Classes!

So classes for the Fall 2011 semester have finally begun. Sunday I had three classes, two of which I decided I was keeping. The day began after that sleep deprived trip home from Luxor, and at 8:30 I managed to find my classroom for Art & Architecture of Ancient Egypt I. Now, the thing about AUC campus is... you can get lost in two seconds. Everyone gets lost. And I mean everyone. I asked the professor if there was a waterfountain nearby and he nodded and said yes, and then I asked if he knew where the waterfountain was.

And he said "... Uhhh.... nooo... But you have ten minutes! You have time to find it!"

People get lost seriously looking for their own office. It's great.

The class was really good. Only about six or seven of us showed up and it was really interesting to see the progression of pottery and decoration through the Pre-Dynastic period. Of course, it was just the introduction and we'll be going far more indepth later on in the semester, but it drew on a lot of archaeological basics that I learned in Intro to Arch/Phys Anthro and Archaeology of the Body! Yay!

Then I had a gap until 2:00 where I went to my Comparative Religion course, Zionism & Modern Judaism. The professor scares me. I know next to nothing about either of these topics, and she is very stern and strict and no-nonsense-y. She said, and I quote, "My Zionism class generally starts with around 30 people, but because it's so difficult, I usually end up with around 17 because people drop out." Hnnnng, whaaat? I'm terrified, but then I look at the syllabus and the readings aren't as much as I've had in 300 levels in Gettysburg, and the final paper isn't nearly as long as the papers I've had to write for Gettysburg either. But still. She scares me!

Then I made my way over to Chemistry, Art and Archaeology. I was seriously asked "What is archaeology?" and when I answered, "The study of human past and culture through material remains in the earth." And that was, verbatim, on the next slide, I almost face-palmed. It's a 200 level course. Which is like a 100 level in the Gettysburg curriculum, I've wagered. A lot of what we're going to be doing is stuff I think I've got covered, such as stable isotope analysis, C14 dating, and other ways to date artifacts and what not. And he's a chemist, not an archaeologist. A lot of the students that showed up for the class were freshman and people who were taking it to fulfill a requirement, not for genuine interest.

But here's the dilemma. I can replace that course with a grad course in Egyptology. Which is Advanced Methods and Theories: Archaeological and Historical. I emailed the professor to make sure it was okay, and she asked for my academic background, as the students in the class are MA students who have basic knowledge in Ancient Egyptian time periods, have been on excavations, etc. I'm going to be the underdog. I told her of my experience in the field (which is slim to none) and how I am a study abroad student taking courses to fulfill that knowledge of Egyptian history, and she said I could sit in the first class and see if it was going to be too much.

I'm afraid that it will be, and I'll be that kid that will show up the first day, and then never. Ever. Again. I don't know if I can live with myself if I do that. So I think tomorrow when I go to Campus, I'll go to both Chem/Art/Arch and Grad just to make sure that if grad is too much, I won't have missed the other class? I seriously don't know what else to do. =/ I really want to do the grad course, but I'm sort of terrified that it will be too heavy of a course load and too hard and I won't do as well as I want myself to do. Sigh.

So yesterday, anyway, I went to Hieroglyphics I, which is like a legit language course and seems pretty easy, and then I went to Anth 312, Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, which I think is going to be my "eeeeh, this is alright but not super fantastic," sort of class. Regardless, now that classes have started I find myself missing Gettysburg and home a wee bit more. It's not a huge feeling yet, but I do, and I'm sure it will grow a little bigger as the year moves on.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day 8:30 class in the morning and my grad class ends at 8:30 pm. Huzzah!