Class Begins

I had my first day of classes on Monday. I started out with British Political System at 10:00 am, followed by The Crusades at 12:00 and the discussion section for BPS at 2:00. The British Political System does not seem as interesting as I thought (although we have only met once), but it should not be too bad. The Crusades, on the other hand, is going to be very cool. The teacher is a specialist on the subject and our homework is just to read books on the crusades (there is a little assigned reading of primary sources, but it is mostly up to us to just read whatever we feel is pertinent on the subject - something that I would do for fun anyways haha).

Tuesday saw another wave of classes. I had my discussion section for the Crusades at 12:00, followed by my 2 hour lecture of Liberalism, Past & Present, from 2-4. This course will also be very interesting, as we read and comment on all the great limited government, free market texts of the Enlightenment, such as John Locke's Second Treatise of Government and de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. I firmly believe in these beliefs on government, and, like my Crusades course, reading them really will not be homework for me, but rather, something that I enjoy. The teacher is also a fan of this way of thinking, which I think is very refreshing, since most college professors are socialists (especially in the UK - at least I imagine so, since the country is far more socialistic than the US, at least for now).

That evening, Whitney and I rode the a double decker bus down to Canary Wharf, the new commercial district of London (it is quite nice - it is pretty much all new and is where all the skyscrapers are). We went and bought cell phones there - the cheapest ones we could find. For £10 (+ a deposit of £10 worth of minutes) we got phones. It took us forever to find the cell phone store, however. At least it was an interesting place to wander around.

On Wednesday I had my final class of the week, Intro to Old English, from 11-1. Yes, I really am learning another dead language, known as Anglo-Saxon. It is the Germanic predecessor of English and seems like it will be a very interesting class (but also probably quite a bit of hard work). J.R.R. Tolkien (the author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) was a professor of it and his fascination with the language and culture of the people led him to write his novels. In fact, most of the names of people and places from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are Anglo-Saxon. Frodo, for example, means "the wise one," while Saruman means "the trickster man." Even the location, "Middle-earth," comes from Anglo-Saxon "middangeard," which appeared in a favorite Saxon poem of his. Overall, very cool.