Well, welcome to Blog Number 3 for me. Cari, my sister, told me awhile ago that I should start blogging again. While I'm positive that this was purely self-serving, as she has been enjoying my emails home for two years, I figured it wouldn't hurt me to get back into the swing of things either. I decided starting a new blog was the best option, as it divides it evenly into one for pre-mission, which doesn't fit who I am now at all; one for the mission, which would be stupid to add onto as I'm no longer on a mission; and one for post-mission. I've now been in Provo for.a month. I like it here. I have a lot of friends around, which makes things easy. Really, life isn't as exciting on a day-by-day basis as it was on a mission, so it's harder to truly make this terribly interesting. So I'll describe my classes for you...whoever you are. Who reads these things anyway?
1) American history until somewhere in the 1800s. It's no the real name but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. It's a pretty interesting class, but it includes a lot of reading. I know, I know, I love reading and so I should love the class. The effect of overjustification, however, is that with receiving a reward for what we already enjoy to do, it is no longer enjoyable. It is not that I completely do not enjoy it, but I certainly enjoyed reading about how Katniss fought her way through the Hunger Games more. Still, I am learning quite a lot of interesting facts on women in early New England, Benjamin Franklin, and slaves.
2) Anthropology 101. This class is held in a huge auditorium which makes human interaction nil. It is taught by a man with a British accent and an interesting sense of humor. Yet, while it is interesting to learn about the hunter-gatherers of Africa, the only really enthralling part for me is the psychological implications of the anthropological studies. Beyond that, I'm just grateful I don't live in a desert. Oh, never mind, scratch that last remark....
3) New Testament section 1. Best class listed yet. Taught by Camille Fonk Olsen. We do some pretty awesome little in-depth discussions on the life and times of Christ and the authors of the gospels. So good. Along with this I'm doing a sweet little project studying the Christlike Attributes found in Preach My Gospel and how our Savior exemplified these traits during his life and ministry. I am marking all of these things in a color-coordinated marking system, and then recording what they were and what I can do to follow in His footsteps in a journal. It should be good.
4) Psychological Statistics. By far the longest (two hours) and most boring sounding yet one of the most interesting classes so far listed. That is mostly due to the professor, however: how often do you have a teacher that frequently shows youtube videos and includes Justin Bieber asking questions in ebonics in his slides? Not to mention one of his goals is to introduce us to good music, so we always listen to some sweet bands before class and try to guess what they are for some Sassy Taffy. The work, while it seemed difficult at first (I haven't done math for years), actually is pretty easy and I'm doing pretty well in class. Also, I'm learning quite a bit about good and bad statistics, and, thus, what products to avoid. I once got commended in middle school for using the word thus on a paper. Really? Thus? Of course, this was also the same middle school where the English teacher didn't know din was a word.
5) Social Psychology. This teacher also frequents youtube, but usually for more useful purposes...usually. By the way, let me mention here how much I love my major. Anyway, it's pretty interesting learning how people interact with one another. Many of the things that are mentioned in class are things I kind of knew but had no name for, and some of it is actually surprising. I am quite happy, however, that I am not studying sociology. Psychology was a good choice.
6) Psychology 101. The class that tells you what to do if you are a psych major. Basically: find a teacher to have as a mentor and start doing research with them. Oh, I also have to go be a guinea pig in research. Woot.
There is also one seemingly recurring theme in most of my classes: Truth is Relative. Luckily, as it is a Church University, it is agreed that there IS truth out there, but it's also agreed that, besides things confirmed to us by the Spirit, none of us can KNOW Truth. As a recently returned missionary who spent the last two years declaring Truth, this is, initially, a very disheartening thought. Once evaluated and understood, however, we can still retain that there is Spiritual truth. Beyond that, remember people: if you and somebody else disagree, you're both probably wrong, so take the high road and admit it first. Just a thought.
