class has begun. Swahili 301 will be fun now that the genius grad student moved to 400. i know everyone in the class and Dr. Omar will be great. My Astronomy class was a snooze fest. 200+ students. I did the first homework in less than 10 minutes with the help of a few friends. We shall see how far that gets me.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are BRUTAL, in a good way. I start my day at 11:15 (that's early for me, get off my case) with Environmental Policy which should be okay. the professor is kind of a hippie... think of middle aged Bloomington resident and you know exactly what she looks like, how she talks and what she thinks about big government. The class is pretty big but meets in a smaller room in Ballentine Hall. Oh well. Then I go to Islam in the Balkins, which should be a great class. About 12 or 15 students and the professor seems great. She's a lot of fun and just got back from two years of research, so she's either really eager to get back in the classroom or just trying to make it fun so she doesn't realize "oh man, i'm back in the classroom instead of having fun and doing research NOT in America." The first night of reading was pretty slow though.
After that i move to Islam in and Out of Africa. It's a seminar in a conference room, but the room is too small. Not sure how the professor will be, but the readings seem pretty cool. She's a "younger" professor, and with that comes fun in the classroom but disorganization among other things. We're talking a lot about "gender in Africa" which is an important topic, but for the life of me in every class about Africa I take, all the women professors seem to ONLY want to talk about that. It's not that it's not important, I've talked about it SO much in the last three years. but the section where we talk about Islam OUT of Africa seems pretty okay. Stuff I've talked about ASIDE from Muslim communities in America. That should be cool. I know the class is Islam IN and out of Africa, but I'm just not a huge fan of Western Africa. I'm sure it's a great place, but my interest is not there. Hopefully I can still pull an A.
After that is Islamic Art and Architecture. It's through the Art School (YUCK) but oh well. A few NELC students, but the majority looked like art students. The class should be okay. The professor seems to know what she's talking about. She's younger but seems to know how to run a class.