I’m terrified.
So this semester is going to be a really nifty train tour with hell out one window and heaven out the other because I’m taking 18 hours worth of classes – 4 of them being capstone, and while that part of it is petrifying, I am excited as a paycheck for the classes themselves:
Shakespearean Tragedy for the capstone
American Indians in Media
American Movies
American Cities
U.S. History post-1865
Choir
And fun with you, claro claro claro
Anyway, I already have two presentations coming up and a craze of reading but I figure so long as I remain this jacked up excited to sponge it in, everything’ll work out – it did last semester, I thought I was gonna have to rip my hair out at the roots to make room for all the info but it ended up being my highest GPA yet.
As for how Paideia will fit in, I’m very pleased to finally be thinking of it as a sort of intellectual spa, a place to go and relaxedly speak about what’s important to me and you and how this all relates to the greater cosmos in helping better the world by bettering myself. My biggest goal is simply to be better for you all, really, to be a finer and more respectful participant in our discussions. Hopefully, Paideia for me this semester will be not so much another thing to do as a place to brainstorm and leave feeling refreshed off of your different presentations and ideas that may help prepare me for the capstone discussions to come.
As for study abroad, the Native American reservation fell through to the tune of $12,000 and so now I’m retiring to NYU for about 6 weeks during the summer for some American Studies classes. I’ve already spoken to Sue about it – disappointed her, I think, but c’est la vie.
I figured we’d probably keep on keepin’ on with the whole individual presentations over something that’s grabbing at us particularly that week – and this time actually get the info out on time – and maybe spend some more time discussing what our final presentations are going to be like, just so I can get a good handle on mine.
I’m personally still working on my other capstone paper (for my American Studies capstone) as well, my Ginsberg/Trickster capstone paper, so I’ll most likely be looking for ways to meet out new ideas and angles and opinions on that subject for my own endings, and that’s probably what my final presentation will be over – fingers crossed it makes it to a conference. It’s itching up to 70-80 pages and by March I’m hoping to find some lovin’ Harvard way as they open up a call for papers in a variety of academic areas. I’m writing about everything from censorship to Native American religion to Stephen King’s sense of humor and I really can’t wait till it’s ready to have its debut. – really, it embodies Paideia for me, the mix of everything from all of these different areas and examining how they function as a complex, wonderful whole. Just being in the group with you guys helps me to realize this again and again, and I hope you know how much I appreciate that.
At any rate, I’m really just looking forward to further broadening how I consider the things I’m learning in my very specifically focused classes and on becoming a more productive member of our group, do a better job of pulling my weight.
Ciao for now chicos,
With love,
moi
