college: semester 2: day 1

thank you meg.

9 am: political science 110 - american politics + government
i think i'm going to adore this class. (wishing i could take poli sci 101 - current events, but won't work with my schedule!) my teacher was about 3 feet tall. not really, but he was really short. i found myself excited about the things i knew from american heritage (the class i loved so much i decided, for now, i want to be a teaching assistant for it, which inspired my taking this class.), but still wishing i could spout factual information more readily. i could answer, without thinking, exactly where in the constitution displays a structure to balance between tyranny + anarchy, law + freedom, virtue + self-interest. then i thought, do i need a phd for that?

10 am: communications 211 - news writing
a pre-requisite for my major. appears it will be much easier than i thought. except for one haunting word: the benchmark. this is the article that must be written in a finite amount of time that your professor and lab assistant give a score, which determines your fate. not really, just whether you get into the major or not. i'm excited.

in reexamining my life though, this is a class epitomic of the epiphanic time when i realized journalism was a profession. never before had it occurred to me. i didn't so much as dream as i did fathom what it would be like to learn how to write the news. i treasure these fantastical specifics that are now real. definitely better extramentally.

12 pm: religion 122 - book of mormon 2
my book of mormon 1 class had about 20 people in it. this one has about 200. how paltry i feel. contains some good friends worth getting to know better, about half my ward, and a girl i spent a great deal of time with in the american heritage review room who is both hilarious + kind, and told an unsettling story in class today about getting chased up the great wall by a china woman with a cane.

summary: college round 2. am having the usual and all-too-familiar homesickness after time with family. who all keep reminding me i didn't want to go home to begin with. a friend e-mailed me today. she said it perfectly:

it is just a weird time of life, and you tend to feel a lot of pressure to make something useful of yourself, and pick a career you will love, and you have this funny sense of not knowing how your life is going to eventuate and just waiting for it to do something

lately i am feeling more like a late bloomer than ever. i feel like i've just entered 7th grade and trying to figure out--pardon the phrase---who i am. i guess i'm saying that i'm not quite as confident as i was in round 1. which is just fine with me. for now. what i'm not fine with is a loss of fascination + enthusiasm. perhaps i shall recover from my numbness to the college scene after the sting of being home wears off.