So today was a pretty typical day in the life of a Macaulay student: woke up, went to MHC 150: The Peopling of New York, ran to catch the crosstown bus to the Macaulay building for my Sexuality and American Culture class, after which I just headed down one flight of stairs to the Executive in Residence dinner and discussion with Sy Sternberg on leadership.
MHC 150 is still in the introductory phase; for the past couple of weeks we worked with finding good articles/books on a topic, i.e. how to research. I think this is actually really helpful for a lot of students, I personally came into college never really having done a serious research paper, but as I had to do one last term for my honors history class, I've already figured most of this stuff out. I'm looking forward to going more in depth about the neighborhood my class is focusing on - Greenwich Village.
As for Sexuality in American Culture, today we discussed the first reading, which came from the History of Sexuality by Michael Foucault. For those of you who don't know who that is (I didn't before this class) he's a French philosopher (although his work is used throughout the humanities, as his ideas and writing is somewhat interdisciplinary). The work was dense, and hard to read, and even harder to understand and I felt way in over my head - yet somehow the 2.5 hour class flew by - Professor Quinby is great at relating and explaining ideas, and I was reassured as most of the class seemed to have at least a little bit of trouble understanding the text. Our next class, we're visiting the Museum of Sexuality, which isn't too far from the dorms but I've never been. I'm excited!
Finally, I ended my evening on the high point - a great lecture/discussion by Sy Sternberg as always, and a delicious (again, as always) dinner provided by Macaulay.
Now if only they would cancel school for tomorrow...everything would be perfect!
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