The Fall Semester

Classes are in full swing now, and I'm going to have to start stepping my game up if I expect to make it through the semester. As a sloth, I could be perfectly content to hang in a tree all day, but as a human it's somewhat unrealistic; we just don't have the elongated claws that make this pastime so simple for sloths. We are also obligated to worry about all kinds of things, primarily satisfying our needs in an exaggerated matter. Oh the rat race.

Anyway, I like all of my classes. Here's the breakdown:

Fiction Writing Workshop: This class is exposing me to all kinds of great literature while at the same time forcing me to write a lot. There's a lot of subjective bullshit when it comes to fiction writing, but hey, I signed up for it. It almost makes me want to become a lit studies major, but Columbia doesn't have that one, so I would have to transfer. Ho hum. We've been studying excerpts from one novel that is particularly fixating, called Pimp: The Story of My Life by Iceberg Slim. The subject matter is as captivating as Iceberg's writing style. Check it out if you get a chance.



Photo I & Darkroom Workshop (co requisites): I like my photography classes the best of anything this semester. Photography seems a lot more concrete than writing and I like that. Photo I is exposing me to some great photography, as well as some standards that everyone's a little tired of (i.e. Ansel Adams). Last week we watched a documentary on Naked States, which chronicles photographer Spencer Tunick's journey across the nation to capture a nude (or ideally as many nudes as possible) in every state. If you haven't heard of this before, it's very interesting; find more here. Darkroom Workshop is basically an intro to developing and printing, which is good because I had never developed film before this. Of course the first roll got a little screwed up, but it's a fulfilling process, and I must admit that I do think film prints look better than digital prints. The atmosphere of a darkroom is very cool as well.



Poetry Workshop: Okay, I've got some mixed feelings about this one, but at least I get to write poetry and receive credit for it. The professor is Michael Robbins, and he's a bit pretentious... Direct quote: "...in one of my poems I rhyme 'velociraptor' with 'chiropractor', which I think is rather clever and so did the New Yorker." My reaction was "Okay hang on a second, read the poem first before you make judgments about this." Turns out, reading the poem didn't change my perspective one bit; it's still a hella pretentious comment. This is not to say I don't like Robbins (although I'm not sure about that poem), but you certainly have to take things in stride. On the other hand, how many classes have you taken wherein Notorious B.I.G. and Robert Frost are referenced in the same half-hour?

I think what I'm looking forward to most about these classes is getting a good look at the work of my peers.