28 September 2006 Thoughts

Today, today, today. Finally! I got to register for classes. Certainly does not mean that I have internet yet. Grrr! Oh well …as Alice says – C’est la vie!  Anyway, I got up today at 8:30, which I might add was VERY difficult. Was at the uni (that’s short for University & apparently is what everyone calls it) by 9:30. I didn’t have to meet with the department until 10, so anticipating this wait, I brought a book. I’m a few chapters into Beloved which is becoming slightly bizarre. Toni Morrison seems to jump around a little with her time frame, and sometimes I am unsure as to which character is speaking and whether they are dreaming or talking about what is actually going on. So it’s a nice project for my head to figure out. Anyway, back to Swansea. So like I said, I finally got to sit down with the other postgrads – I’m not the only one! Of course, if I had been, they would have canceled the program or offered to enroll me in their PhD degree. I met Lucy who is originally from Bath (i.e. Stonehenge area). She completed her graduate (aka undergrad) years at Swansea in Law and then decided that she did not want to pursue a law career. Now she has changed over to English and is doing an MA in English with no background! I am sure she will be fine. She is a very pleasant person. We will have two classes together this semester and one next. From what I can tell of the program, it will be a very diverse group of people. I believe I am the only American. There are two, what I would call, non-traditional students, with one being a part-time student. These women are probably in their 30s, I would guess. There are 3 males and 6 females today. My guess is the program will total 10 or 11 in the end.

Everyone is probably curious about what classes I am going to take, especially those of you who look down on those “damn feminist classes.” Well, guess what! Those damn feminist classes are back and you had better believe I am taking them! This term, I will take 3 classes, one required by the department and two that I get to choose. Same will go for next term. So, starting on Monday, I will be taking “The Unsex’d Females’: Women Writers and the French Revolution,” “Study and Research Skills in the Humanities,” and a new course that was added yesterday called “Writing in Professional Contexts.” Now my hope is that SRS will be a breeze since Transy was hardcore on knowing how to research. Unsex’d Females should be very interesting, as it looks at female authors in the 1790s – our main target will be Mary Wollstonecraft whom I read in a class of Dr. Vital’s. We will focus primarily on two of her texts – Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman. Though I am not a fan of her work, I hope that my knowledge from some of my Transy classes will come through for me and help me out. The Writing class will hopefully become a love-hate relationship. Now you probably think I am crazy for saying that, but I really hope it is this because it is going to focus on grammar and language usage within in written communication. Now, the last time I had any type of grammar class was … oh … maybe 7th grade with Mrs. Renshaw? I think? It’s been a long time! One big factor in choosing this class was that I felt like it would fit nicely into my “teaching English after graduation” scheme. I figure that if I cannot construct a sentence correctly, then why in the world would I expect my students to do the same?! So, grammar, here I come! We are going to focus mostly on clause structure and modality, formal and informal writings, specialist genres (i.e. business, journalism, public policy, etc.) and discourses, report writing, and constructing effective presentations, particularly with Powerpoint. Surely these are all issues that are relevant to teaching and just working in any type of job.

Second semester I will be taking two very exciting classes and one not so exciting. The not so exciting is the mandatory one – “Research Practice in English.” Again, I hope Transy pulls through for me and this class will be a breeze as we have to write an annotated bibliography and a research report – ah the memories of FLA! ;-) My fun courses are called “American Wales”: Writing the Transatlantic and “When We Dead Awaken”: Gendered Approaches to Myth and Fairytale. Now the one I am most definitely excited about is WWDA. So, first I’ll explore AW. AW seemed like an interesting course because here I am, an American, studying in Wales. It just made sense! This course is going to look at the literary and cultural manifestations of Welsh interest in the USA and vice versa. It’s going to look at anti-Americanism, the American Dreams (in Wales and in the US), and I think will satisfy my American Studies need since that program was sadly dropped. Now, the super exciting class – WWDA – is going to be, by far, the coolest class ever! Promise! It is going to look at fairytales, myths, and the Bible for various things. We get to compare Snow White and Cinderella to Jane Eyre (I CANNOT WAIT!!! WOOHOO!) and Mansfield Park (I think I’ve read this one? Maybe when I was in Europe … might have been the one I bought at the British Library …). We’ll look at the story of Bluebeard and compare that to Margaret Atwood’s “Bluebeard’s Egg” and du Maurier’s Rebecca, which I read a long time ago (but it is currently on my bookshelf at home – bottom section, far right.) We also look at some Welsh myths that I have never heard of and then we’ll take a look at the Bible, focusing on Jesus and Moses and comparing them to Charles I, Rapunzel, and the 12 Dancing Princesses fairytales. And we’re going to read some book called Sexing the Cherry? Any guesses? Anyone? I’m at a loss for that. So yeah, I’m excited!

Other than that, nothing too exciting has occurred today. I did sign up officially with the equestrian squad, however, there is a little crimp in my plans as they ride on Wednesday at 1pm and I have class from 12-2 and then 4-6 on Wednesday! Grrr! I’ve got to work something out!! They do ride on Fridays sometimes as well, so I might talk to the trainer and see if we can arrange some private lessons because I really would like to compete on the team if possible. Who knows. I also went to the market today and put in an order for a new power supply for my laptop, which is about to die I might add. The one I have been using is for the US plug-in and when I convert the power over here, it is starting to overheat. I don’t want to fry anything since this is a new laptop and all!! The guy at the computer shop said that he had a student come in with their American laptop and power supply having problems – apparently the student had fried the motherboard trying to convert the power. Certainly something I don’t want to do! So he ordered me a new power cord which will be in tomorrow morning (talk about speedy delivery!) and I only had to pay 52 quid, which I found out is 52 pounds, or $104 for those of you trying to convert with the money rates. So that’s exciting.

While at dinner tonight, Matthew informed us (everyone was in the kitchen at the same time for once!) that Frederich had to go back to Germany for unknown period of time. Apparently Freddy got a call from home the day before – his dad killed himself the previous evening. According to German law/tradition, the oldest male has to make all the funeral arrangements and take care of the estate, so Freddy had to go back to Germany. So we are all very sad for him. Sure was a downer for the rest of the group. Hopefully he will be back soon and his classes can help take his mind off of things …

Anyway, since my laptop is about to die and I do not have internet to entertain myself with, I am going to go down to the kitchen to fix some dinner – I’m thinking pasta with cheese sauce as I have had chicken and edam sandwiches all week and they are getting a little old when it comes to taste. And I think Alice and I are going to go to the market on Saturday and cook up a storm that afternoon, which will be exciting since I plan on cooking banana nut bread (woohoo!) and she wants to make a French dessert (fine by me! Mom, I told her I LOVED fondant au chocolat, so we may make that one day!). So yeah … life is better. But I do need to stop drinking cherry coke … anywho, I’m out!