Mid-English

As most readers of this blog should know by now, I'm back in school, with a view to change majors into English, and currently taking 6 courses (which in my school is 120% course load).

Having little experience with Uni English, and being a sort of outsider, as well as joining late, I had some reservations and doubts about whether I'd be able to succeed or not. But now, about a third into the term, I can confidently say that my expectations are totally reversed. My 4th-yr brit. lit. course isn't too bad, so long as I keep on top of my readings and pay attention in class (and since the profs are cool, I don't have a disinclination to attend lectures). And I suppose that's generally true for any course. I'm surprised by the number of people who still don't maintain their readings, even into 3rd or 4th year. Sorta makes one wonder the sort of people in business or politics who're expected to read these hundred-page reports about policy.

One thing that really struck me was the huge difference in ethnic distribution between my math classes of 1st-yr, and of my current English classes. In math, there was usually somewhere between 50~80% asian (although, oddly enough, in the advanced courses, there were more caucasians, most of european birth). I was sorta used to seeing the diversity; it was like being in Toronto, or high school. But now with the English classes, I'm back to being a stark, visible minority. Some of the profs I've talked to seem to have held some reservations about me joining their classes, from some sort of subconscious reservations about having non-native english speakers in their class. (Is my voice really that nasally!?!? I'm wondering if I subconsciously soften my voice by making it more nasal as a sort of respect, versus a regular gruffer voice which I'd reserve for friends. ....Although my voice isn't really gruff to begin with...)

It's fun though. Speech errors are much less common in class, and dialects are more subtle. One thing I have to watch out for that I never needed to in math, are the angry lesbians. They seem to have some sort of vendetta against male-kind. As if they could ever hope to regress into asexual, single-cellular organisms. "Sorry toots, you're stuck with us!"

Alright. 7am. Time to go to school!