Alright, it has been quite a while since my last post and as I mentioned in it, I was going to provide a bit of a year review and reflection time. So, here goes.
First semester at Drake. What can I say? It was a lovely time while it lasted. Really. It was. I was sort of sad by the end of the semester when I was just starting to get to know more people and I was leaving. Drake allowed me to make some guy friends (which is sorta strange and a never-before seen feat for me). Anyhow, I made some great friends and was able to open myself up to meeting other people. I remember when I first got there last August I was feeling really good about the opportunities to meet people. I had to first open myself up a bit more and be a bit more outgoing, which was sort of a stretch for me considering I am one of those people that needs to be talked to first before I start really talking to you. That is to say, once you start talking with me, I generally will not shut up. If that doesn't occur, then I will probably never talk to you. I realized that this is a silly policy and have tried to reverse that as much as possible this year. I think I have done a pretty good job because now I am able to talk to many people easily, which should definitely come in handy in the future, especially in the workplace. But yeah, the first month was pretty cool. I met a lot of awesome people, professors, and was able to be independent...I mean, truly independent. As the semester progressed, I became closer and closer friends with people on my floor and it was really awesome. I am still in frequent contact with these people (minus a few) and we are keeping each other updated on stuff, so it looks like a good possibility that these are friends for life. The semester went on, I became more social and started going to this Philosophical discussion thing at Drake that my Ethics prof told me about. I started going and started thinking about the larger picture. That once a week discussion combined with the extensive reading assignments of my actual philosophy class really pushed me to become a more critical thinker, which came in handy especially in the form of this blog. I was also told at the end of the semester by my ethics prof that I would be a great addition to the philosophy department. I doubted that considering I do not have the innate critical thinking skills that many in that department seem to have. However, I do enjoy my dabblings in philosophy now. I also learned a great deal about global politics in my comparative politics class. After taking the history of the modern Middle East, the unit on Egypt in that class really assisted in my understanding of the countries around it and especially the revolution the country experienced in February. I really enjoyed that course and I really enjoy thinking about politics. I have even thought recently about changing to a poli sci major, but on second thought it is a poor choice, in my opinion, because of my poor performance in econ. But, you never know what the future holds for certain, eh? My FYS course got me really excited about the Balkans, a region that I knew little about until this course. Having this knowledge also helped me in the Middle East history course because we talked about the Ottoman Empire, which the Balkans were part of for more than 200 years. I also enjoyed the literature aspect of this course and it has pushed me to think more deeply about literature I read. I even entertained the idea of pursuing something with English literature, but I crossed that off my list because it is far too interpretive and to a certain degree ambiguous. Sociology last semester was sort of an interesting class, but it was too easy and did not challenge me enough.
Aside from the academics of last semester, I also learned many important socializing skills, as I have already briefly discussed. Overall, the first semester was incredible. I would not change it for the world.
But now I am at Luther, and loving it even more. There are so many opportunities for scholarship that I was never aware of at Drake. There are incredible amounts of interesting lecture topics, academic opportunities, and a sense of academic and social community, whereas Drake mostly felt like living at a hotel. My courses this semester were really interesting and assisted me in developing my interests a ton. I took a religion course during J-Term and absolutely loved it. It got me so excited, even though it was a lot of speculation and guesswork. Then during the spring semester, I took intro. to the Bible and learned even more about Christianity and it has sparked my interest even further. I am really interested in studying the historical interaction of religion with society. My Bible prof. really liked me and even talked to me about becoming a religion major or minor, which I thought would not fit within my schedule, but now it does. Thus, I am a religion minor (for the moment...a lot of this depends on the availability of courses and whatnot). My modern history of the Middle East, as I have already demonstrated in the previous section, really linked up to a lot of the stuff I did last semester and even (given the modern time period in which we focused) enhanced my current political understanding of the region. It was really useful and we talked about a lot of relevant topics (including the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, and Iran). Good stuff. I was a bit wary at first about taking this course because I was not sure that I wanted to really study anything other than European history, but I am so glad I did. As I said, it enhanced my understanding of current events, but it also increased my knowledge of Islam. I came into the course with a lot of holes in my knowledge of Islam, as virtually all I heard about Islam was little tidbits and factoids. I held a very vague picture of this intricate religious tradition, but after a semester of talking about the interplay between the state and Islam, I have become aware of the complexities of Islam. One cannot simply boil down something as complex as Islam to a few basic beliefs. I remember a lecture I went to entitled "Was Jesus a Muslim?" and the lecturer (my J-Term prof, actually) said that anyone familiar in the least bit with Islam would probably know about the 5 Pillars of Islam. However, when one generally thinks of these pillars as principles that basically boil down the religion to 5 easy tenants. However, the analogy that he used, which he heard from some imam, was that the 5 Pillars of Islam provide a framework from which the entire religion is formed around. But at any rate, I learned a great deal about Islam. Paideia (a combo of history and English) was Paideia. It was reading and writing. Pretty basic. Pretty boring and even though it was supposed to be highly discussion-based, it truly was lacking in that department. Finally, my Spanish course. Super nice professor. SUPER nice. Really simple class though. This prof (named Rita Tejada or simply Tejada) recommended me for a spot in the Language Learning Center (LLC) wherein I can help students with their Spanish homework and do assorted other things and get paid for it. Pretty exciting stuff. She also said that I can speak Spanish really well and after a semester of immersion abroad (required for the major) I should have a pretty darn authentic accent down, which makes me happy because that is something I have been striving for for many years.
At any rate, this semester was pretty academically easy, but extremely informative. Aside from courses, I have also been participating in another philosophical society/discussion thing, enhancing even further my understanding of various famous philosophers, ideas, concepts, and world-views. I will be doing some independent (and with Katrina) studying of pretty well-known philosophers and then probably be posting my reflections on them here, so be on the lookout for that this summer. The social side of this semester was pretty awesome. I got accepted into Katrina's group of friends pretty easily and have some pretty good relationships with a lot of the people in that group, but I have also had the chance to make some good friends on the side. Ali from DQ is still a really good friend, and I managed to make friends with Jenni (another girl on Katrina's floor) and then my roomie for next year, Cody. I am really excited to room with Cody because he seems to be a totally awesome dude and we should have a fun year.
Anyhow, this post is getting long. Look forward to some more philosophical insights this summer.
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