O Afrika!

the thing about the first day of classes is that you're always let out early. i was able to eat something after writing this morning because they let me out 30 minutes early. i think i'm going to like that class a lot. when i came in i saw an old classmate talking to another person in a yellow sweater. they seemed familiar with each other and i figured that they had had another writing class together. when she looked at me, she asked if i had a good vacation and whether i did anything exciting and in answering her i was a little sarcastic and subtley brash. turns out she was the professor. i only felt slightly mortified when i found out because she seemed so at ease about everything. it's no wonder i thought she was a student when she looked around our age. she even sat in a low chair and not at the head of the table. she's a powerhouse, though. competent and intelligent and serious. she told us quite honestly that she wants us to take this class seriously and i was truly, truly glad she did because i'm tired of being in writing workshops where people are only passingly interested in the whole process. i want them to be as invested as i am.

just had my e106 class on Herman Melville. it will be all Melville all the time for ten whole weeks. i was a little leery about this class when i first signed up, but now i'm glad. the thing about being an english major is you find yourself more steeped in British literature and British literary history more than anything else. it's true they make you take world literature courses here, which i why i took those two classes on African literature last quarter. but still, predominantly British literature, British history. now i am forced to recall my American history and read American literature, which i never really had that great a taste for in the beginning. i took this class to broaden my literary horizons and i feel i will accomplish this with an exceptional amount of interest. the professor is again highly competent, highly intelligent. no surprise that she's also a woman. last year winter quarter, all my women professors were a little odd. this year they make me proud.

i have a classics class next which i'm also leery about and then another e106: Wharton and James--another pair i know little about and am going to read in order to round out my familiarity with great literature. i think this quarter is going to be different. lush and accomplished. i like this feeling.

on sunday, a priest sent a letter to our church asking us to pray for him and his people in Kenya. it made me think of Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Ntongela Masilela and all the African literature i was exposed to last quarter. how they said Africa is hurting. it seems that the Kenyans are rioting because they believe the last election was rigged. the priest who wrote the letter lives a mile from the capitol with some other missionaries and he reported gunshots and flames. whatever the Africans may say about missionaries, some of them do try their best, no matter the sort of atrocities they may represent. there is little food, he says, little everything. if they could but live on the gunshots and flames their bellies would be full. that poor, proud nation. i'm sure she would not want my pity because her people are fierce and equal to anything that the Americans and British and Chinese and Indians are capable of. but still. it is a mark of my admiration that i feel a sympathy for her in times like these. better pity than apathy.