It's always sunny in Philadelphia

Which is nice, if you live in Philadelphia; unfortunately for me, it went from blistering heat (32 degrees plus) to pissing it down pretty much constantly for the last two days. Nothing like a good bit of rain to make you think of blighty eh?

Apart from that, things have been pretty good, my classes all seem cool; heres the rundown (if you care):

Eng150: Multicultural America. Basically I've been made to do this by my Living-Learning Community in my Residence Hall; seems pretty fun though, we're learning all about other American cultures through non-conventional means, so basically we get to spend loads of time listening to hip-hop and debating how the 'gangstaaa' element adds/detracts from the community in which it was created. Oh and we get to do some volunteery-mutually-beneficial type stuff at a local after school thingy for middle and high school students that are what we'd term 'underpriviledged' when it comes to education etc. And its essentially based around all the inequality and burecratic bullshit people have to deal with just to get access to services some take for granted, espcecially in Milwaukee because its the 2nd most segregated city in America. I'm sure I'll be able to give a better rundown than this that doesn't sound quite so ignorant and ineloquent once I get going on this one :)

Eng305: Survey of English Literature 1900-present. War poetry, modernism, Englishness. TS Eliot, Heart of Darkness, Larkin. Yummy.

Eng370: Folk Literature. This ones a corker; we're exploring all aspects of folklore and custom (in America mainly) like stuffing vs dressing on Thanksgiving, as well as loads of ghost stories and urban legends etc.

Eng451: Chaucer. The Man. The Legend. The Godfather of English Literature.

Eng461: Beat Writers and SF Renaissance Poets. Taught by and Irish guy with and English accent who used to get his morning paper from the same place as Charles Manson. Oh and he knew Ginsberg a bit as well, which is kinda a big deal. No Bukowski tho. Damn.

Eng465: Asian-American Women Writers. Now I'll be honest here, I know nothing about American people, I know even less about Asian-American women, so this might be a bit of a challenge, but I'm taking it in the 'horizon-broadening' spirit. Thankfully.

Well thats pretty much all I'm going to be doing for the next three months; the master plan is that all this cross-cultural stuff I'm learning about is gonna help me when/if I actually get a job on the force in communicating with others and understanding that theres more to the world than the middle-class white families from the Midlands that seem to have (essentially) ruled my life for the past 20 years.

Philosophical? Yes.
Too much to handle? Maybe
Optimistic bullshit that I'll never actually achieve? Quite possibly.

But hey, I met a guy with a full-on Karl Marx beard, which made me chuckle, so things aren't quite as serious as they seem.