Shyzer.com

The lack of recent updating here on Shyzer is amazingly not due to the fact that I am lazy. On the contrary my friends. My schedule is so incredibly tight right now that it is hard to even fathom the idea of how I used to just lay around and do little side projects that I always wanted to do.

It seems like I’m always typing up some form of this post every few weeks. There always seems to be something that is keeping me from maintaining a regular posting pattern, whether it be school one month, work the next, lack of inspiration the next, followed by school all over again. Yet this time seems to be different. This time seems to be my own doing and I think I finally understand why. Everything that I have going on right now is purely from my own accord, and frankly it is helping me immensely.

Sure school is sapping up quite a bit of my energy. Don’t listen to Fellner when he says I’m not doing any homework. He lies. I do my Latin homework every night thank you very much. Now if he says anything about this God-forsaken Senior Seminar class that I am in and how I curse it and swear nasty vengeances against whoever invented this course I’m in, he might not be exaggerating too much. Seriously, who in the world gives a damn about Britain from 1660-1760? And who in the hell picked these years?!

Professor #1: Well Jim, I’m not sure what area I think our students should focus on. Sure they need to learn something useful, but I’m all for screwing them over at every possible corner.
Professor #2 (who I should just call Jim): Well Steve, how about just picking some random, insignificant years for them to study? I’m sure you can find some period in British history where there was a Civil War going on that can be blown way out of proportion and made to seem larger then it really was!
Steve-fessor #1: That’s a fantastic idea! And while I’m at it, I’ll prohibit them from writing about any large, grand topic like “British Imperialistic Approaches” or “British Aims in Foreign Relations!” Instead, I’ll compel them to write 30 pages about some pathetic, worthless theme like “British Female Skit Patterns on Dover St. During the Winter Months in 1703!” Oh, Oh, And I’ll make it their only grade! MWAHAHAHA!
Jimmy Boy: *wipes tears of joy from his eyes*

Honestly, this won’t be the last you hear me complain about this class. I simply find it pointless to force students to take a class where they “Learn to be a historian” during their junior year and then “Become a historian” their senior year. If we didn’t know anything about being a historian, I doubt we would have chosen History as our majors. I also highly doubt that any of the 13 or 14 people in my class are hoping to master the topic of Britain from 1660-1760 anytime soon. And in all honesty, I highly doubt any of us are planning on using our History degrees to become your stereotypical historian as many people thing of them as. If all a historian did was research archaic topics and present 30 to 40 page essays on them, I guarantee you only a handful of colleges in America would still be offering History as a major. I truthfully wonder when people will start realizing that majoring in History doesn’t mean your only choices are to go off and teach or work in a museum. But with that rant aside…

My class load this semester is decently full. Aside from that horrendous class I am being forced to take, I have a few other history courses, which have already peaked my interest. The History of Latin America and Controversial American Diplomatic History. The professors in each of those courses are great and the reading material we have been assigned is superb. I’ll never complain about reading 50 or some odd number of pages if the material is at least engaging and interesting. Along with those three history classes, I am taking my final Criminal Justice class (Criminal Law) and an elective class (Intro to Latin). The Criminal Justice class is being taught by a professor that I’ve had before. He’s extremely tough, but fairer then many of the professors I’ve had over my years. He forces you to memorize 30 or 40 trial cases per test, but I truthfully don’t mind them since that’s the only way I seem to memorize the technical aspect of laws.

My final class is an elective since I seem to have saved up many of my electives for my senior year. The class? Intro to Latin. Now I’ve had many people ask me “Goob, what in the hell are you doing taking Latin? Didn’t you already complete your foreign language requirements?” Well, yes, I did satisfy all my foreign language needs, but that didn’t really cross my mind. I’m not taking Latin due to anything other then the fact that I want to learn more languages, starting with English. Huh? Yeah, I thought that might be a little confusing.

See, I have a confession to make. Every single one of the posts I’ve made in the past few months have been typed up in Microsoft Word. I enjoy Notepad much more, but it lacks one key feature. Spell check. I am horrible with spelling. Horrible doesn’t even come close. Horrendous. Wretched. Miserable. I’ve gotten to the point where I am almost perfect with common words because I have worked so hard at becoming a better speller, but if I hear a word that I don’t know how to spell, I’m lost. And the same goes for meanings of words. My weakest area of the SAT came from the section where they give you some random word and you have to figure out what it means. I find that to be the most depressing game ever invented because I suck so horrible bad at it. Until now.

I knew that English basically came from Germanic structure and Latin words and I figured since I already have the structure part down, the Latin part could help me with the words. I’ve only been in the class for a week and I already have improved tenfold. I’m simply amazed at how many English words come from Latin and how many stems and roots I’ve learned. This might easily become one of the best class choices I made during my few years here simply from what I can learn from it. And besides, my future requires me to learn a few new languages, so learning basic Latin can only help.

Alright, this topic veered completely off course. I started planning on explaining what all I’ve been doing to keep myself busy and why I’ve been doing it, yet instead I talked about…well, if you’ve gotten to this point, you should know what I’ve talked about. This post is already long enough as it is, so I guess I’ll save the second part for tomorrow. Until then…