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Brian
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
My classes
My Spanish literature class is really funny. My teacher is a visiting professor from Buena Vista University in Iowa. All our stories that we have to read are about death or pain or suffering. Isn't that how all literature classes are? It's really very fun though. It combines my need to read good books with homework, I always feel energized after class.
My Spanish phonology class is interesting too. My professor is from England, and learned to speak Spanish in Spain. So when he speaks Spanish, he's hard to understand, and when he speaks English it's almost impossible to understand, mostly because it sounds like it should be a foreign language, but it's not Spanish. Last semester I took a linguistics class from the man who wrote this semester's textbook, so I feel like I've learned it all before. And it's my third class so far that has discussed phonetics and phonology. I feel like I have a very nice head start in the class.
Sociology is not quite what I expected it to be, but I still enjoy it a lot. Our first assignment for the class is to take a small survey and do some statistical analysis afterward. I've never seen most of what I'm supposed to do with the numbers I come up with. Math is the only foreign language that I am afraid to learn. I haven't taken a math class since my junior year of high school, and I never took any statistics. Don't tell anyone, but I'm almost excited to try some math. I got into the class thinking that we would talk about lots of sociological theory at first, but we're diving right into statistics. Oh well.
My religion classes really aren't quite as bad as I made them out to be in my last post. My teachers are both very energetic, and they know a lot about what they teach. I just wonder if the tests will be harder than final judgment. My guess based on past experience is that the tests will be more difficult than any previous religion test. I think that religion professors have contests to see who can fail more students per semester. That's what gets on my nerves mostly. I don't hate religion, and I don't resent having a religious education required at BYU. I just hate how hard the professors have to make it.
That's a rough synopsis of my semester so far. I apologize that I don't have the time to write every detail of just how cool my Spanish classes are. I really wish that everyone I know could experience them the same way I do, but it's just not possible. Maybe someday when everyone has experienced everything, we can discuss it, and it will only take a few words.
My Spanish phonology class is interesting too. My professor is from England, and learned to speak Spanish in Spain. So when he speaks Spanish, he's hard to understand, and when he speaks English it's almost impossible to understand, mostly because it sounds like it should be a foreign language, but it's not Spanish. Last semester I took a linguistics class from the man who wrote this semester's textbook, so I feel like I've learned it all before. And it's my third class so far that has discussed phonetics and phonology. I feel like I have a very nice head start in the class.
Sociology is not quite what I expected it to be, but I still enjoy it a lot. Our first assignment for the class is to take a small survey and do some statistical analysis afterward. I've never seen most of what I'm supposed to do with the numbers I come up with. Math is the only foreign language that I am afraid to learn. I haven't taken a math class since my junior year of high school, and I never took any statistics. Don't tell anyone, but I'm almost excited to try some math. I got into the class thinking that we would talk about lots of sociological theory at first, but we're diving right into statistics. Oh well.
My religion classes really aren't quite as bad as I made them out to be in my last post. My teachers are both very energetic, and they know a lot about what they teach. I just wonder if the tests will be harder than final judgment. My guess based on past experience is that the tests will be more difficult than any previous religion test. I think that religion professors have contests to see who can fail more students per semester. That's what gets on my nerves mostly. I don't hate religion, and I don't resent having a religious education required at BYU. I just hate how hard the professors have to make it.
That's a rough synopsis of my semester so far. I apologize that I don't have the time to write every detail of just how cool my Spanish classes are. I really wish that everyone I know could experience them the same way I do, but it's just not possible. Maybe someday when everyone has experienced everything, we can discuss it, and it will only take a few words.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
New Semester
This semester I'm taking five classes: Doctrine and Covenants, Living Prophets, Spanish Phonetics and Phonology, Spanish Literature, and Sociology.
My plan is this: If I take two religion classes, one of them will be my least enjoyable class by default. It just has to be. Religion has always been the worst part of my BYU experience. And the other will be tolerable when I compare it with the first. And this way I might enjoy a religion class before I graduate. Good plan?
I think I've already decided which of my two religion classes will be Satan's tool in making me hate Mormonism. (Well, not really.) In my syllabus for Living Prophets, I have an average of 12 conference talks per day to read, in addition to one or two chapters from the text. Not cool. That will take me at least three hours to complete. It takes the general authorities two full sessions of conference to deliver the addresses I have to read. I also have to take notes in my Ensign, and I'm graded on how much I write in the margins. I actually have to turn in my Ensign at the end of the semester.
I have other classes. If I plan on graduating with a degree other than religious education, I will not be able to do all the reading for this class. It's unreasonable. I can't spend all my time reading talks and expect to have time to do my other homework. I know that religion is important, and that it should be a high priority in my life. But seriously, I'm trying to get an education, and BYU keeps getting in the way.
My plan is this: If I take two religion classes, one of them will be my least enjoyable class by default. It just has to be. Religion has always been the worst part of my BYU experience. And the other will be tolerable when I compare it with the first. And this way I might enjoy a religion class before I graduate. Good plan?
I think I've already decided which of my two religion classes will be Satan's tool in making me hate Mormonism. (Well, not really.) In my syllabus for Living Prophets, I have an average of 12 conference talks per day to read, in addition to one or two chapters from the text. Not cool. That will take me at least three hours to complete. It takes the general authorities two full sessions of conference to deliver the addresses I have to read. I also have to take notes in my Ensign, and I'm graded on how much I write in the margins. I actually have to turn in my Ensign at the end of the semester.
I have other classes. If I plan on graduating with a degree other than religious education, I will not be able to do all the reading for this class. It's unreasonable. I can't spend all my time reading talks and expect to have time to do my other homework. I know that religion is important, and that it should be a high priority in my life. But seriously, I'm trying to get an education, and BYU keeps getting in the way.
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