Back to School

Current Music: "I Can't Get Started With You", Sammy Davis Jr.

A week ago today, I moved back to Montevallo to begin the 2008/2009 school year. I brought my parents with me to speed up the move–in process, which would have otherwise taken hours and exhausted me completely. Since my father was helping me haul stuff up Napier's many flights of stairs, we finished quickly and were both only a little tired. I was able to introduce my parents to the Behavioral and Social Science office's secretary and department head, both of whom I used to work for. (Not this year, sadly; I was robbed of work–study for some reason.)

I picked up my books from the post office (I bought them used via Amazon and had them shipped to the school). The post office also had a few free items for me –– a "Milestones in Science" poster from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a few DVDs from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which sends DVDs to students and teachers. The three I had waiting for me were on the biology of sex and gender, on the building blocks of life, and another one on the AIDs virus. I like biology lectures.

After my parents left, I took a shower and started getting settled in. I discovered to my partial horror that my computer no longer functions: there's something screwy happening with the tower's electric system. While not being able to play computer games and access the internet from my room is annoying, what I really have to get used to is the fact that I no longer have a computer monitor illuminating my room. As it is, I have to position a lamp over there so the distribution of light in my room is at a comfortable level. I don't like large florescent lights, and prefer to have little lamps perched in various parts of the room to provide light.

The weekend was dull: the libraries were closed, television was boring, and the only entertainment to be had outside of Mythbusters was walking to the dining hall in the rain with my umbrella. Happily, though, school soon started. I'm taking five classes.

Human Geography:
– the geography of language, religion, economic systems, etc. This class isn't required but I'm taking it regardless because I enjoy the subject. I like the humanities.

English History from the Roman Conquest to Elizabeth I:
– This class is packed, which is strange for an upper–level history course. It's also dominated by females, although it's not as if I'm complaining. Male historians tend toward being chiefly interested in military history, which bores me even though all of my papers at Montevallo have been related to military matters. I'm fairly well prepared for this class, but I don't know what my paper will be on. I'm thinking along the lines of William I's castles.

Sex, Gender Roles, and Culture:
– This class is for my sociology major. It's rather large (for a BSS class) and is likewise dominated by females. Most of the people in it are sociology or psychology majors, although there are at least two history people (myself included) in there. It's rather interesting so far.

German 201:
– We've lost a number of people from those early days in 101, but the class feels the same. Yesterday we interviewed a young Austrian woman. She actually understood my strangely–pronounced and perhaps clumsily constructed "How many generations has your family lived in Austria?" sentence. Perhaps I'm making progress at being able to use German sentence structure.

European History Since 1815
– This class meets at night, and we've only met once. As I've taken French History since 1815 and German History 1815 – 1945 and am generally interested in this era of history, I'm fairly prepared for this class and am mostly taking it because I want to learn more about the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Iberian peninsula.


I don't know if my computer is dead or if it can be repaired. It dates back to 2003, so it's rather old by computing standards – especially so given that I'm a PC gamer. Do I want a new computer? Zeus, yes. I don't know how I could get one, though. I imagine even when I do find a job up here the UM cashier's office will just take it all away. If my now–comatose computer is dead, I'm going to remove the hard–drive. There's stuff on there I want. Thankfully my essays and such are online, but I had big picture collections (nature, cities, screenshots, etc) and I don't want to have to rebuild them from scratch. Not to mention the mp3s!