First Day Back...

[thelibraniniquity]

Well, first day of lectures, so close enough ;). Three hours of History; the first hour was an introductory type thing, in the vein of "Work hard, play little or die miserably, bitches! fail."

In the nicest possible way of course ;) Can't fault Galeotti's (the new department head) sense of humour. I was just weirdly grateful he's not teaching my course this year!

Preceding that lecture was the ten minutes Adam and I spent squeeing enthusiastically discussing the TV shows we've been watching or meaning to watch this summer. Upshot? HE'S GIVING ME A COPY OF THE BSG MOVIE IN NOVEMBER! :D

After that, there was the two hours of introductory African History seminar. Met the new tutor, who's nice enough, and despite the course being set about a hundred years later than I would have preferred (colonial-era history rather than the post-1940's era the tutor's teaching), I don't think I'll have too many problems finding something to write my dissertation on. At the moment I'm leaning towards the emergence of the nationalist sentiment in the early twentieth century onwards (since the basis for it is firmly in the colonial era), but there's still a long way to go before I can make an informed decision about what the dissertation is going to be on.

Politics starts next Wednesday, with the Political Parties module being taught by the strict-but-fair German guy I encountered briefly in one of the first year modules. Can't remember who's doing the Eastern Europe module, except that I'm fairly sure it's not the guy I had for the Balkans module last year, who was so very quiet and thus almost impossible to understand.

And as a side note? My birthday present from Mum was dispatched this morning, should get that at the beginning of next week :D

Comments

[wihluta.livejournal.com]

wow, someone who's looking forward to uni starting again... that's a rare thing in my world... ;-)

but your courses do sound interesting. You really want to write your dissertation on African History? That is so cool! My cousin wrote hers on women's postcolonial literature of Zimbabwe (or some such thing) and my brother's doing African Studies (3 Semester). I'm just doing general history, not much on Africa there.

And YAYs to great birthday presents!

[thelibraniniquity]

someone who's looking forward to uni starting again
I wouldn't put it quite like that ;), but it's been a long, crappy summer to which uni over 200 miles away isn't a bad escape, and I'm also painfully aware that I need to seriously get my act together this year if I want to go onto postgraduate studies. It was also in an aborted History lecture (the tutor forgot to show up, lol) which I will forever remember fondly that Adam introduced me to the new Battlestar Galactica series, and got me well and truly hooked, but that's another story ;).

I have, however, fallen head over heel with African History since this time last year. It wasn't something we'd done in any great depth at college (the disastrous Scramble For Africa module was a farce and something I try to bleach from my memory ;), and I kinda jumped in feet first with both the modules offered last year. I had this habit last year of getting really side-tracked during the prep for the seminars, to the point that I was answering questions we hadn't been set, but the tutor decided I was being creative, original and witty, which I think was a good thing!

And yeah, great birthday presents are awesome! My mum's completely unaware of most things technological, and just looked blank when I told her about the specs and stuff of the HD I was ordering with the money she gave me. It turned out a simple, "Me likey!" was all she needed to know that I was getting something good ;)

[wihluta.livejournal.com]

I need to seriously get my act together this year
yes, I know exactly what you mean... :-) I'm trying the same thing at the moment to get through my finals. But I think it's working out (well, kind of.)

African History is a very interesting subject. My brother usually tells me long stories about his seminars, when we talk on the phone. He's doing Politics as his second module (or whatever they call this stuff now - they're changing the system in Germany).
And LOL to answering wrong questions. At least you answered them at all. I never did any homework unless I absolutely had to. But being lazy is not a good thing, as I've learned recently. You just have to learn everything in the last seconds before the exam and that's not a good thing. But I have to say, I'm glad I'll be done soon. :-)

[thelibraniniquity]

He's doing Politics as his second module
So am I! Keele have this long standing policy of the vat majority of their students joint degrees; I originally applied to study History and German, but they shut the German department down during my final year of sixth form, so I reapplied for Politics, since I liked the university too much to not come here!

And my policy for getting through this year with a good degree is to start as I mean to go on... so in about half an hour (or whenever I'm dressed and have had breakfast, lol), I'm off to the library to track down some reading for next week's Africa seminar ;)

[wihluta.livejournal.com]

So am I
That is sooo cool! I'm gonna have to tell him about that. :-)

And, great policy! Keep it up. :-)
I'll seriously start on the oral-exam studying on monday at the latest. I've done a few things already, and I got most of the literature at home, so I can jump right into it, as soon as I got enough sleep. :-)

[thelibraniniquity]

Sounds like an excellent plan :)

Me, I managed to find all four of the books at the library that I had listed (think that has to be a record or something!), and I've now got the weekend to do the prep work.