Class started yesterday, so I thought I’d share my reflections on what’s gone on so far. I meant to do this last night, but obviously didn’t get around to it, or else I would’ve posted before now.

As most readers probably know, I’m taking The Novel: Life and Form this quarter — a class that focuses mostly on literary interpretation and comprehension. The first day consisted both of reviewing the syllabus and discussing some of the historical background behind our first reading, The Princess de Clèves. Thad is a very energetic and knowledgeable faculty member; he is very clearly versed in much of the historical background surrounding this novel. The expectations for this class are extremely high — five-page papers, 125 pages of reading a night on average, a presentation to the class once every other week, and a question on the text brought to class every day — but the faculty evaluations I’ve read about him suggest that this is the norm and ends up being quite beneficial.

I came home and had lunch with Amanda while watching Season 2 of Quantum Leap. After she left for her class, I read quite a bit of the book. By the time I was done reading around 11PM, I had read 108 pages (the introduction, editor’s note, chronology, and parts 1 and 2). Quite impressive for me, since I usually don’t do that much in such a short amount of time.

I went to class this morning and met up with a fellow writing tutor, who is taking the same course. He apparently had a rude awakening last night because of the length of the text. I’m not surprised; even I didn’t really expect that the reading would take so long. The entire class day basically consisted of dissecting the text, which I enjoyed immensely. It’s been a long time since I really have been able to get deeply into the text and discuss the details. The last time I did that was in high school.

Tonight entailed 76 pages of reading from The Princess de Clèves, which I haven’t quite completed at the time of this writing. I still have about 20 pages left. Overall, this is going to be a very hectic quarter between my work at the Writing Center, my work with the Enrollment Coordination Committee and the Enrollment Growth DTF, and my work with naturalaxis. I’m basically going to get slammed. As a good friend of mine put it, "we’re going to get our asses kicked, but we’re paying to get our asses kicked." I second that thought. Hopefully, it doesn’t completely and utterly cripple me in the process. I have confidence I will succeed, however, since I usually do, albeit with a fair amount of griping.

Pages Read to Date for Class: 184 (92 pages/day average)
Class Books Read to Date: 1