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Brain, what is brain.
Too much to write about, not enough brain.
I started classes last Thursday, so I'm one week into it and really enjoying it. I don't recall how much I've talked about this, but the going-back-to-school mostly came about because I have always wanted to become fluent in another language and I'm not exactly getting any younger. Then, since I'd have to be on campus four days a week for THAT, I started adding classes around it and somehow ended up with a full class load. I don't know how long I'll keep this up (and I'll probably cut back to fewer classes next semester for more writing time) but it's weirdly freeing to take university classes with no real plan and nothing to lose if I fail.
My general assessment of the classes I'm taking so far:
Beginning French: Enjoying it so far! I will totally be hitting up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aragarna and the other French speakers on my flist to talk French with me if I ever get to the point where I can actually hold a conversation. :D
Beginning Archaeology: Love the topic, wish we were getting into the good stuff faster. It's been so long since I've taken an introductory-level course in the humanities that I forgot how mind-blowingly slow they are. However, it's required for all the really fun stuff. After I take this class, I become qualified for "field school", which is an archaeologist thing that basically means sending a budding archaeologist to stand knee-deep in mud and/or sand in their choice of a theoretically awesome (but probably unbelievably boring) archaeological location for 2-6 weeks. OLDUVAI GORGE IS AN OPTION, a;lskjfad;lskasd;.
Biological Anthropology (i.e. human evolution & genetics): I knew this was going to be a class I could basically do in my sleep, which seems to be accurate. If I could get over my overachiever thing (ATTEND ALL THE CLASSES! DO ALL THE ASSIGNMENTS!) I could just start skipping classes and sleep in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm taking this along with the above because it so happens they were offered in complementary time slots and both are prerequisites for doing university-sponsored fieldwork and/or taking much more interesting-looking classes at higher levels (like Osteology!).
Senior Creative Writing Seminar: Mostly I'm taking this because a) I thought it might be useful, and b) the instructor is really cool; I've had her for past creative writing classes. I hope I get a lot of good writerly experience out of it.
My class schedule is basically about as awesome as it can be, with my classes largely concentrated on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those days are long and tiring, but even on those days I have gaps that I can use for doing homework or whatever, and then I'm free from Thursday evening (i.e. now) 'til my one and only Monday class, which is the French class on Monday evening. It's my hope that having a long, solid block of free time like that will keep me from falling off the writing wagon too badly.
And ... yes, writing. A few weeks ago I posted my intention to write at least 2000 words a day (1000 original, 1000 fanfic). What I was thinking, basically, with the original/fanfic split is that I want original writing to be my focus, but if I wake up with the burning urge to work on a fanfic, why stop myself as long as I get my original-fic quota written at some point during the day. Or I could use the fanfic as a dangling carrot for getting the "work" done. I later added a sub-clause that the fanfic is optional if I write at least 2000 words of original fiction, i.e. I don't want to stop myself and feel like I have to write fanfic if the original writing is going well. But 1000 words is a lot less intimidating than 2000 words, and splitting it that way makes it sound at least half fun.
The amazing thing is that I actually did it (a lot more than the target, even). I didn't miss a day, right up until the end of last week when I simultaneously started classes and finished the original project I was working on (a novel) ... and quietly fell off my rails. I think I established, though, that I can actually do it (for a while, anyway) as long as I make it a priority. Normally I'm a writer who works in binges of inspiration and then faffs off for a while, but I DO want to be a pro and I want to learn good work habits, and I think I established that setting manageable goals for myself does work -- at least in the short term and when I don't have a whole lot else going on. I'm going to have to twiddle my settings a bit: see if I need to shift my goals downward while I have a school commitment of 30+ hours a week, see whether I need to give myself days off as a necessary part of my working process, etc. But I think I might be able to set up a writing schedule for myself that works, and this is something I've never successfully managed to do before.
(Necessary caveat: Everyone is different. I seem to thrive on obsessive word-counting and charts and daily writing totals. For some people, that's a devastating creativity killer. It's just a matter of finding what works for you, I guess. And I'm creeping closer to figuring out what works for me.)
And now I think I will go drink a glass of wine and write something before bed. :)
I started classes last Thursday, so I'm one week into it and really enjoying it. I don't recall how much I've talked about this, but the going-back-to-school mostly came about because I have always wanted to become fluent in another language and I'm not exactly getting any younger. Then, since I'd have to be on campus four days a week for THAT, I started adding classes around it and somehow ended up with a full class load. I don't know how long I'll keep this up (and I'll probably cut back to fewer classes next semester for more writing time) but it's weirdly freeing to take university classes with no real plan and nothing to lose if I fail.
My general assessment of the classes I'm taking so far:
Beginning French: Enjoying it so far! I will totally be hitting up
aragarna and the other French speakers on my flist to talk French with me if I ever get to the point where I can actually hold a conversation. :DBeginning Archaeology: Love the topic, wish we were getting into the good stuff faster. It's been so long since I've taken an introductory-level course in the humanities that I forgot how mind-blowingly slow they are. However, it's required for all the really fun stuff. After I take this class, I become qualified for "field school", which is an archaeologist thing that basically means sending a budding archaeologist to stand knee-deep in mud and/or sand in their choice of a theoretically awesome (but probably unbelievably boring) archaeological location for 2-6 weeks. OLDUVAI GORGE IS AN OPTION, a;lskjfad;lskasd;.
