It's beginning to look a lot like Grad School...

Name that tune.

Right. So. Grad school. Graduate School. From Middle Latin graduatus and Greek schole (which was actually defined as 'leisure employed in learning'). Talk about a head trip. Seriously, of all the places I thought I would be at 25, grad school was a hopeful 'maybe someday' on the list. But, here I am.

Dear sweet god, what am I doing?

This is probably going to be the way I'm feeling for the next six quarters of my life. And then I'll get through it, get my degree, and be like "whoa, wait. Back that train up. You mean I actually did it? Me? The fat kid from CB who had to be the funny and tough one so that no one would mess with her? Got a graduate degree? Whose dream are you living in?" And it'll take months to actually sink in. (Seriously, it hasn't even sunk in that I have my BA yet, and I got that last spring!)

But, I digress. I gather I'm supposed to be blogging about something specific here.

Oh. Right. What do I think this course will be, now that we've moved past the 'first week eee, school! honeymoon stage'?

I think I can say right off the bat that even should this class prove more difficult than the other one that I am currently taking, I think I'll like it better. The reason for this being that this class seems a bit more... I can't think how to describe it. The other class is all formal wording and professionalism and there doesn't seem to be room for creativity or freedom of expression. I'm a theater person and a writer. Having to constrain myself so much is killing me. In fact, I don't think I really managed very well this week, and will probably hear about it in feedback next week. Oh joy. **gag**

This class feels a bit more like a sonnet. (Metaphor for the win!) Seriously. To write a sonnet, for it to truly be a sonnet, you have to follow certain rules and restrictions about the form and flow. However, inside of those rules, you have complete freedom to be as creative and have as much fun as you can or want to have. This ethics class is a bit like that. There are course objectives that we have to maintain, rules for posting and replying, essays to write, etc, etc. But within all those rules, Prof. Artz is encouraging us to be creative and to think outside the box and to bring bits of ourselves to the class.

I'm not saying that there's not a place for the whole professionalism bit and writing in a formal manner. There's totally is, and I can manage to do it if I must. I'm just saying on a purely emotional level, I'm going to like this one more because I get to be 'regular Kiri' rather than 'put on a show for the locals and pretend to be respectable Kiri'.

I'm also not saying that by allowing us to be creative, Prof Artz is giving us leave to slack off or do less than stellar work. If anything, the expectation is that much higher for us to do high quality work because he is allowing us to be open and creative and that sort of thing. I'm not thinking this will be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think I'd want it to be. Anything easy isn't worth having.

And again, I think I got off topic. Whee! Tangential logic!

I think the thing that looks easiest for me is going to be this bit. The blogging. I get to write and talk and just ramble on. It may take me til the end of the week to get it done (ahem, like this week), but that's because I want to think about what I'm supposed to be saying. I like blogging and I like getting my words out there for people to read.

The hardest part for me is going to be the threaded discussion bit. I have always had problems doing threaded discussions. Even when I did them for fun on AOL when I was a kid, with all my friends on the message boards, I was very, VERY nervous about puting out replies and postings. It's always been the hardest part for me, even as an undergrad, when the people I was in the online class with I also had other classes with on campus. It's really going to challenge me to be able to keep up with them and force myself to post. And I realize it doesn't make sense for someone who loves to blog and write as much as I do to be nervous about a little threaded discussion. But who ever said neuroses were supposed to make sense?

Essay writing is always a chore, but it's one that any student learns to deal with if they want to get through their academic career with their GPA intact. A dull, necessary evil.

The commercial that we'll have to create later on looks fun and daunting at the same time. The idea of trying to compile and edit images and that sort of thing gives me the jaggies. I'll manage. I always do. But that doesn't mean I won't be sweating bullets while I am. And at least it'll be a chance to be, gasp! horror!, creative. (Because I obviously am never creative on my own, nope not me.)

To summarize: This class looks like it'll be fun and educational, whereas my other class looks to be traditionally educational. It's all going to be a challenge, but some things look like they'll be fun too.

Ta!
K