Internetified, and a Review of Third Year

At last, I have internet access at home again. Both the Shaw dude and the security guy (he does all the network/cable/telephone wires and plugs inside the house) actually showed up today. What a pleasant surprise to come home and see that I have TV and internet yet again. Excellent. It really is hard to go without the net for a week, especially when so much of what you do relies on it. Makes one wonder...

Anyways it sounds like everyone is adjusting nicely to a new school year. I've had all my classes once now except for a tutorial and a lab. I'm pleased:

RELG 370: Seminar style, only 20 or so kids in the class. The prof seems great. The course looks at methods, theses, and theories of religious studies. It seems like it's a look at different methodological approaches to religious studies. Good stuff. Our class focus is 'sacred space', and that is what our 2nd term research project is going to be about. Oh, and NO FINAL!

RELG 335: Ok, what can I say, Dr. Daum again. I had this guy for 6 credits of Biblical Hebrew. Amazing. One of my favourite profs. It's our first class and I already got into a 15 min conversation with him after class. He always teaches stuff that I find really interesting, the guy knows tons of stuff, and he is always willing to discuss stuff with students. Once again, NO FINAL (man I love religious studies).

GREK 325: Carl (our prof) is way different from most profs. He doesn't want to be called 'Dr.' or 'Professor', the most formal he is willing to hear is 'Mr. Johnson'. He isn't the kind of prof that wants to put him/herself over above the students as an authority/power figure. Also, GREK 325 is organized in a much different fashion than GREK 100 was. We are going to proceed in a 3 day rotation. Day 1 we read from a book on New Testament Greek Idioms. The stuff in this book is highly controversial. The point is to get us exposed to different approaches to Greek, as well as provide for conversation. Day 2 we work on our textbook (Athenaze II, same series as GREK 100). Here we learn Greek constructs and grammar. This is the standard stuff which GREK 100 focused heavily on. Day 3 is our New Testament reading. We are to prepare a translation of the assigned passage from the Greek New Testament. This is what it's all about, this is the whole reason I'm taking the course - to be able to actually *read* real ancient Greek documents. So that is how this class is going to proceed; 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, etc...

BIOL 200: This course looks daunting. Lots of reading, lots of material. This is the standard second year cellular biology course. But the focus isn't on memorization (we can take a double sided piece of paper into our exams as a cue sheet). The focus of the course is on applying our knowledge to solve questions and problems which required integration and understanding of concepts over a number of different units. I've done classes like this before, and I know I can do well. But I also know that in order to do well I have to stay on top of the material, class by class. And I know that the course is going to take a large amount of my time. The up side is that the material actually looks interesting.

BIOL 325: The prof is a hoot. He seems mean--someone you don't want to mess with--but he is hilarious. The class covers methods of locomotion, mostly of swimming and flying. I was hoping that land animals would also be covered, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm taking this course as part of my 12 credits of 300/400 level biology elective requirements. It's only 3 hrs of lecture a week (no lab or tutorial). I'll see how the material is, but for now it looks like I'm going to stay.

Anywho, the best part of this year is the fact that my breaks coincide with the breaks of a bunch of friends. We're gonna have some good fun in the sub.

See ya'll around (most of you probably on friday, haha)