The Pains of DeQuincey
Jan. 29th, 2004 03:19 amI am so glad that academic style is no longer so damned long-winded. Although, DeQuincey isn't all that bad. He may write terribly floridly and with diversions every other thought, but it isn't the most difficult read I've come across. Though I did despair of ever making it to the end of "The Pains of Opium."
I decided to drop Satire. Something had to go. I was already getting slightly behind, and only in the second week of the semester. Plus, three long classes all in a row (about four hours of class) without much of a break between is not the best idea I've ever had. Not quite as bad as taking three lab classes in one semester, but approaching that degree of sanity erosion. I think it was contributing to the irritability and tiredness. So, I picked the class I was less enthusiastic about to drop. The syllabus for Satire was just a bit more open-ended than I like. I have no problem with the reading schedule being flexible. That's fine. But I really like to know when papers are due and other such like things, and that just wasn't clear, except for the first paper. And "read a bunch of things and talk about them" is not the clearest of course objectives. So I dropped it, and already I feel better.
I decided to drop Satire. Something had to go. I was already getting slightly behind, and only in the second week of the semester. Plus, three long classes all in a row (about four hours of class) without much of a break between is not the best idea I've ever had. Not quite as bad as taking three lab classes in one semester, but approaching that degree of sanity erosion. I think it was contributing to the irritability and tiredness. So, I picked the class I was less enthusiastic about to drop. The syllabus for Satire was just a bit more open-ended than I like. I have no problem with the reading schedule being flexible. That's fine. But I really like to know when papers are due and other such like things, and that just wasn't clear, except for the first paper. And "read a bunch of things and talk about them" is not the clearest of course objectives. So I dropped it, and already I feel better.