, in Hindi there’s a pretty common construction that conveys “having [verb-ed]” more elegantly–or at least much more concisely–than in English, by adding kar to the verb stem. I read and write it so often that I’ve started forming some of my (English) thoughts with that “having.”
So: Having read this survey of my course roster, please prepare yourself for more profound discussions to come.