Biological Anthropology (i.e. human evolution & genetics): I knew this was going to be a class I could basically do in my sleep, which seems to be accurate. If I could get over my overachiever thing (ATTEND ALL THE CLASSES! DO ALL THE ASSIGNMENTS!) I could just start skipping classes and sleep in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm taking this along with the above because it so happens they were offered in complementary time slots and both are prerequisites for doing university-sponsored fieldwork and/or taking much more interesting-looking classes at higher levels (like Osteology!).
Senior Creative Writing Seminar: Mostly I'm taking this because a) I thought it might be useful, and b) the instructor is really cool; I've had her for past creative writing classes. I hope I get a lot of good writerly experience out of it.
My class schedule is basically about as awesome as it can be, with my classes largely concentrated on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those days are long and tiring, but even on those days I have gaps that I can use for doing homework or whatever, and then I'm free from Thursday evening (i.e. now) 'til my one and only Monday class, which is the French class on Monday evening. It's my hope that having a long, solid block of free time like that will keep me from falling off the writing wagon too badly.
And ... yes, writing. A few weeks ago I posted my intention to write at least 2000 words a day (1000 original, 1000 fanfic). What I was thinking, basically, with the original/fanfic split is that I want original writing to be my focus, but if I wake up with the burning urge to work on a fanfic, why stop myself as long as I get my original-fic quota written at some point during the day. Or I could use the fanfic as a dangling carrot for getting the "work" done. I later added a sub-clause that the fanfic is optional if I write at least 2000 words of original fiction, i.e. I don't want to stop myself and feel like I have to write fanfic if the original writing is going well. But 1000 words is a lot less intimidating than 2000 words, and splitting it that way makes it sound at least half fun.
The amazing thing is that I actually did it (a lot more than the target, even). I didn't miss a day, right up until the end of last week when I simultaneously started classes and finished the original project I was working on (a novel) ... and quietly fell off my rails. I think I established, though, that I can actually do it (for a while, anyway) as long as I make it a priority. Normally I'm a writer who works in binges of inspiration and then faffs off for a while, but I DO want to be a pro and I want to learn good work habits, and I think I established that setting manageable goals for myself does work -- at least in the short term and when I don't have a whole lot else going on. I'm going to have to twiddle my settings a bit: see if I need to shift my goals downward while I have a school commitment of 30+ hours a week, see whether I need to give myself days off as a necessary part of my working process, etc. But I think I might be able to set up a writing schedule for myself that works, and this is something I've never successfully managed to do before.
(Necessary caveat: Everyone is different. I seem to thrive on obsessive word-counting and charts and daily writing totals. For some people, that's a devastating creativity killer. It's just a matter of finding what works for you, I guess. And I'm creeping closer to figuring out what works for me.)
And now I think I will go drink a glass of wine and write something before bed. :)
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And good luck with French. I'm just taking a beginners' class myself and I'm still not sure how much I like the language. It seems unnecessarily complicated and isn't even that pretty... but I also haven't had luck with my teachers so far, so maybe that's a big part of it.
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We're lucky enough to have a good teacher, though, so that helps!
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Oh well, I still like it a lot. I saw that you learn well by reading, so I recommend finding some children's books, following French twitters (I really like @LesNews and @Slatefr), and watching movies with subtitles on. That's helped me a lot with other languages in the past.
Bonne chance à toi!
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I already thought of kids' books and have ordered a couple! ... Though it's kind of hard to get those without having to pay ludicrous overseas shipping; I was lucky enough to find a couple that looked interesting in Amazon's used book market. Although, wait, I just now thought of trying Amazon.ca ... durrrr! Anyway, thank you for the ideas. :) I also just discovered that my Stargate SG-1 DVDs have a French-language option. I will have to try that!
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I SUCK at languages :( I had to take 2 years in HS and 2 years in college. I was stuck with Spanish both times (HS offered nothing else and by college I knew how bad I was so thought I could pass if I took it again). I could pass the written tests - written fully in Spanish - instructions and all with an A. then I'd FAIL miserably with the spoken. In college, they started weighing the spoken much more than the written, so I barely managed a C when all was said and done :( God I came to hate how it was pulling my average down and no matter how much I attempted it, just couldn't THINK in the new language.
Beginning Archaeology - see my jealously. I wanted a class like this in my college. It was not offered :( Instead I was stuck with a beginning Anthropology for that set of electives and I pretty much disliked it. Passed no trouble, but found it really boring and didn't care for the instructor.
Humanities was my major - and it would have been a lot funner if Archaeology was part of the set at my college, but it wasn't
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And, awww, sorry to hear your college didn't offer that! We are lucky enough to have a pretty good archaeology/anthropology department, despite being a small university that's mainly focused on the sciences.
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