Going to school over the summer sucks.
I realized a couple of semesters ago that things weren't moving fast enough to suit me, and that, while looking at the requirements for graduation, I would be in school basically until the end of time itself. Or until I was 40, which felt like the same thing. So I switched advisors to someone who actually gave me advice, and we drew up a plan for getting me the fuck out of Dodge. Well, she drew up a plan. I just agreed that it was a good plan and went along with it.
(I feel like I've been over this material before. Sorry if that's true; I've been away for a while, bear with me.)
The plan involved a lot of stuff, the most recently significant of which was me going to school all summer. Man, it's been great! I mean, no, wait - I already gave that one away. I started in with what the school calls "Maymester" and what rational people would call "a travesty of education." I took two classes for six hours a day for three weeks and got 6 credits. These were Nazis and Victims (with a very depressed and angry woman who was afraid of technology, fun, and loud noises and who assigned us, no lie, something like 700 pages of reading every week, then demanded a five page paper in Arial Black at the end) and Ethics (which was awesome and I had to give a presentation on pornography. If you are female and a FB friend of mine, it's possible you know this already, as I solicited the input of a few of you). This led to weeks of people being confused around me:
PERSON: What are you taking again?
ME: Nazis and Victims and Ethics.
PERSON: What the hell class is that?
At some point in there, I lost my mind a little, and would sit in the lobby of the James Union Building in the break between classes and hand out crap advice and directions. The staff had left a lot of official-looking tables and stuff sitting around, and I would just go and set up my computer. People would wander in looking for the Scholarship Office (literally about 10 yards from my location) or other campus stuff, and I would mess with them if they weren't to my liking. Occasionally, I would hand out really helpful advice, but a lot of it contained references to non-existent swimming pools, vikings, and guys named Arthur. I did give out candy and nickels one day, so I like to think that makes up for it.
After this was the five week period (for another 4 credits) where I was taking gen-ed Astronomy (with a lab I liked a lot better than the class itself - I got to use the observatory and looked at something 27 million light years away) and Asian Thought, which is a great class with a shit name. In Astronomy I learned that I don't know as much about the universe as I thought, and that I don't like most of the people I meet. I guess that's only really learning one thing.
Asian Thought was an experience of a different color & flavor, though; It was hard and easy and forced open jars in which I keep all kinds of more or less random things. I had to keep a journal for it, which you can read here, if you're so inclined (and you're not one of the people I let read it early). We went to a sort of ashram (a giant concrete dome with gardens all around) and did a guided kriya with a recording of a guru. I may sound flip here (because I can't help it, presumably), but I really very much enjoyed (and felt I got a lot out of) that class.
Now, I'm just starting five weeks of American Political Thought, and except for all the damn Puritians at the beginning, I'm back where I belong. I have an English class to CLEP before the Fall, and if I can get off my ass, a math class, too. So if you wonder what I'm doing in the forseeable future, I just told you. I'm trying to make a 16 credit summer happen over here.
But I hope to blog some more, too.