classy_choice epitome of incomprehensibility Today I discovered by chance that I need another class in order to graduate...I think. Back in 2021, when I applied for my second undergrad at Concordia, the advisor said my "general credits" requirement was waived because I'd already done enough classes the first time around. But now the almighty university website tells me one more course outside my concentration is required before I graduate. My mind: I only have three I have to take this term. I can add one more. Better safe than sorry. Aaaaand, as I searched HIST for history, the one called Modern Europe (French Revolution and Beyond) struck me as interesting and doable. Choose it, then? But not so fast. The hidden possibilities of the Arts and Science calendar beckoned. Shouldn't I look at more choices before settling down? I needed a course on Tuesday and/or Thursday morning - surely there were a lot of those, even just in the humanities. Well, that drew me into a 2-hour search with the occasional pause to scrawl down notes. I widened my net to eleven. At supper, discussing the courses with my parents over "farmers' breakfast" (toast and an omelet with potatoes), I narrowed it down to five, maybe: HIST 202 (Modern Europe) - T/Th 8:45-10:00 PHIL 281 (Philosophy in the Islamic World) - T/Th 8:45-10:00 ANTH 255 (The Caribbean: History and Political Economy) - Th 8:45-11:30 ENGL 231 (Medieval Literature in Translation) - T/Th 10:15-11:30 ANTH 212 (Elements of Ethno-Linguistics) - W 11:45-2:30 ...That last one might relate most to other things I'm doing, but I told B. I'd work at the tutoring centre all day Mondays and Wednesdays. I_asked_for_it, it being the job. I_didn't_ask_for_it, it being THAT much job, summer and fall. But I still said yes, because guess who needs money after her European immer_immersion jaunt? Would it put me into a bargaining position to ask for a raise if I change my agreed-upon schedule? It would not, small-business wiggle-room notwithstanding. Scratch ethnolinguistics, then. Also, someone from the department might think it's too LING-y to count for separate credits. But do I even need to take another class in the first place? Who do I trust, a one-time advisor or the cool, calculating, computerized course-compiler? 230812 ... e_o_i It's a bit out of left field for me, but I've picked Philosophy in the Islamic World. Medieval Literature in Translation was my favourite, but it was filled up before I could snag a spot - probably because it wasn't so early in the morning. But I'm happy because I'll be learning something new and the prof has good reviews: good at explaining complex topics in an accessible way. 230816 ... e_o_i Also, and perhaps this is embarrassing to admit - I didn't want to write an essay*. The history course has a final essay, the philosophy one doesn't. *esp. in a discipline I'm not as familiar with 230830 ... e_o_i The funny thing is, I deliberately avoided philosophy for the German culture portion of my minor: possibly I could have done a class on Kant for my last three credits. But it was an upper-year course, and both Lindsey and David warned me against casual Kantiness. They said he had a highly specialized and complex vocabulary and thought system. My hazy idea: philosophers already have that tendency, sooo...and I'm being proven right, just a few pages into Classical Arabic Philosophy. Aristotle and the Neoplatonists in the intro, Al-Kindi now. Did you know there are four kinds of causes? Two of them don't even seem like causes. More like properties. All in all, though, it seems manageable. So I picked a class called Literature and the Holocaust instead. I think they're reading Maus and I already own it. But as for graphic memoirs, I never bought Persepolis: why? (Now I want to write a separate blathe about the comic_memoir genre. Everything has things branching off - part of the beauty of blather, even if it annoys me that my mind works that way.) Anyway, the Literature and the Holocaust class is in the religion department, perhaps by default: I'm guessing some of the texts in it weren't originally in English, and Concordia doesn't have much of a comparative literature program (weirdly, "comparative literature" generally means "translated writing" - how's that for non-obvious jargon??) Most of my classy choices were done in spring. For my fall AND winter courses. That is, in May - in Germany, thanks to the Internet. Anyway, about this winter course choice, I said to Chelsea, one of the immer_immersion students, "Apparently I'd rather be sad than confused!" She thought that was funny. I'm not sure it's funny. I'm not even sure it's true. 230830 what's it to you? who go blather from