February 7th - New Semester!

So today I started two of my four new classes, and I think overall it went quite well! Hooray! My first class was Faith, Religion, and Culture, and a lot of the things we're going to be talking about are things I learned about in Bible Lit last year, so I'm really excited about that. I wonder how the version of the Bible we're reading will tell the story of Moses and the exodus...if you recall, I had a great rant about that last spring in the 2010 blog...

"I was reading ahead for Bible Lit, and I'm about half way through the Moses story in Exodus. I obviously was meticulously noting the differences between the biblical text and Dreamworks movie, but one thing in particular stood out to me.

God foresees Pharaoh being obstinate and not letting the Israelites go, does he not? Turns out the reason behind this is that God is making Pharaoh obstinate. As in, Pharaoh feels bad and tells Moses and Aaron that he will free the Israelites, and then God is like, "Nah, this won't do. I'm going to make all of the Egyptians suffer some more even though Pharaoh is repenting." So he makes Pharaoh not let them go. Wasn't the whole point to get Pharaoh to let them go? I mean, I can understand God being angry and sending the locusts, the darkness, and so forth, but God killed Pharaoh's son because Pharaoh was obstinate. And it was God that made him like that! Does that seem a little messed up to anyone else? I was really frustrated after reading this. I'm going to read my Bible as opposed the the packet one that D-Lo gave out and see if another translation lends itself to a nicer God and a more cruel Pharaoh.

Also, the cattle get wiped out, and then suddenly they're back and just get killed again. Where did these new cattle come from? This happens twice. Kind of a "what the heck?" moment, as D-Lo would say.

Time to go read some Bible!"

So anyway, the prof for that class is also really great. She's enthusiastic and smart and sort of reminds me of my high school psychology teacher. There's going to be quite a bit of reading for that class, but most of it looks pretty good.

The other class I had today was Principles of Macroeconomics, which I actually think is going to be better than I thought it would. The professor has been teaching the class for like a billion years and he really knows his stuff. Also, he pronounces Friday like "Frydee" and I like that.

More to come on my other new classes in tomorrow's post!