Castles, Kings, Knights and ... Classes

I'm finally 100% settled in! I registered with the Garda (police) today and got my visa so I won't get kicked out of the country. (this keyboard in the library is weird ... the letters are in the same place but not apostrophes and the @ sign) I also finally registered officially for all my classes although technically I've been attending them for two weeks. I had to register with both NUI Galway and Arcadia, so I'm glad that's all done. I also signed up for a trip to Belfast in February!

I picked a pretty random selection of classes to take and none of them have anything to do with journalism which is very weird (they only have MA in journalism here). But I figured I'm in a different country that offers totally different classes and I might as well study things I wouldn't at PSU. The classes are all lectures, except for one. I don't think the word quizzes is in the vocabulary here and neither is homework or busywork. All of the classes require quiet a lot of reading and each has about 1 to 2 essays and a final exam or essay. It's a bit weird to get used to because a lot of the reading has to be done at the library and there's really nothing besides that you can do until you have learned enough to get cracking on the essays.

Teaching style: it's a lot different. Especially because the majority of classes are large lectures (about 50-100 students) there's very little participation if any in class. Students come, take notes (well the Americans take notes) and leave. There's no attendance either. Most of the lectures can be found online, too -- it's a program called Blackboard but is the same as PSU's Angel and we also have webmail, but mine's not working. Ugh.

Another thing I've really noticed is there are a lot of nontraditional, or older students. They probably range everywhere from mid-40s to late 50s. I'm not sure why this is but there's at least two or three in all of my classes.

Here's a breakdown of my classes (modules):

The Development of the Castle (M T Th F - 12 to 1 p.m.)
This class is as simple as its title. It's about castles. The professor, Kieran O'Conor, is a nice middle aged man who well ... loves castles. As my friend Colin says the class is basically story time about castles. It was a little boring at the beginning because each lecture could pretty much be summed up in on sentence, but the class is definitely picking up. I mean it's an hour of looking at pictures of castles all over Europe! AND the class is four days a week so it's over Feb. 20th and we go on a field trip the weekend after class ends.

Women in Medieval Society (M W - 3 to 4 p.m.)
This so far is actually the most fascinating class I'm taking. Again the title is pretty self explanatory, but I just find it really cool. We're currently learning about all the ways people thought women and men were different physically in relation to the four humors and elements. The professor is a woman and while she seems a little strict she's very blunt and straight forward about the subject -- which is good. She tends to ramble a little, as many Irish do, but it's interesting rambling.

The History of the English Language (M - 4 to 6 p.m.)
This is a seminar and the only one I am in. Seminars are smaller classes that are more participation based than the lectures. Since you have to register for seminars separately from lectures I just started this one yesterday. I was a little wary at first because there's a lot of other languages that come in to play in the development of English but the teacher did a good job of explaining everything. I think it'll also be a way to meet other Irish and international students because of the smaller setting. I already met a nice Irish girl named Brite (pronounced breet). There's also a girl from Germany, a girl from Spain and one from Italy in my class so it's a good mix of students.

Celtic Mythology, Religion and Folklore (W 9-10 a.m. and Th 3 to 4 p.m.)
This class is definitely cool mostly because a.) I doubt they offer any Celtic classes at PSU and b.) It's very interpretive. There are two professors. A man on Wednesday who talks and looks like he hasn't slept in years and is perpetually light headed. But he's still pretty interesting and makes jokes, although they seem very dry because of the way he speaks. On Thursday there's a woman professor who always wears funky clothes and is very out there. She's definitely the kind of professor you would see teaching a mythology class. She told us from the start that the class is mostly interpretation -- nothing's definite in this class because mythology changes from source to source. A lot of it was originally oral, too and we don't know how seriously people thousands of years ago took some of it. Whether it's something they truly believed in or just stories they told to pass the time.

(Post)Modernism (M 2 to 3 p.m. and F 9 to 10 a.m.)
This is probably my least favorite class. And I think that's not because of the subject but the professor and the way the class is taught. The professor seems like a very intelligent man, but lectures as if this was a graduate class for those well versed in modernism and postmodernism. He speaks very slowly and is an extremely formal lecturer. The class is also HUGE so there is no discussion -- which I have never had before in an English class. So it's all his opinion and views of the works; I'm not a fan. But we will be reading some cool works, like Lolita and Clockwork Orange so that will be interesting to study when we get to them. Currently he's lecturing on Heart of Darkness ... I'm not much of a fan.

Political and Cultural Geography (W 3 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. ... yeah random hour in between)
I think this class so far is my favorite. Mostly because the teacher is much younger and very charismatic. The topic is also something I've never come close to taking before. Currently we're jut doing some background on the history of Ireland but since I am living in this country I am excited to learn more about the political differences around the country and Europe as well. The teacher is also good to talk about America as well in relation to everything because there are a lot of Americans in the class.

Those are all of them -- 6 is quiet the course load, but it's what's required. It equates to 30 NUIG credits but will be hopefully an 18 credit course load in PSU terms. And since there's really no busy work, only essays and exams, the workload shouldn't be bad at all. I just have to make sure not to leave all the essays to the last day because about 4 of them are all due April 6th. Ick. Well I should get going because it seems I'm in the only section of the library with computers and there's people waiting to use them. I also have to get my e-mail address figured out ...

Sorry for the incredibly long post! Hopefully I kept your attention!