January 3, 2024

So as I specified in my previous post that I decided to start doing journal-ish entries about my experiences during school. I think this will be a neat little insight into what it’s been like for me personally during my studies rather than just posting about lecture materials. This semester I have not only another political science course (I will be starting it tomorrow), which will be about global politics, but my current history course (I’m taking it to fulfill breadth requirements but I might also take it up as a second minor, who knows) is about genocides. Today I had my history class and will have my psychology course in a few hours. I have another psychology course but it is completely online so I gotta make my own hours. I did want three psychology courses but one of them I’m on a waiting list, I am first in line so once someone drops out I’ll take their spot. For now I just wait and deal with my other classes.

My day was already off to a bad start as I’ve been battling a cold (I think its a cold or lingering allergies) which means I am super congested and that leads to coughing at the worst times. I am one of those people that, unfortunately, when a cough begins it lasts for quite a while so I was obviously stressed about coughing in the middle of class. I took some medicine before I left and packed myself some chamomile tea, and some crackers to snack on before buying lunch (I usually pack my own lunch but I forgot so…). Anyway let me tell you a bit about what happened in my history class. It wasn’t an actual class as the first day of the semester is always dedicated to going over the syllabus, course outline, and getting to know your professors(s). So this class is going to focus on genocides and this is apparently a new course for my professor as he’s never taught it before. He handed out the course schedule (not the syllabus, that will be provided online) and then, of course, asked us to do stupid icebreakers: our name + our major + and interesting fact = so fucking annoying for your good comrade SpaceDogs. I actually started to tear up while waiting for my turn because I hate this kind of stuff so much. Can you tell I’m insanely introverted? Because of this my professor is now on my shit list, too bad so sad. What made this worse was my sickness, talking is harder when you’re congested.

While people were doing their introductions I felt a coughing fit coming up, that horrible itchiness in your throat, and I just got up and left, speed walking around the corner and crouching down. I huddled into my jacket, shirt, and mask (of course I was masked, who do you think I am?) and just coughed. I tried to keep it as quiet as possible, hell even now as I writ this in the library I’m trying to muffle my agony. When I entered the classroom it looked like we made it to the last batch of icebreakers, I thought maybe he’d just let me off the hook but once the last person went he turned to me and urged me to do my intro. All I said was “my name is ____, major psychology, there’s nothing interesting, last name ____” (he kept asking for last names after people said their piece so I just added it in). He seemed slightly rattled from my delivery, I will admit my tone was clearly not thrilled or enthusiastic, but said that he wont put me on the spot and he is sure he’ll find something interesting about me as the semester continues. You can scold me for being rude, I probably deserve it, but I was/am not doing great today. Being sick + icebreakers + seeing “Holodomor” on the course schedule is not a good mix.

After “getting to know each other” he went on to discuss the schedule, which we had physical copies of, and the syllabus which he has yet to upload to our student system thing. This first week is essentially nothing as our next class after this one is nonexistent, as in he wants us to watch a movie on our own time before the class next week and so there will be no actual lecture. The following weeks will be about defining genocide; settler colonialism; ethnic cleansing in North America; residential schools and cultural genocide; genocide in colonial Africa; the Armenian genocide; the holocaust; the “Holodomor”; Cambodia and Rwanda; and genocide today. The two major texts we will need for this class is Blood and Soil by Ben Kiernan and Neighbours by Jan Gross, he told us to “please purchase these books” but I absolutely will not, I will find other means because school is expensive enough and feeding my dog is more important than buying a book I’ll use once. Maybe I’ll actually enjoy these books, and if so I may purchase them but having a free copy is just as good. There are other readings and sources for the course that ill be provided online and h encouraged us to print physical copies, if we want to do well thats what we should do because its way different than reading on a screen. Does he think I’m made of money? I don’t have aa printer at home and printing at the school costs real life money, so no, I will not be printing them off, I will read them on my tablet like god intended, thanks.

While going over the syllabus participation is unfortunately 20% of the damn grade! Um, excuse me? He did specify that “morbidly” shy students can discuss this with him during office hours which I will definitely be doing because Fuck That! Attendance is a part of the 20% and he will count us taking notes as well but he emphasizes us speaking. What a nightmare but hopefully I can get him to make arrangements when I talk to him during office hours. The movie we have to watch for next week is called Raphael Lemkin: Watchers of the Sky, it’s about the guy who coined the term “genocide” which, according to my professor, didn’t exist until the holocaust.

The genocide today section of the course schedule is interesting as it specifies that we need to read four of provided links. One is about Srebrenica, another about “enclosure of China’s Uyghurs,” genocide fears in Darfur, Myanmar’s Rohingya, “Russia’s genocide handbook” by Timothy Snyder on substack, Israel and Palestine supporters accusing each other of genocide, genocide underway in Palestine, and ending off with “How the term ‘genocide’ is misused in the Israel-Hamas war” by the Economist. I really have my work cut out for me with this class, I expect I will be fuming quite often during this semester.

That’s essentially the gist of it, I have my psychology class later today but I doubt it’ll be worth writing about here. Not that it’s going to be bad but I don’t expect it will get me hyped up like history and political science. If something does come up, trust it will be posted. For now this is the end, thank you for reading!