Tuesday 26 October 2010

Week Three - Classes and Societies

Okay, it's nerd-out time.  This was the first week that I had all my classes.  I had a weird little pseudo-class at the LATIN briefing last Friday but I don't count that. Also, this was the first week that I attended any of the club stuff so I'm giving you guys my general impressions of both things that I wrote down right after they happened (or as close I could manage), without giving you a blow by blow of the class/meeting itself....because that would be boring.  

Palaeography - Palaeography is the study of ancient texts, both the development of how they are written (this is specifically known as codicology) and the writing contained with in them.  Anyone who wants to study any sort of literature in the middle ages has to have it, so, unsurprisingly, I'm taking it.  It's a skill module, meaning it's only about an hour and a half class, which is nice.  However, it means they're going to be trying to cram in as much information as humanly possible.

So far, my impression of the class is good.  Our work load is not graded, but rather for self-enrichment, which I like a great deal.  On top of that, it really is fascinating to see how writing developed.  Unfortunately a lot of it is in LATIN so I have to suffer through it in more than one class, but I'll deal if only because it means I'll be able to read Beowulf and all kinds of other fun documents in their original formats, which is beyond cool.

LATIN- Ah, yes, LATIN.  How I loathe thee, yet need thee for my studies.  My prof here is loads better than the one I had at UCSB for LATIN 2 though, which is an instant plus in my book.  I'm still not enthused about having to retake LATIN, but at least this class seems survivable.  Sort of.  It's at 9:00 in the morning and that hurts.

Age of Vikings - God, what genius thought an archaeology course should take place first thing in the morning?  Whoever they are, they need to get punched.  

So far this class is interesting, but I'm a little worried about it.  The focus is on the aspects of Viking culture that aren't commonly touched upon.  Fine.  We have to give presentations. Also, fine.  Our readings are very pedantic scientific papers that I could summarize in 3 sentences.  That worries me.  Hopefully it'll get better once we're out of the intro stuff but at this point I really can't say.

I thank God I was nerdy enough that I thought taking Archaeology at JC was cool, though.  It's going to be a huge help.

Old Norse - This is being taught by one of my flatmates, which is both a little awkward and kind of cool.  So far it looks like this is going to be a blast.  There's a significant amount of bleed over from Old English in some regards, so I'm not as thrown as I thought I'd be.  Of all the classes I've had so far, this is the one I'm really looking forward to sinking my teeth into.

Old English - Oh, Old English, I missed you.  I mean I've worked on it on my own, but it's nice to have it as a class again.  We're basically just doing translations and discussion, but the cool thing is because we're an advanced class we get to pick the texts.  This is so going to be fun, I just need to decide on the texts I would like to propose we translate. That's really hard because the texts I've liked, I've already translated either on my own or in class, and the texts I haven't translated, I don't know that much about.

Core Course: Intro to Art History - So far this class seems good, though there are a couple of students who are on that "Catholics were/are a bunch of controlling pricks" wavelength that is part of the reason none of my courses have much to do with religion (Well, that and I don't want to have to defend my religion every class.  You believe something different, that's cool in my book, I have zero problem with anyone of another faith, but please extend me the same courtesy).  Other than that, though the prof was enthusiastic and it was some very fun discussions.

We had to draw our version of the nativity though.  I do not think my dignity will ever recover.

Medieval Society - I...don't really know what I think of these guys yet.  They're definitely different than SCA, that's for sure.  There is no real game plan as to what we're doing as a club and pretty much the welcome feast was less a 'Hey, welcome to the group.  Here's what we're thinking of doing for the term' and more an excuse for everyone to get drunk on Strongbow and act like tits.

Still they seem enthusiastic and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt right now.  They get two more meetings and if I still feel like we're doing nothing, I'll quit and go do something else.

Old English/Old Norse Reading Group - This was fun.  We met up at a pub at about 5:30 on Wed and just sat around drinking and translating Old Norse.  As I mentioned on the Old Norse section, there's a significant amount of similarities with Old English so I managed better than I thought I would.

The group was bigger than I thought it would be, but they were all cool, so that just made it fun.  A bunch of us from the Old Norse class just walked over in a group too.

Sci Fi/ Fantasty Society - Holy crap, these guys are awesome.  I ended up staying the entire meeting and not only do they run some truly awesome D&D campaigns, they actually have a LARP going that doesn't sound completely devoid of anything except people being embarrassing.  These guys are hardcore enough that they made a friggin' manual for the LARP.  They're having a "convention" this weekend and I'm totally in on that.

Convention - I officially take back anything bad I've ever said about LARPing ever.  I had an absolute blast and I will definitely be doing this while I'm here in York.  They took some pictures of us in kit too, so if I can find 'em, I'll post them.

Also, in a moment of complete fail, I managed to lock myself out of my room last night.  This is the second time I've been locked out, thus marking me queen of idiots for a while.

Next week: LARP, Halloween Party and the prep that went into it along with whatever randomness I feel that I need to share.

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