(no subject)

[hermionesviolin]

hedy has paid off her karmic debt for cancelling a Spring Break coffee date by hanging out with me 4 nights in a row this week :) Tonight was Sam’s friends The Ponys at the Tavern. Thanks to the opening band i now want a theremin. H. suggested i obtain a Sugar Parent. What? A set is only $300 or something. You act like i don't have that kind of money to throw around or something ;)

I wanna go to the Tufts queer conference. Need to decide which workshops i want to attend. I definitely wanna go to the ‘images of queers in the media’ for Session 2 (ooh, and ConBust has a “Homosexuality in Sci-Fi” panel the night before), and will likely go to ‘queer theory and queer activism’ for Session 3. Am undecided for Session 1.

More pressingly, i register for fall classes one week from Monday!

Can’t take Gen Lit as it conflicts with work. Have decided to just procure the syllabi for GOV 100 and ENG 200/201. *looks at susiebabylon*

Do i want to take Shakespeare with Harold Skulsky or Gillian Kendall? (I can take Karl Donfried’s Dead Sea Scrolls course if i take Skulsky’s section.)

jessikins4774, talk me out of taking Marc Lendler’s Free Speech class.

I think i definitely want to take Intro Bible I and Self Defense (the latter is a one-credit night class).

Deviant Behavior with Pat Miller and Advertisting and Visual Culture (an ARH 101) with Barbara Kellum conflict.

I actually wanna take Marc Steinberg’s Sociology of Rock and Pop Music.

Comments

[hedy.livejournal.com]

I plan on going to:
Same-Sex Marriage: The Legal and Political Landscape (Anderson 313)
The Still-Persistent Desire: Butch and Femme Today
Transgenderism 101: Politics, Identity and Representation (Anderson 212)

Am OI a big dork if the thoughts of these excite me?
PS-we should go to a good gsy organizing on campus ones....

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Clearly we're both big dorks.

I feel like the queer organizing would focus heavily on "helping people on your campus be okay with queers" which is rather less of an issue at Smith than at most places.

Joe says he went to the Tufts conference one year and "found it to be a waste of time. more bitching about the hardships of being queer than any talk of solutions. a lot of newbies who don't understand queer politics and that you can be queer with tact and acceptance is different than tolerance and all that" but concedes "maybe I just went to the wrong workshops."

[hedy.livejournal.com]

hmm....maybe we should skip it then.....

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Do we know anyone else who's been?

[suspectplaces.livejournal.com]

skulsky v. kendall:

while skulsky, like coffee or good cheese, is something for which not all might have a taste (or the stomach), kendall has this pesky reputation for being the devil.

[sarah-p.livejournal.com]

SKULSKY!!!!!

DUDE. I took Shakespeare with him, and I love him so much. The previous commenter is right--he's not for everyone, but I think he's fabulous. If it's any indication of his popularity on campus, though, I'm his advisee.

His only advisee.

Hee.

Feel free to call me up (ext. 7320) or E-mail me or whatever if you have any specific Skulskyish questions. To add to the incentive to take Skulsky's section, I have a friend who took Donfried's Dead Sea Scrolls class last semester and absolutely adored it.

Viva la Skulsky!

:)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Skulsky comes up with great frequency in discussions about English profs (i actually added the relevant smithies thread (http://www.livejournal.com/community/smithies/50437.html) to memories so i could easily point people to jessikins4774 intelligent synopsis of what the question of "Skulsky or no?" comes down to) and i know he's very much a love him or hate him prof, with a popular inclination toward the latter. I'm not sure i could handle a professor doing the whole "This is what i think; this is what you are going to think," because clearly i am that contrary brat. But on the other hand, a friend pointed out that you know exactly what to say in your papers, none of this "must come up with new original thought" problem, and i'm beginning to think i could actually handle his teaching style (esp. since i've been well-warned what to expect).

[azdback.livejournal.com]

Heh. I like Skulsky, personally. He also has a wealth of information.

