One week down, 103 left to go.

I live at the top of a hill. A pretty steep hill, at that too. When I sit at my desk, I face out the window which can be great. I can see the foot traffic; I can look down the adjacent street and watch individual trees begin to change colors already (there's one with yellow leaves maybe three trees in from the intersection). However, this also has the potential to be distracting. Particularly when it comes to bicyclists. One of my new favorite past times is watching people ride their bikes up this ridiculously steep hill. My room is near the top when it's beginning to even out, so most riders are pretty tired by this point. Some walk, but a few ride on, slowly pushing their pedals to the ground. I enjoy watching them ride because it's so steep and I'm a bit of an asshole, but it's also nice to watch people stick it out and make it all the way. Not that those who get off to walk are lame (I'm looking at you, Rubin), but by the time they get to my window, they're so close to the point where gravity takes over and their job involves just hitting the brakes.

Classes started this week, and I'm enjoying mine a lot. I've been to three of them so far; one only meets on Tuesdays so we haven't met yet. I have New Testament Interpretation, Iconography of Christian Art, Gender, Sex and Power in Ruth and Esther, and the Political Economy of Misery (the one I haven't been to). My advisor, Serene Jones, thought it was a great schedule and I'm liking it as well. I've already started to look at classes for next semester (nerd alert), but I suppose I should at least get to midterms before I start thinking too seriously about it.

I'm very excited about the Ruth and Esther class just because it's smaller and it's a topic I enjoy greatly. While my main focus of interest is religion and gender in terms of pop culture, I also really like looking at women in the Bible and the way gender plays out in their stories. Our first class was great - everyone was there for similar reasons. One person cited the "special day" feminism, where issues of gender and sexuality were given a class period to be discussed, as opposed to keeping it centered and relevant during the entire course. It's like "A Very Special Episode" of tv shows where the main characters had a friend with AIDs or someone cheated on a test, and then the issues aren't brought up again apart from that episode. Another said after taking a feminist thought class, she had realized she'd been concerned with gender issues her whole life but never thought to put that label or title on it. Needless to say, it should be good.

I had a good meeting with my adviser. Serene was Deanna's adviser and now she's my adviser. It's like a family tree of advising. Maybe the Georgia Rule of YDS. Sorry, but I can't think of any other grandmother/granddaughter movies.

I'm off to get trained in at my new job, which is serving coffee at Holy Grounds, the coffee place on campus. Should be fun and not too taxing. I really do enjoy coffee, so huzzah for that.