Week Two: The Real Fun Begins

Hello Internet!
As previously hinted, last week I began my classes for the semester. Trust me when I say that this is the most excited I have ever been about college courses, and that includes my first semester as a freshman. All of my courses are relevant to my passions, which is why I'm going to rant about them for a bit before getting on to the social stuff. (Fair warning, this is probably going to be a weekly occurrence-this is an academics-based blog, after all).

My first class of the week was Gender Identities in Medieval Literature. Quite honestly, I was little uneasy about this course at first. While I adore reenacting, I am not terribly familiar with medieval literature itself. That being said, I plain and simply love this class. My classmates, the tutor and I spent the first session discussing how absolutely bonkers Galen was. Long story short, he, like many Greek philosophers, was extremely nutty. I won't get into all the gory details, but Galen believed that men are superior to women because they "run hotter." Yeah, I don't get it either, but this was a belief that shaped hundreds of years' worth of misogyny in Europe. And it was surprisingly fun to rant about; so much fun, in fact, that class ran long by 5 minutes because we were all too invested in the topic to stop talking.

My next course was Fantasies of Youth: The Child in Twentieth-Century Children's and Young Adult Literature. Despite the mouthful of a name, the course's topic is fairly straightforward: critically analyzing children's literature. In our first lesson, we discussed how some literary theorists believe that it's problematic to mention actual children when discussing children's literature. More specifically, some researchers think that discussing actual children leads to defining childhood, which can create harmful self-fulfilling prophecies about how kids behave. Meanwhile, other researchers believe that children play no role in children's literature because adults are the ones who write, produce, and distribute books. The first theory does have some roots in psychological research, so I'm willing to let it slide, though I am extremely skeptical about the truth of it. The second theory, however, strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Of course children have a role in children's literature; they are the market for the genre! When kids buy books for themselves--and this happens, not all books are provided by parents--they show authors what they are interested in and willing to read. If authors want to sell books to kids, they have to write what kids like. Therefore, children play a huge role in children's literature.

So, after a debate on the place of children in children's literature, we spent the rest of class analyzing picture books. Then, in my Writing for Children class, we analyzed more picture books, which was surprisingly interesting. It turns out that there is a lot to unpack in what is likely the simplest form of literature, including instances of irony and suspense. Which is why my homework assignment for the class, writing a picture book of my own, turned out to be a lot more difficult than one would think. But by golly, I did it.

And then I went to my last course, my Advanced Creative Writing Tutorial. Which was quite possibly the coolest thing ever. I spent an hour and 50 minutes ranting about my novels in a one-on-one session with a professor, which was amazing. Enough said.

So, now that I've weeded out the casual readers with five paragraphs' worth of academic nonesense, it's time to talk about the cool social things I did last week. First up: crocheting club on Tuesday. I know that for most people that doesn't count as a cool social thing, but as someone who's been crocheting for thirteen years, I had an excellent time. I went and crocheted with a bunch of like-minded ladies for two hours, met a super cool dog, and greatly enjoyed myself.

Working on a Pair of Fingerless Gloves

Then, on Wednesday, I went on the Bath Skyline Walk with a group of other people in my study abroad program. It only took about five minutes to hike from the city center to the hills surrounding Bath, and from there, the views became increasingly stunning as we went further into the countryside. Words don't really give justice to the beauty of it, which is why I've included a few pictures of the Bath skyline below. For me, the best part of the walk was seeing a pasture with a low stone border. I know that sounds strange, but it gave me vivid flashbacks to some of my favorite books from my childhood: the Animal Ark series. It also viscerally reminded me that I am in England, a place that I have only read about before. Which, needless to say, was pretty awesome. 

Views from the Skyline Walk

Sham Castle, on the Hills Near Bath

Speaking of pretty awesome, I had a lovely time exploring Bath over the weekend. On Saturday, I went to the Bath Farmer's Market and tried a scotch egg. It consisted of a hardboiled egg wrapped in sausage and breading, and it was a bit strange but very tasty. Then, on Sunday, I went to the Annual Bath Dragon Boat Races. The event was small, so it was right up my alley, and the races themselves were very entertaining. The boats were gorgeous, and to top it all off, the event benefitted a local nonprofit charity. After watching the races, I took a stroll through Victoria Park and enjoyed ice cream from an authentic Mr. Whippy truck.

An Astonishingly Tasty Scotch Egg

A Dragon Boat Under Victoria Bridge

Victoria Park

In short, my first week of classes went swimmingly. I've already done some really cool things this week that I can't wait to talk about in my next post, so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!

Abby 

Artsy Picture of the Day: The Bath Skyline (Of Course!)