BUT
1) He's boring as hell (Milton is interesting in comparison -- I like Milton now because Paradise Lost in front of me gave me something else to do rather than simply listen to him drone and stare at the wall in Seeyle one-oh-whatever, and wonder why they made those god-damn chairs so uncomfortable because those sharp wood backs cut right under my shoulder blades and then I realized its because they weren't meant for a 5'10" walking stick...)

What was I saying? Oh yes, Skulsky...

2) The most inconsistant grader ever and the most contradictory professor I've ever had. I copy down his notes word for word. Use them in my papers as the interpretation, etc., that he's looking for (which he said, he was looking for it) and HE MARKED ME DOWN! HE SAID I WAS WRONG! IN A SENTANCE I QUOTE ALMOST VERBATUM FROM MY NOTES! I was hopping mad to say the least.

So I'd say, stay away from Skulsky.

Also, in other news...

Please take a government class NOT Gov 100, unless Pat Coby is doing the lecturing, then it may be okay, but it is by far the worst class (okay... it barely beats out Intro to International Politics, but hey... it still beats it out!) in the department. Unless you actually LIKE Hobbes and Locke and, horrors of horrors, Rousseau *bleh* And this is from the queen of the government geeks. So, take note.

[marginaliana]

SKULSKY!!! While he might irritate you with his emphasis on text instead of theory and having things his way, at least he's intelligent. Whereas Gillian Kendall is just freaking stupid and annoying. A muppet on crack, I tell you. bad bad bad scene.

And Marc Lendler... where do I begin?!? His pretense of objectivity is ultimately unconvincing. He asks excessively simplistic questions. Knowing you, you're way more up on the issues than most people and thus won't need to take a class to learn what he'll teach you. Seriously, you'll be bored out of your mind and frustrated with the simplicity of it all. And he only gives out the assignments a week before the due date, so there's absolutely no chance of getting started early, which forces you to schedule your life around his class.

And I think you should take Advertising and Visual Culture just because I always wanted to take it but couldn't. Woot for advertising.

I'm not opinionated, no...

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I'm very committed to text, so that probably wouldn't be much of an issue. As we've discussed, it's really the whole no arguing thing. I'm beginning to feel like i could handle that, though. And Gillian Kendall's on that list of "English profs i have been warned never to take," so it seems rather like i don't have a choice if i want to take the fall session of Shakespeare.

Ooh, big Grr to not having much time in which to do assignments (i definitely procrastinate, but at least the topic can be percolating in my head and i have the *option* of doing research early and so on).

I far prefer straight-up bias to a false pretense of objectivity (everyone has biases; tell me what yours are and i'll tell you mine and we'll understand each other far better).

Mostly i'm interested in the laws and policy regarding the First Amendment and how they've developed and what they are now and so on. Ya know, so i can argue intelligently about supposed issues of free speech when they come up, as they so often do. Because i have some understanding of what the laws are and what the interpretations of the First Amendment are, but definitely not a thorough solid understanding. I have fear that it will be filled with stupid whiny Smithies who have no grasp of the concept and just want to feel justified in their inconsistent invocation of the First Amendment. (Not that i'm jaded or pessimistic or anything.) Maybe i'll audit with an option to drop or just obtain a copy of the syllabus.

I'm definitely inclining toward Advertising and Visual Culture over Deviant Behavior.

I would be far less fond of you if you weren't so opionated :)

[azdback.livejournal.com]

I actually really like Lendler. He's a good guy. A little... well, absent minded and scruffy and clumsy, but in the end, a good guy. It's also obvious he TRIES, at least, to present a simi balanced view of things, which in government, I think is important and we don't always get at Smith (ie, on occasion, he will defend a Republican or two). He's also very well informed and does his work. AND, most importantly, he's an easy grader. So you get a lot out of the class, but don't have to kill yourself to do so.

At least, that's my experience.