Fall Semester

So it's that time of year again where a new school year is beginning, and I'm looking forward to my classes, and then the first day goes by and the second day and I'm looking forward to the weekend, and then I realize I need to take another class this semester if I want to graduate by May, and then I take on a few jobs to make money for gas and the occasional off-campus dinner, and then I come down with a case of faux enthusiasm during which volunteer for too many things, half of which I might follow through with, and I'm left wondering where all my video game time went.

But seriously, I do think this will be a good semester. I started my first teaching practicum where I go to schools and work with middle and high school students, which is very exciting. I felt lucky to have such a good first day of class-- I was actually able to help some of the students with their English questions, which made me feel pretty cool. I never thought the day would come where I feel validated by successfully defining "simile."

And in case, god forbid, I'm getting too over-confident in the English department, the practicum is balanced by my course on Chaucer. After spending two and a half hours reading about ten pages of The Canterbury Tales, I realized several things:

1. I love reading textbooks
2. I love reading scholarly essays, provided they were written in the last hundred years
3. I love reading James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Gertrude Stein, and all of those pretentious authors who choose to write in modern English (barely) (except for the part where they write in other languages, but at least I can skip those parts with the excuse that they are not English and therefore I am not obliged to read them, unlike Chaucer, who wrote at a time when spelling was arbitrary and jokes about the Black Plague were fashionable)
1. But don't hold me to that-- I'm not really going to pick up Joyce or Pynchon or Stein and read them. I don't love them that much.
2. Please don't hold me to that
4. I have no idea how to spell "Canterbury"

And if Chaucer wasn't humbling enough, I'm taking Music Theory III (for fun) two years late. I have never been the oldest person in a class before, but now I know that feeling, and I kind of want to start a club. "Delayed Seniors" or something. But I do enjoy theory.  Along with history, it's one of the two aspects of music that I don't think I will grow tired of anytime soon. 

Oh, well. Here's to the beginning of the year. 

Since I like video games, video game music, and Skyrim these days, I'm going to close this post by posting a Skyrim piece that I've really been enjoying.