Cat seizure, math progress, and english woes
We didn’t write about it before, but our cat had another seizure on November 6th. I’m glad to have her perched on my monitor with her tail across the screen as I write this and I hate the thought of losing her. Here’s a photo of her right now:
Like the first time, Tina was getting ready to pick me up from school when the cat went into seizure. Tina called the vet, but we still have to wait 3 more weeks before they can take another blood test to identify the cause as hereditary epilepsy, or disease. We are now giving the cat liquid medication twice a day to help prevent another one; it’s a good thing she’s mostly docile, because she enjoys it as much as you can expect. BTW: I guess I wasn’t clear the first time I wrote about our cat, but the cause of her seizures are totally unknown. It is possible it could be feline AIDS or leukemia, but it could also be epilepsy; the truth is we won’t know for a few more weeks.
In my ongoing saga with school, I can happily report my math marks are improving. I managed to score 92% on my last test, an A+. I wish I could have started off with marks like that, but I’ll take it where I can, and work to improve. We’ve just been introduced to logarithms, and I’m pleased that they are not nearly as scary as I might have imagined—so far. Tonight, I whipped through a couple pages of drills with ease, and I’m enjoying the material more and more. It’s a good thing.
Our English class, which I’ve normally been enjoying, seems to have taken a twist lately. We recently were subjected to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. The idea was to discuss and dissect it, as if it were a written essay. I have no reservations about delving into politics, but this class is the worst place for it—it’s hard to discuss that movie without getting into political opinions. Thankfully there wasn’t as much anti-American racism being tossed around by students as I expected. If it were my political science class, we could have really gotten into a great discussion, but I’ve paid a lot to learn English, not to discuss US politics. To his credit, our professor tried his best to keep the class focussed on the movie as an essay, but he made a poor choice by letting his political opinions distract from his stated learning objectives.
Our professor has also decided that our final test will include exerpts from a number of essays we’ve read throughout the semester; specifically, we will be required to memorize the title and author of each essay. If this were a course on literary works, then it would make perfect sense; but it’s not. It’s not as if we are doing any profound work with these essays. We’ve had sessions where he’ll pair students and assign one or two paragraphs to identify different structural elements, such as: transition, thesis, and evidence. Before we write a ‘compare and contrast’ style essay, he’ll make us read one in the same style to help us recognize our goal. Don’t get me wrong, I have no choice and I’ll grin and bear it, and memorize these authors so I can forget them by the new year. It’s a shame that this decent course is getting somewhat high-school’ish.
Overall, my courses are pretty jam-packed with information, are on-topic, and interesting. I’ve heard some horror stories from other students suffering low marks after writing papers that take the side of issues that are not in line with their instructor. I have another friend whose psychology professor will lecture for an hour or more, then declare it to be crap to test if anyone was really paying attention. All things considered, things have gone pretty well for me; I have much to be thankful for.