Write It Down

On the very tip top of my heap of complaints sits this dreadful, evil cold. I knew it was coming, I should have tried harder to avoid it, but I figured it was inevitable as nearly everyone else had already or was currently going through the same thing. Now, laying here in bed with a heavy head and sandpaper-like throat, I'm regretting my lack of proactivity a few days ago. I slept through class today, not seeing a way I could make the hike to school without drowning in a stream of my own snot and hacking up at least one of my lungs.
I woke up to a knock on my bedroom door, which I was somewhat expecting, seeing as my landlady had told me that my direct roommate would be moving in today. Turns out it was the janitor type lady come to make up the roommate's bed. When she saw me in bed she was confused, so I explained that I had a cold and I think the poor woman is now convinced that I have the swine flu.
The roommate has yet to arrive, so I've been sleeping fitfully all morning, afraid she'll come in and see me and be weirded out, or something. Or feel like she can't be in here to unpack for fear of disturbing me. Oh well.

After attending an advisory meeting yesterday, I've decided that I'm going to change my whole plan for courses. The lady from the international students office told us that we probably wouldn't be accepted to courses that we hadn't taken before, throwing my plans for psych and/or natural sciences right out the window. But that's okay! I figured out that even if I take only my 4 history courses while I'm here, I'll be able to graduate on time, I'll just have an odd senior year. So, the new plan is to knock out the histories, take a beginner's french class (no assessment, just language!) and perhaps an intro to jazz, to see if that can count for my fine arts class. If not, I might take an art history, or something that I can only take here, like a Celtic civilization class. Who knows. Anyway, I'm feeling a lot less stressed about the whole course thing.

In other news, there really isn't any other news. Hooray.

ETA: WTF grrrr I am so mad why do all of my posts still say April 17?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

Trying to figure out which courses will be available this semester is nearly impossible, especially because the school hasn't yet published them. We've been advised to check out last year's courses with the warning that not all of them will be offered again. How helpful.

I've been comparing the old module book with the timetables, so I think I have some idea of what will be offered. My goals for this semester, coursewise, should be fairly easy to fulfill, though. I need to take two histories, either a natural science or a social science, and then whatever sounds most interesting as a fourth class.

For the histories, I'm tempted to take either Myth & History or Politics of Church & State. I don't want to take both, because they are both higher level courses with a 4000 word end of semester essay. I really don't want to do that to myself. If I can get into it, I think I'd prefer the Myth & History, and then a mid-level course called Information Revolutions & History. I can handle 4000 words and an exam, I think.

There don't seem to be too many lower level natural science courses available, at least... not ones that I want to take. I just can't really find nat sci interesting in the classroom, which is strange because I like Nat Geo and documentaries and that kind of stuff... blech. There's a couple of psych classes that I could do for my social science requirement, though. One is just an intro to Social Psychology and the other is one called Perception & Memory. I'm not sure if I could take Perception & Memory as it is a midlevel course and I have no Psych background.

I'm tempted to take this course designed for English speakers with no background in French. It's basically all conversation, no busy work or silliness, with the goal of giving us the basic vocabulary we'd need to survive a few days amidst the French. I don't know that such a vocabulary exists, but it sounds like fun, and it would be nice to be able to get by a little bit this Christmas.

Next semester, I'll basically be doing the same. Two histories, whichever science I don't do this semester and then a whatever. Maybe I'll take art history, because I still have to fulfill that. Assuming I'm successful in getting those three cores out of the way, and the 4 history courses tucked away, that'll leave me with ~3 history and cultural diversity senior year, meaning I would have room for four or so electives, unless I'm forgetting something huge... which I'm pretty sure I'm not.


Other than all of this planning, the past couple of days have been nice. The weekend was pretty chill, we mostly stayed in and played cards and planned our trips. I learned how to play Euchre seeing as most of my friends here are some variety of Midwestern. It's pretty fun, and kind of similar to Spades, so it wasn't too tricky to learn. We bought our tickets to Berlin. We ended up planning the trip for a week because when we looked at prices on Aer Lingus, there were 0 euro flights out of Cork to Berlin, with something like 20 euro taxes tacked on. All in all, a pretty good deal.
Last night we went to a pub called Clancy's where we heard there was going to be either swing or Irish dancing. Turns out both were going on, but the swing was upstairs and the Irish downstairs. One of the musicians would call out the dance steps, so a bunch of us would go up everytime and try our best to learn them. Our best didn't turn out so well, but it was still loads of fun.

In other news, I have become a chain tea-drinker and I'm dying for some good, or even not-so-good (i.e. Safeway) chinese food.

So, in traditional Keavy style, a to-do list.

• At least 8 pages of history paper
  
• PULSE paper
• Fill out release forms for Galway
• translate the next few paragraphs of Peig
• make notecards for US History
• Spend some time outside enjoying the sunshine
• Upload all of those CDs to itunes
• Create a packing list: What goes home, what gets ditched, what gets sent to Ireland (?), what gets given away
• Laundry

In other news, I saw a guy almost get arrested last night from my perfect perch of a window. Apparently Brookline cabs aren't allowed to pick up passengers in Chestnut Hill? The cop who pulled him over (unmarked cop car, btw) kept saying "you are NOT a BOSTON CAB!" In the end the cabbie tried to push it off on the kids who hailed him ("You're the one who knows the law!") and was fined a hefty $500. I don't understand the law, and I've certainly ridden in Brookline cabs before... strange indeed.

There are 4 days of classes left. Yikes.

So, even though I'm planning to go abroad next year, BC still wanted me to register for classes for next semester, so I did. Funny that the one time it doesn't really matter when I register, as I likely wont be taking the classes, I have a good registration time.

So, without further ado, here is the schedule of courses that I'll be taking if I do happen to stay at BC next fall:

HS 43201 18th Century Ireland t/th 1:30
BI 14201 The Genetic Century mwf 10 (to satisfy the rest of my natural sciences core)
PS 03201 Emotion mwf 3 (to satisfy the rest of my social sciences core)
HS 56501 American Immigration I t/th 12
EN 38901 James Joyce m/th 6:30

So it's kind of a crazy schedule timewise... I should be able to squeeze in some work hours mwf between 11 and 2:30, then t/th 9-11:30. I wanted to sign up for a fiction writing workshop but thought better of it... I don't want to take the space of somebody who really wants (and will be able) to take the class.
I think even if everything does fall through, I'll be happy with these classes...

Speaking of studying abroad, I got an email from Cork's housing system this morning, but it was completely blank. So I think I'll reply with a little "huh?" and see what's going down.