Saturday, May 03, 2008

Courses for Fall 2008

A few weeks ago I registered for next semester, and here are the results:

MWF 08.00 BIB215 Pentateuch
MWF 09.00 ENG420 English Tutoring: Theory and Pedagogy
MWF 10.00 ENG213 World Literature I
MWF 13.00 GRK321 Classical Greek I
MWF 15.00 PHIL211 Introduction to Philosophy

I also have a one-hour Bible class, a one-hour activity class, and piano lessons, for eighteen hours total. I'm pretty excited about ENG420, which will require me to spend three hours a week working as a consultant in the Writing Center. Unfortunately, since it's part of the class, it doesn't pay; that's why I'm also going to work in the Writing Center as a tutor in Greek and Spanish. I can certainly pick up four or five hours a week doing that, so I won't have to work in the cafeteria next semester. (Not that I mind working in the cafeteria, of course -- it's been a good job -- but I think I'll enjoy the Writing Center rather more.) I'll have only five three-hour classes, instead of my six this semester, but between the Writing Center, piano, and debate (which I'd like to spend much more time on), it probably won't be any less busy. And that's how I would prefer it, anyway.

Recent Acquisitions (or maybe not so recent)

At last, classes are over. Yet there is a very important distinction between the term “classes” and the term “finals”; for although the former are finished, the latter have not yet begun. But since finals week for me won’t be very hectic, I find myself with enough time on my hands to blog. I have no Greek final and no Spanish final, although I do have finals in my other classes: Intro to Communication, Advanced Grammar, Biblical Foundations, and Intro to the Novel. The first one consists of memorizing a long list of definitions and regurgitating them, the second of essays, the third of more essays, and the fourth of yet another essay. For this last, however, I already know the question, and it’s a good one. The professor is letting us bring as many notes and quotations as we like to the exam.

At any rate, here are a few of my recent acquisitions (although some of them can hardly be called “recent” any more). These include some books I had to buy for school, although I’ve omitted most of my actual textbooks.

George Macdonald, Phantastes (Eerdmans, 2000 [1858]).

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Bedford/St. Martin's, 1996 [1848]).

John Butt and Carmen Benjamin, A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish (McGraw-Hill, 2004).

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (Random House, 1990 [1929]).

Étienne Gilson, Introduction à la philosophie chrétienne (Vrin, 2007 [1960]).

Euripides, Medea (Cambridge UP, 2002).

Euripides, Fabulae III (Oxford UP, 1994).

Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar (Oxford UP, 1996).

Herodotus, Historiae II (Oxford UP, 1927).

Herodotus, Histories Book IX (Cambridge UP, 2002).

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (Norton, 1999 [1898]).

William Kibler, Introduction to Old French (MLA, 1984).

Gustave Lanson, Histoire de la littérature française (Hachette, 1951).

Molière, Œuvres (2 vols.) (Didot, 1869).

Plato, Rempublicam (Oxford UP, 2004).

Lynn Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves (Gotham, 2006).