My first class was 8 am Monday morning. Great Narrative Literature. Surprisingly, Libby and I find our classroom relatively easy. Our teacher is an Feminist Atheist and she revolves her class around the Bible. Yes that is correct. A Feminist Atheist who teaches a literature class that takes modern day works and relates them to the Bible. She does not want us to look at the Bible for a theological stand point, but simply as a piece of literature that happens to shape our societies as a whole. The class as a whole should be easy. Write a paper on a book, do a presentation on another, and read the excerpts from each section so we can discuss and find the relationships between them. But as someone who has gone to catholic school my entire life (Actually Bond University is the first school I have gone to that is not Roman Catholic affiliated. But is is private.) I do not know if I can look at the subject objectively. Luckily, I am a good student that does what the teacher asks of me. The only bad part about the class is that it is a TWO HOUR lecture and at 8 am I hope my eyes can stay open long enough to actually learn something.
My 10 am photography is going to be a lot of fun. I am actually extremely interested in the subject and I really hope to become good at it, at least learn something. There is only problem. I know NOTHING about my camera. I cannot focus it, I cannot turn the flash on, and I certainly do not know how make things look artistic. And you can forget about self-timer, especially if I want it to take multiple pictures at once. Our first assignment is to take self-portraits of ourselves. 5 different poses/pictures but 10 pictures printed to bring to class. This is definitely going to be a lot of work for me. Luckily, Libby Kiley and a bunch of other sluzers (people that go to Saint Louis University) are in it with me! Our professor is a twenty-something year old and looks like someone we can party with more than have an intelligent conversation about cameras and lens sizes with. I am looking forward to it and pictures to come from my "works of art." My favorite from this week is shown here. I legitimately took this myself and is a spontaneous laugh! On Tuesday at 8 am I have my abnormal psychology class. Otherwise known as Psychopathology to us in Australia. It seems really similar to the American class abnormal psychology and I am hoping around the same time commitment. I love psychology and it is a class that I can actually pay attention in and stay focused throughout the whole two hours. Nothing like learning about the abnormal to justify my craziness as normal. Otherwise I am just as much of a lunatic as I really thought I am! Our professor is a stereotypical professor. An older female that is way too intelligent for her own being. Just my kind of professor.
My favorite class by far this semester is Sex, Society, and the Movies. This class is not for the immature. In fact you have to be 18 years or older in order to even be enrolled in the class. This is going to be a problem for me and Stephen, who is taking it with me. We literally learn about sex and how it is portrayed in films throughout society and how it is changed. We have a two hour lecture, a one hour tutorial, and a 2 and a half hour av screening where we watch the movies. The movies included this semester are: Fight Club, Brokeback Mountain, Eyes Wide Shut, Crash, and my personal favorite Inside Deep Throat. YES THAT IS CORRECT. Inside Deep Throat. A pornographic movie that we are still debating if it is homosexual or heterosexual. Apparently it is legal, and even encouraged to watch movies like this for class in Australia. It shows how porn has changed the sexual ways of film and we need to witness it first hand to understand. Having never seen a porn movie completely before (vomit is emerging from my throat around 30 seconds of being turned on), I can only imagine it will be full of giggle and laughing fits, disgusted faces, and utterly complete embarrassment. Especially since it is a co-ed class and I know a bunch of new male friends in it. I can seriously only imagine what the semester will bring. Our professor is hilarious. First off, she has no idea what she is talking about. She reads everything word for word off of the paper in front of her. She has no idea how to work any piece of technology. Honestly she is worse than my mom with computers (Sorry mom! you know it is true though!) Then, when it came time for our tutorials, it was a complete disaster. She gets side tracked every five minutes and does not understand easy concepts. With 14 people in our tutorial, and groups of two to present, that leaves 7 groups. With 11 movies and 7 groups there are going to be some movies that do not have a group. She quite literally could not grasp the concept that there were less people that movies and demanded that every movie had two people. What should have taken 5 minutes to decide ended up taking 45-50 minutes. If every tutorial is like that, I will have to slowly rip out my hair in order to prevent from strangling her.
Four classes that is it! At two hours per lecture, we only have class once a week. To fulfill the third hour time slot, we have tutorials. Tuts (pronounce toots!) are like labs that break down our lectures and give us more one-on-one time with our professors to ask questions and have little activities. I personally do not like toots (I am sorry I have to spell it like this.) I prefer big lecture classes that requires little participation on my part and even less group activities and projects. Busy work irks me in the wrong way. I prefer the one test a month and quiz me on what I can study for the week before. That is why I started a loving relationship with note cards beginning of freshman year that I am not ready to give up. But at $3.95 a pack of note cards, my relationship will have to be on a little hiatus which means "hasta la bye bye" to my note card holder (ok that is a lie, I'll end up buying the note cards anyways. I love that thing too much and got a new one thanks to K Willie D)
So to sum it up, my semester educational-wise is going to be a real challenge. I actually do not know if I will physically make it. I may have to drop a class or two. It is even worse because I have at least one person from SLU in every one of my classes. Libby alone is in 3 out of 4 classes, and Stephen is in the other. These classes are going to be more of an social hour than classes. Seriously, the only problem is what does my grade transfer back to the states as. They have a differently mentality here and I need to start thinking like it instead of the American way. In America, we start out at 100% and lose points for everything we do wrong. Here, you start out with 0% and gain points for everything you do correct. It is almost impossible to get a 90% or above. Rough translations are 85% and up is High Distinction which is a A+. 75% is Distinction or an A. 65% is a Credit or a B. 50% is Passing or a C. and Anything below a 50% is Failing or an F. This is of course according to our photography professor. And of course, knowing me, I will cry if I get anything below a High Distinction, or even that because it is not what I would normally get in America.
Even though I will try my best. So much for perfection.
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