Thursday, January 3, 2008

Back at Luther, Day One

Today I have been a getting things done machine. First off, I got up and went for a walk around town, which is lovely, albeit a little cold and windy. I cleaned my room a little bit, which was necessary. I played my guitar a little bit and wrote most of a song, it needs a little work. Then I went to class, which was an interesting experience.

I am taking a Paideia Capstone course called "Osama, Obama and Clinton: Race, Gender and Nationalism in U.S. Politics." It is taught by Kim Powell and Pamela Cook, so it should be a good time. They both love to assign readings though, so I will have much more work this Jterm than last Jterm. Last Jterm I took Recording Original Music and basically got to play guitar all January. Anyways, the course basically examines the construction of race, gender and nationality in U.S. politics, focusing on the 2008 presidential elections. The first half of the course we are examining the political concepts of freedom, citizenship, equality and democracy. The second half of the course we are digging into election topics, such as health care, education, environment, national security, policies in the Middle East, etc. We were divided up into small groups, and each group is responsible for following one candidate and learning about their position on every issue. My group's candidate is Fred Thompson. Woohoo.

After class I went to the Union, bought my one book for the course, and visited the Diversity Center. I got to be part of a student group trying to convince a woman who is finishing her doctoral work in sociology to come teach at Luther for a year next year. She seemed like a very intelligent person. She'll be graduating from UW-Madison, and focusing on comparative sociology. Her doctoral work was comparing museums in the U.S. and in South Africa, looking at what gets exhibited, the politics behind exhibitions, the historical context of the situations documented, etc.

So far this evening I have
1. Sent a CD to a friend
2. Sent out all of the reference forms to my references
3. Printed off my readings for tomorrow
4. Watched a few youtube speeches to prepare for the caucus
5. Watched my sister march in the high school band in the London New Year's Parade. They rocked. Or maybe I should say "rawked." Either way, it was good stuff.
6. Called my parents
- took care of my psychiatric bill from when I went to Gundersen Lutheran
- they are mailing me my landlord letter that I forgot
- checked in with them about the dogs and such
7. Procured a summer job. I will be working for Ruth, I get to be Rex's nanny for the summer. I am very excited. I will get paid to play outside all summer. I will still need to get a 10 hour a week job at Luther in order to get the discounted housing rate, but that shouldn't be a problem. I can just work evenings and weekends in the cafeteria. Or I can do custodial work.

So. Now it is 5:20 in the evening. I am going to start on my readings and do that for an hour before going over to Valders to get my caucus on. In case you were interested, I will be caucusing for Kucinich first, and if he is not a viable candidate, I will then be caucusing for Obama.

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