Things That Make Me Happy
Jan. 5th, 2010 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metonomia...Or people, I should say. I am in such a giddy, life-loving mood right now, and I know exactly the reasons why.
Uno - rth's contact with her awesome reviewer. I am so vicariously thrilled right now, and SO incredibly envious in a positive way of people who see all this awesome natural science, who create so much brilliance out of our very own world.
Dos - my theology professor for this quarter. She's been studying for 16 years, all over the world - various places in the US as well as in Israel. She is one of those teachers who so clearly loves her subject that after just 2 hours I am all fired up and excited to be learning from her. We're going to be reading and discussing selections from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur'an, looking at who wrote them and why they were written, what each individual sacred text tells us about the people who read/recite it, what connections we can draw between these three Abrahamic religions, and just overall what a scholarly study of religious texts can show us about humans. So utterly brilliant, and she clearly knows a lot, puts a ton of effort into what she does in this field, and is excited to be teaching us.
Tres - my history professor for this quarter's Middle Ages European history class. She's been teaching for a while, is published (with one book winning an award and another up for an award, and a third to come out in March), clearly adores history, and her focus is medieval queenship, with a particular interest in Spain. She knows SO MUCH. She began class by challenging us to ask her really good questions about why she's qualified to teach us (a bridge, of course, into one of the main focuses of the course, which is all about asking tough thesis-seeking questions and really becoming good analytical historians), talked about our first paper, shared some of why she loves history, and let us be totally goofy and excited. AND she's a Marxist, in terms of studying from the bottom up, looking at the common people first.
Quatro - math is going to be fairly easy. Nothing great there, but it's a relief.
I LOVE LIFE!! I LOVE SCHOOL! I LOVE LEARNING INTERESTING THINGS!!!!!
Uno - rth's contact with her awesome reviewer. I am so vicariously thrilled right now, and SO incredibly envious in a positive way of people who see all this awesome natural science, who create so much brilliance out of our very own world.
Dos - my theology professor for this quarter. She's been studying for 16 years, all over the world - various places in the US as well as in Israel. She is one of those teachers who so clearly loves her subject that after just 2 hours I am all fired up and excited to be learning from her. We're going to be reading and discussing selections from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur'an, looking at who wrote them and why they were written, what each individual sacred text tells us about the people who read/recite it, what connections we can draw between these three Abrahamic religions, and just overall what a scholarly study of religious texts can show us about humans. So utterly brilliant, and she clearly knows a lot, puts a ton of effort into what she does in this field, and is excited to be teaching us.
Tres - my history professor for this quarter's Middle Ages European history class. She's been teaching for a while, is published (with one book winning an award and another up for an award, and a third to come out in March), clearly adores history, and her focus is medieval queenship, with a particular interest in Spain. She knows SO MUCH. She began class by challenging us to ask her really good questions about why she's qualified to teach us (a bridge, of course, into one of the main focuses of the course, which is all about asking tough thesis-seeking questions and really becoming good analytical historians), talked about our first paper, shared some of why she loves history, and let us be totally goofy and excited. AND she's a Marxist, in terms of studying from the bottom up, looking at the common people first.
Quatro - math is going to be fairly easy. Nothing great there, but it's a relief.
I LOVE LIFE!! I LOVE SCHOOL! I LOVE LEARNING INTERESTING THINGS!!!!!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 07:05 pm (UTC)The women's perspective WILL be great - the history prof was talking about a priori assumptions in reading history yesterday, and she said hers is definitely that she looks for the gendered language and the presence or absence of information given about women in said historical documents. But she's not a raging feminist either, or at least she doesn't comport herself thus when teaching, so I think it'll be awesome.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 03:03 am (UTC)And a focus in medieval queenship is just astounding. I stand astounded.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 07:07 pm (UTC)AND she said that to focus on medieval queens, she also first focuses on medieval women in general, working up from the peasants to the nobility to the queens themselves. I feel like there is just a wealth of knowledge there waiting to be plundered.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 03:00 pm (UTC)Now I kind of want to be back in class! Well, almost.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 07:08 pm (UTC)