Here we are, second week of classes and I finally have my schedule straightened out.
I am taking Soils and Archaeology on Monday nights and Anthropology of Emotion on Wednesday nights. Monday’s class is at 6pm, which gives me that ~2 hour break between work and class that I love/hate, but Wednesday’s class is at 4:30 which means I have to fly from work to Oakland, park and walk ~6 blocks to class. In 30 minutes. Luckily my professor has a class that runs until 4:15 so class is never going to start early.
I had my first Soils class on Monday and while it is probably the geekiest class I have ever taken, I think I’m really going to like it! The professor is not a typical professor, she’s a soil scientist and has a business and just teaches this class once a year. There are only 10 other people in it, and in the middle of class we have Cookie Time. Halfway through class, someone pulls out cookies and passes them around and we chat for a few minutes. Even though I probably won’t be partaking in the cookies, this is pretty much the greatest thing ever. But yea, other than that, gonna learn a lot about rocks and dirt and I can’t wait. I think the class will probably be a bit easier work-wise but might be a bit tougher since it will be pretty technical.
My other class is Anthropology of Emotion and that professor was a breath of fresh air on Wednesday compared to the Pickle Juice Lover. I just felt very calm the entire class. Definitely made the right choice switching. It’s going to be a lot of work, but the professor seemed very laid back so I don’t fear for my grade like I did in the other one.
We did a really cool icebreaker last Wednesday after we discussed the syllabus. Icebreakers are literally my least favorite thing about life, and when he stated “After we come back from break, we are going to do collaborative improvization,” my heart seized up and I almost died. All I know about improv is from drama class and I did not want to do any “yes and”ing. Luckily, this was totally different and really neat.
We all went around and threw out a word, which the professor wrote on the board. There were words like “clouds”, “crying,” “cats,” “bagels,” “chain-link-fence,” (it was supposed to be one word but some of us forgot), “orca-whales,” and others. Then I threw out “online-dating.”
We then went around and voted on what we wanted to write about. It got down to “crying” vs “online-dating” but mine won! Ha.
So then we took 20 minutes and wrote a piece and titled it. There were no rules to what we wrote, it just had to somehow relate to online dating.
Once the time was up, we went around and read our titles. Some of those included “Must Love Dogs,” “BF,” “Uneeta Lyfe,” “What if she’s a dude?,” etc.
Then we just shouted out what order they should go in, and then read our stories in that order, allowing them to form a long form story. Apparently you then go through and edit them to make it flow even better, but we didn’t get that far. It was a lot of fun and gave a little peek, if not to who the person was, their writing style/sense of humor/tone. It was also a lot less nerve-wracking to spend 20 minutes planning out what I wanted to say to these strangers and not have it be about me.
For posterity, I’ve included my section of the story, since I thought it was a fun excercise and though my story had a rough start, I was proud of the last few lines.
Must Love Dogs
I wrote a paper on online dating last year and one of the most intersting anecdotes I pulled up was that the creator of match.com’s girlfriend left him for someone she met there. She may even have married him. The story without context seems a little sensational, but in reality when he began the site – he encouraged everyone he knew to join – even his girlfriend. The fact that she actually used the site, rather than simply creating a profile is telling, and he is probably better off without her. Is online dating the greatest thing to ever happy in the history of courting, or the worst? It probably depends which half of that couple you ask. Or really, it depends on the experience of whichever person you are asking. There are definite plusses and minuses. It is another avenue in this busy, non-stop world of ours to attempt to connect to another person. It can also be a cautionary tale of psychos, perverts and mail-order brides. Like anything, you have to be smart about it and weigh the pros and cons. Is the chance to meet the love of your life worth accidentally going on a date with your dad? Maybe.
jellyjars 