My iconography professor, Jaime Lara, showed us this tower:

This tower has stood for centuries. It's not there anymore. It was destroyed by bombing in Iraq in the past few years. Thanks, George W.

I'm getting settled in with my classes and work. I had my Political Economy of Misery class on Tuesday, which looks very promising. A lot of reading, but I'm excited. The title of the course is kind of specific but yet vague. It's really about the sociology of sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, all of those -isms that oppress, but within the realms of ethics and religion. Prof. Townes is a womanist ethicist - or ethics through the lens of women of color. I think my favorite part about the syllabus is that in our group presentations we're required to include specific actions. We're going to talk about these things in theory and academia, but we also have to give specific ways to remedy, make changes and put our work out into the general public. It seems like a nice change from theoretically talking about all the ills of society but leaving it at that.

I had my first day of work today at Holy Grounds, the coffee shop in the commuter lounge at YDS. It's super laid back. The big excitement of the day was a new piece for the new espresso machine came in - which means that we don't have to keep using the old machine for espresso shots and the new machine for steaming the milk AND we can make more than one shot at a time. So excitement abound. The job's nice because I get to drink coffee and read and occasionally make people drinks. I'm a big fan so far. Saturday morning I have my first shift at my other job, the YDS library. I've always wanted to work at a library, ever since middle school. Now I get to. I'm excited. Andrew's excited. Apparently geeks everywhere have mad crushes on librarians, so good for me. I've got about 8 hours a week at the library and 5 hours at the coffee shop.

I come home three weeks from today!