If I was going somewhere, I was running.

That was a damn good burger I just had. I want all of you to know that. But on to less important things.

Today marks the end of my first week of classes, and I am happy to report that I am happy with them, happily. So let's go over them, shall we? They are as follows:
Geography 100: Place and Society
Geography 239: History of Cartography
Religion 258: The Qur'an
Russian 151: Golden Age Russian Literature

I realize that you probably don't have any real idea of what goes on in a geography classroom. Perhaps you can relate to the following sentiment.

(Taken from the preface of 10 Geographic Ideas That Changed the World, edited by Susan Hanson.)

(Taken from the UVM (which is not where I go to school) geography department's webpage.)

And perhaps the following explanation can help you understand what I'm learning.







I apologize if I have bored you thus far. I'm trying to help you understand what kind of classes I'm taking, although as I look back at this post, it definitely seems dry and impersonal. But I'd rather make an attempt to acquaint you with my potential major and have you skip over it than not make that attempt at all and have you wishing I had.

Maybe I'll just tell you what we did in our first lab session for GEOG 100, on Monday. The professor gave each of us two large sheets of paper and asked us to spend twenty minutes drawing a map of campus and twenty minutes drawing a map of the world. Those of you who were in Mr. Granite's 7th grade history class may recall that he had us do the very same thing on our first day. Once my professor told us what we were to do, I immediately thought of that assignment in Granite's class and how my angry I was with myself about five minutes into the assignment when I realized I hadn't drawn the equator first and my continents were aligned improperly because of it. Naturally, then, the first thing I did this time around was fold the map down the middle and draw my equator. As J.K. Rowling put it in the last line of her epilogue to the seventh book, All was well.

History of Cartography, it should be noted, is quite a different class than Place and Society. Everything I've described so far applies to the latter, but the former is much more straightforward. We learn about the history of mapmaking. One particular date on the syllabus that I have my eye on is October 30, when we will be taking a look at the mapping of fictional worlds, including Tolkien's. You guys do know I own a copy of the book you see to the left, don't you?

Summary: At some point this semester: I will simultaneously be studying history, cartography, and fantasy literature, all for class credit.

(Taken from A Brief History of Geography by David Livingstone.)

Oh, and there is one quote from a reading we did that struck the proverbial chord with me. Given the fact that, as I blogged about last week, I decorated my room with over 35 maps before having set foot in a geography classroom, this quote, which you see to the right of these words, leaves me to believe I came to the right place.

Alright, enough on that.  I have two other classes to bore you with. And at least a few more prepositions to end sentences with.

My class on the Qur'an started slow the first couple of days, but on the third day of class (which was today because it's a MWF class) our assigned reading was a commentary on the Qur'an by a Muslim scholar who wrote a couple of rather provocative things. Things like, "For, it is much less reasonable -- indeed it is irrational -- to say that all this gigantic and lasting natural order is pure chance" (Rahman, 11) and "Yet, we must keep clear of pantheism and relativism, the most attractive and powerful of all spiritual drugs" (Rahman, 16). Because of the controversial nature of the reading, today's discussion was lively, to say the least. And yes, my voice was heard.

The Russian literature has yet to really catch steam, but given the reputations of some of the authors we will be reading (Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov), I have reason to be excited for what's in store. Our first reading was the Karamzin short story "Poor Liza", which, in my opinion, was overflowing with sentimentality and none too original. I expect that it can only go up from here.
Also, the professor has quite the Russian accent. Oh, and the Qur'an professor has an Iranian accent. And the Place and Society professor has some European accent that I can't place. And the History of Cartography professor is Welsh, but doesn't have much of a detectable accent.

Me on the left.

Of course, there is more to my life than course work, seeing as I'm going to hit 80 miles this week. Six days ago, at Dartmouth, we had our first "race" of the season, and I say ""race"" rather than "race" (those quotes got confusing) because it was really a workout in a race setting, meaning our coach gave us training groups and paces to hit rather than telling us to race. Because it was a workout, I am content with my performance (28:20 for 8k). Tomorrow we race the only home meet of our season, which you will, in all likelihood, read about next week.

Well, I suppose it's time for me to go back to wallowing in despair about the present state of collective bargaining negotiations between the NHL and the PA.