I'm sitting in the student union, eating amazing pad thai, and figured I would blog while waiting for my next class. 

Spring term started yesterday, and I'm really liking my classes so far.. which is good because this is my last term EVER. I'm taking Sociology of Mental Health, Human Sexuality, Nonviolent Social Change, and Group Cycling.

Sociology of Mental Health is a class focused on society's interpretation of mental health, meaning we will be learning about the ways that doctors diagnose and label people who they consider mentally ill, how they are treated, and so on. This class reminds me of the study I once read for another class about a researcher who went undercover in an asylum as a patient, and while he displayed absolutely no symptoms, he was labeled and treated as a seriously ill individual. It's messed up. The books I had to purchase for this class were memoirs of people who considered themselves mentally ill (schizophrenic, bipolar, depressed, etc) and underwent treatment. You may recognize the title Girl, Interrupted. That's one of our books, and I was assigned to do a group presentation on it. Yay!

I am going to LOVE my Human Sexuality class. The very first thing we did was break into groups and make a list of all of the nicknames that people have for penis and vagina. Awesome ice breaker, in my opinion. Then we had to shout them all to the teacher while he wrote them on the chalk board. The list was extreeemely long, and we didn't even get to half of what we came up with. Here are some examples of what we came up with for penis: tonsil tickler, pogo stick, spitting cobra, purple headed soldier, mushroom tip.. and vagina: bermuda triangle, cock holster, sperm catcher, bearded clam, honey pot.. these were the names I've never heard of. The rest were all obvious nicknames that almost everyone recognizes.

Nonviolent Social Change reminds me a lot of the Social Movements class I took last year. We will be reading about MLK Jr, Ghandi, and other nonviolent activists. I'm against violence and war, and I'm sure I'll take a lot out of this class. Today we had to talk about our personal exeriences, and how we have handled conflicts. I talked about how Jake and I flip a coin sometimes to solve disagreements. Other people talked about being passive aggressive, screaming, storming out, etc. One girl even talked about stealing curtains from her roomate who moved out without warning. I love that we are all open and honest :)

I needed one more credit to graduate, so I decided to take a PE class. I took cycling last year and loved it, so I'm taking it again. It's intense, and I need more cardio. I've actually made it my goal this term to lose a few pounds and tone up a bit. Eat healthier (no more Taco Bell, which will be one of my biggest challenges) and work out more. Oh and drink a lot of water. I hardly drink any water, but I guess it's important, so I will be drinking more of it. 

So those are my classes, and what I will be focused on for the last 3 months of my college career.