Oh, right, Civ
Apr. 2nd, 2008 06:33 pmSo, although it is at 10:30, which I think makes it the earliest class I've taken yet, Civ seems good. The class is entirely different from the past two quarters, however. As it's the third quarter, few people remain from the first two - only me and Colin from Tufts House. However, as there are only two classes, and the other is at, IIRC, 9:00, pretty much everyone from every section of European Civ who is taking a 3rd quarter, is in this section.
So it happened that Novak (the professor) did the whole "everyone say your name, etc" thing first day, as it is a discussion class, and one kid decided this was the time to demonstrate to everyone new heights of "that kid"-ness. (OK, in all probability, not new to the world. But beyond any stories I had heard.) Aleister, he said, is the name he goes by, though that's not what you'll find on the roster. The class, I should note, is on the history of liberalism (in the general sense). He says about he's so excited for this class and in particular about reading Hayek, because he's an enthusiastic libertarian, and then starts going on about Hayek, volunteering 7 weeks in advance to do the presentation on him, and suggesting other readings in addition (after our professor has already gone over how since we only have 10 weeks he had to think a lot about what he can afford to leave out). It was pretty ridiculous. It seemed every time I saw Colin afterwards that day, he was repeating this story to someone.
So while my number of classes has decreased, my amount of work has probably decreased. Number theory looks like it'll be the bulk of the work. Babai's exercises are probably not going to be easy, but neither are they going to be graded, and while I have yet to see, I suspect complexity theory won't be too hard. And Civ, unlike last quarter, is going to have just one final paper and one in-class presentation. So, yay, free time.
-Harry
So it happened that Novak (the professor) did the whole "everyone say your name, etc" thing first day, as it is a discussion class, and one kid decided this was the time to demonstrate to everyone new heights of "that kid"-ness. (OK, in all probability, not new to the world. But beyond any stories I had heard.) Aleister, he said, is the name he goes by, though that's not what you'll find on the roster. The class, I should note, is on the history of liberalism (in the general sense). He says about he's so excited for this class and in particular about reading Hayek, because he's an enthusiastic libertarian, and then starts going on about Hayek, volunteering 7 weeks in advance to do the presentation on him, and suggesting other readings in addition (after our professor has already gone over how since we only have 10 weeks he had to think a lot about what he can afford to leave out). It was pretty ridiculous. It seemed every time I saw Colin afterwards that day, he was repeating this story to someone.
So while my number of classes has decreased, my amount of work has probably decreased. Number theory looks like it'll be the bulk of the work. Babai's exercises are probably not going to be easy, but neither are they going to be graded, and while I have yet to see, I suspect complexity theory won't be too hard. And Civ, unlike last quarter, is going to have just one final paper and one in-class presentation. So, yay, free time.
-Harry
