Classes...er...modules?

Well, as it turns out, I'm attending only the coolest school in the world. I've had four out of my six lectures so far. The first lecture I attended was less lecture and more throwing-us-into-it, and left me excited but more apprehensive than anything, to be honest. I felt completely out of my element, which is weird because it was archaeological illustration; in other words, the combination of my two passions. But, give it a few weeks and I think I'll love it. Do I mind not having a reading list or an exam, but instead coming into the building to draw cool stuff and hand in a portfolio? No, no I do not. Not at all. Awesome.

My second lecture (last Friday) made most of my built up apprehension dissipate. Ancient Complex Societies In Action. At first I was nervous, because the lecturer began by asking if everyone had taken ACE (ancient civilizations of the east) the year before. I have not done anything official with the "east" (besides religions in china) since I was a freshman in high school. But, then he went into a rant about citation and led us through some painstakingly obvious "tests". I got the citation down. Oh yeah. Citation queen. Then, after a break, the same class reconvened with another professor. Instead of introduction of any kind, he lept into talking about Northern Syria and how we can know if it was part of the Assyrian Empire or not. He talked about agricultural patterns and what they tell us about the political structure. Oh my goodness awesome. Which reminds me, Syria, I need to email Fadi. I am so bad at keeping in touch with people, it's awful. Also, if anyone's sent me things on my Dickinson address, I appologize. I can't actually acess it in my room because of something with the connection, and so can only check it in the library. Although I've actually spent a fair amount of time in the library, I keep forgetting to check it.

Today I had two lectures, one at 9 and one at 4:15. Both were excellent. In the first, Religious Life in Ancient Egypt, it was again a jump straight into lecturing. The professor talked about general aspects of Egyptian religion and it's synchronicity. She also talked about cult centers and how they were set up. Each cult center also held the resources for its region. Also, each cult center had a creation myth, about how the god they worship founded the world at that very location. To quote my professor "How do you have all these different centers claiming to be commemorating the spot where the world began, with different mythologies and cosmologies, and still work together?" pause, as if waiting for an answer. "Well, you're Egyptian, that's how."

It was really excellent. Again, I was nervous about my lack of background, but I found that I was much less lost than I thought I'd be. It turns out I'm osmosed a very faint general orientation in the world of Egyptian scholarship just from being interested in it. Also, oddly enough I found that I understood a lot of the theological/religious/cultural concepts from Hill's religions in china and anthro of religion classes, and the architecture stuff I understood from Maggidis's classes. Excellent, and unexpected.

This evening I had Artefacts and Materials. I don't have much to say about it, except that it's already really fun. The group of people seems nice. There's another international exchange student (from Sweden) that I'd met before, so it was nice not to be sitting by myself while the third years all knew each other. The professor is humorous, and seems good natured. The content is unusual - very broad and spanning all cultures and times - but specific in the methods etc. I'm looking forward to it. I just emailed in my requests for the project/seminar leading/essay thing we have to do. I want to do either the Lindisfarne Gospels or pigments. Fun stuff.

Socially, things have been going pretty well, although more on that later as I'm meeting a friend at the Chad's bar. Then, it's cleaning and more reading for me.

Peace.