Winter Weather

I'm definitely a weanie when it comes to the cold, but DANG it has been cold/windy lately!

I'm slowly developing my weekly routine, although my attention span has grown shorter since the last time I remember. I had planned a 15 hour/week MCAT schedule for these next couple months but I scheduled it in like 3 hour blocks and it is so hard to focus on it for that long without my mind wandering or me opening up facebook.

Yesterday I made my first visit of the year to the health center and got my flu shot. My arm still hurts, I have a large bruise, and a rash from the band-aid. (I'm a weanie when it comes to pain also) Hopefully I won't get the flu at least.

My philosophy class so far has been the hardest. I had thought I signed up for History of Philosophy....to my disappointment it was Philosophy of History. BIG DIFFERENCE. Instead of memorizing names, dates, ideas we ask questions such as: Why does history exist? What is history? What make the past? What is the meaning of life's history? or the ever popular -What is the meaning of life? I'm going nuts with all this craziness, and I'm actually on my way out to that class next. I can read two pages and read them over and over and over again very slowly and out loud and it takes about 2 hours for me to understand what's going on. There are also only five people in the class, that could be good or bad, but they all are Philosophy majors. I just enrolled in it because I needed a Philosophy class and I needed it to be a 300 or 400 level.

My absolute favorite class this semester is called "Contemporary Issues with Indigenous People of North America" aka Current (and past) issues with Native Americans. We have a few people that belong to tribes in the class (they are very fiesty and argumentative in our class discussions) and it's interesting to hear what they have to contribute to discussions. Some of the issues we have talked about include right of property for historical remains, whether it be skeletal remains or art or tools etc, we've talked about how what small amount of land IS available for them has drastically declined and they can't own the land anyway. We'll also get into economics and gaming issues, education, crime etc. Something I found was really interesting was the scandals at UNL with native skeletal remains hidden throughout Oldfather in the 80s. Also, in the 70s and 80s my professor (she's been here a long time) talked about how Native American students couldn't go to East campus because they kept hearing screaming and howling noises....she finally investigated and some professor had incinerated a ton of Native American skeletons in the incinerator used for animals and the ashes picked up and went throughout campus. In order to not have the media in a bigger frenzy about this, they flew in a bunch of tribal people to take care of the spirits, and now there are no issues with this.

I'm also very fond of my farming and food production systems class. (Between this class and the Native American class, I've grown even fonder of this state we live in) There are ten of us, and there are also ten teachers, three of whom were Ethiopian small farmers. The class is sponsored by some national grant and it's crosslisted as a agriculture, horticulture, anthropology, and natural resources class. In this class we solve major issues like how to feed the future of our growing population, how to do it without ruining the environment, and how to produce more, on less land. ---well we are talking about this anyway. Yesterday I left class feeling very depressed about the problems the world has agriculture and ecologically related and how no problems can be solved with out political support and a lot of $$ for lobbyists.

On that note....have a great day. I'm late for philosophy.