"Classes" Make an Ass out of People With ESP, or Something

So much of my time lately has been taken up with work for classes, getting to grips with my timetable of classes and assignments, academics academics, blah blah. I really think that four classes and dissertation research at once this term is too much for a person as disorganised, easily distracted and lazy as I am. (No, I am. No fishing for reassurances. It's ok, I have learnt to accept it, and live as best I can as a functioning member of society.)

Classes this semester:
20th C African-American Literature: Black Radical
Dialects of English (Linguistics)
Intaglio Printmaking
Fiction: Narrative and Description

The Black Radical class is good so far, it's taught by Pancho Savery who seems to be a bit of a primary campus figure. Or at least he argues with a lot of his colleagues, and his picture is on the Reed homepage. Pancho spent the first class stalking around the class talking in a low creepy voice about his philosophies of teaching and how people who didn't think they could cut it should leave immediately: "This rectangular thing here, it's called the door!" I think he thought the class was too big and wanted to lose some of the weak-willed chaff. The syllabus is W.E.B DuBois, Richard Wright, C.L.R. James and some political theory. I'm not scared.

Dialects of English I should probably drop, quite frankly, because it doesn't fulfill any UEA requirements and will get in the way of my dissertation and cause me to moan to my long-suffering friends and loved ones about all my homework for the rest of the semester. But I don't want to drop it because I love it so much. Just the syllabus and the reading so far are fantastic. It includes historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and accent nostalgia value. I often find linguistics darned difficult to be honest, but it is fascinating.

Intaglio Printmaking is a bunch of fun. 'Intaglio' means "a figure or design incised or engraved", so basically things like etching rather than relief printing (e.g. lino or woodblock). At this point I kind of suck at printmaking, but I think I'll get better. I like how the class always gets printing ink all over my hands: nothing like Artist's Hands to make you feel authentic and pretentious.

The Lit Theory class on 'Narrative and Description' is held once a week between 7 and 10pm, which cause me to miss Veronica Mars. The first class I found utterly boring, and my subconscious so unwilling to concentrate on whatever interplay between the twin forces of Narrative and Description was being discussed that my gaze searched out in vain for something, anything, to distract me, a difficult task in a nondescript classroom at 8 in the evening. I became transfixed with what shoes everyone was wearing, with what weird shape was appliqued on the teacher's sweater, by the sight of the girl diagonally opposite me sticking two slender bony fingers up her nose: a right fore- and middle finger, one for each nostril. I can't believe everyone else was so distracted by Ancient Greek narrative techniques not to notice that. Anyway, for the second class I was so guilty about not doing my homework that I spoke up a lot, a practise which actually passed the time. Who knew.