New Home, New Classes

I never could have predicted this, but I am now a resident of Virginia! Well, I officially maintain Alaska residency, but Virginia is now where I physically live. This year at Georgetown I'll be renting an apartment (with three friends) on the other side of the river, in Rosslyn, a neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. It's a nice place - very green, though kind of loud - and I've quite enjoyed settling in. I also have a set of four new classes, and I'll tell you about those as well.

view from the kitchen - Custis Trail

Here are some fun facts about my new apartment:

• The place has steps that lead down to the Custis Trail, which allows you to walk or bike straight over the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge to Georgetown. (It takes 20 minutes to walk to campus.)
• It's an 8-minute walk away from the Rosslyn Metro station, and thus the Rosslyn GUTS stop, where a university shuttle can take you to campus.
• It's just a five minute walk home from the Key Bridge Marriott, where GUTS also lets people off.

before and after shots
of our new IKEA bookcase

My new home, then, is still in a pretty convenient location, even if it's not on the Georgetown campus. In fact, it would be even better than living on campus, if I had to go somewhere using the Metro all the time. (That isn't the case this semester, but it might be next semester.) Besides all the commuting stuff, it's nice to have a new place to live in that's clean and relatively uncluttered (so far). This is really the first time I'll be paying for my own place to live, outside of university housing.

Here are my new classes for this semester:

• International Perspectives on Global History: This is a required seminar for all International History majors, and it's pretty much a book club, with one book a week to read and lots of discussion to follow. I've had a difficult time getting ahold of a few the books at a reasonable price, but once that's taken care of everything should be fun and interesting.
• History of Islam in Africa: This class has a very interesting mix of people - graduate and undergraduate students, 15 different programs represented by 17 people (at least according to our professor). Besides one or two people, it seems everyone is taking the class either because they love studying Islam, or because they love studying Africa. I think those on the Africa side are slightly in the minority, but I'm ok with that - hopefully I'll lend a unique perspective.
• Foundations of Education: I think this course should be exactly what I want and need as I plan on setting a career path - a pragmatic and thought-provoking introduction to teaching as a profession. We are required to do classroom observations, develop personal philosophies of education, and do many other practical tasks. I'll keep you updated on what happens!
• Senior Honors Seminar in History: Lastly, this is my thesis class - the project which I should devote all my extra effort to, crafting a work that I can be proud of. I don't want to share many details of my thesis yet, but rest assured I will talk about it much more, including here on the blog. I may even post it here when I've completed it next May - but we'll see. There will be a whole lot of work that goes on before that point. 

So there you have it - new beginnings for my last year at Georgetown.