Thursday, January 27, 2011

WHY

Why do students find it necessary to sleep in front of the computers in the library? There is limited space, but you feel the need to have your head down and SNORE in front of your computer?

People suck.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Spring Semester

I made a New Year's Resolution to start blogging and to keep at it, at least a post every week, pictures optional. See how well I've done: only one post so far and that one from last year! Let's see where I can go with this.

So as you may or may not know, I recently transferred up to VCU in Richmond. Getting the classes I needed was insanely tough! All I really need at this point are 300 and 400 level history classes…and of course at this late date everything was full! With much luck and constant checking and refreshing of the class list, however, I was able to get a full schedule: Colonial America, Two American Revolutions, History of the Holocaust, and Russia from 1860. All but the Russian history class were on my dream list of classes, so I count myself extremely lucky. Having been to class for a week, I think the Russian class is going to be my favorite!

Last Friday my school held a fair where all the clubs set up tables and passed out flyers giving information. I would love to do some clubs, but I am coming slowly to the realization I don’t really have time for them. Very disappointing! The Alexandrian Society, a club mostly for History majors, looks like it would be great to participate in, but their first meeting is this Wednesday at 8am, and what do you know but I have work starting at 730am that day. I spoke to some of the current members while at the fair and it seems that we have the same concerns (I had looked at the organization online earlier in the semester) about the seeming pre-occupation of the club’s leaders with minorities. Don’t get me wrong, learning about black history and asian history and Swaziland history is all well and good, but when the focus of every single Symposium organized by the club is Afro-centric, it gets a little too repetitive.

This reminds me of a recent outburst by a customer at a certain store that stocks only items of a single low price tag. He felt that as remuneration for “400 years of slavery”, he and other black people should be able to walk into a store and have anything they wanted for free. I bit my tongue, but I wanted to tell him that the origin of the word “slave” was from the ethnic group of the “Slavic” peoples, and if any ethnic group that had suffered slavery in the past were to get special treatment, nobody in the world would have to pay for anything and the world economy would collapse. I have a problem with people who think they need special treatment for something that is long dead and gone. But, I digress.

The SciFi “Skiffy” club and the Quidditch Club (a traveling team that plans to attend both the Triwizard Tournament and the Quidditch World Cup!) also seem pretty interesting. As I get further along in my completion of my 18th century garb, I’d like to form a club where like-minded people would get together and dress up and talk about George the Third and tea taxes and guillotines. Maybe we’d play some Vivaldi and learn to dance. I do so love Vivaldi…

Time to run off to Holocaust now. If I have time tonight I will post pictures of my near-completed stays. J