classes

Just finished my first day of classes. I'm real excited about my classes and it looks like I'm only going to have classes on Mondays and Thursdays, which will give me more flexibility for traveling and exploring Denmark. On days when I don't have class, I will also be doing community service and field trips.
Here is a run down of my class:
- My Service Learning Seminar became an independent study because not a lot of people signed up for the class. Haverford is allowing me to take 14 credits instead of 15 credits because I am doing the extra community service. I am really excited about this. When the coordinator, Hugh, called me about the class being canceled, I was upset because it looked stimulating and I would have to re-work my schedule. But, not only is my schedule enhanced, but he told me I will get my first choice of working at a place to feed the homeless. Apparently, speaking English is not an issue even among the homeless in Denmark!
- My other 1-credit class is Russia: Past and Present, which is in preparation for my Russia trip during spring break. The first class is on Monday, but I can only imagine it will be interesting.
- This morning started with Doing Business in the EU. I like it because it will expand on what I learned last semester and further combine current events with new knowledge of the EU. It was real exciting talking about the US stock market drop and what Europe decided to do in reaction. They are more concerned about inflation than the US.
- Another great class I'm taking is Holocaust and Genocide. We are looking at all the genocides that are usually studied, such as Rwanda and the Holocaust. But the class also looks at Cambodia, Stalinism and the Armenians of 1915. It i will be interesting to discuss the Armenians in a classroom setting since there was such a heated debate by US congress on whether it should be seen as a genocide. We saw a graph showing civilian killings over a certain time period, compared to annual killings, showing that Stalinism can be viewed a genocide, so that will be cool to study.
- Haverford makes us take the language of whatever country we are in, so I have to take Danish. It's really frustrating for me because I had to take Czech last semester and I took Spanish when I was freshman. I always understand what's going on, but I have a lot of trouble memorizing and pronouncing. The professor seems reasonable and patient, so maybe a foreign language will finally come together for me.
- Things were complicated today because I had to figure out what my final class would be. I went to this class about criminology in Scandanavia that was really interesting. I've never taken a criminology class before and wouldn't have the opportunity to at Haverford. I've also seen the criminal justice system first hand in the US through the PD's office, so I was fairly certain I was taking the class, especially once the lecture interested me.
However, at the end of the day I went to the terrorism and counter terrorism class, just to make sure I was making the right decision. The terrorism class was mostly discussion and I was actually getting really frustrated with the professor because he did not consider hate crimes(for example a man randomly killing blacks or gays) terrorism, but considered attacking a government official terrorism. I was frustrated through the entire class, but despite that it was the end 7 hours of class with barely any sleep, I was deeply involved and interested in the debate. After class I went and spoke to the prof about it, and he somewhat explained elevating the acts of terrorists as political importance. So, killing random blacks would not be terrorism because there is no message for a policy change. I do not completely agree on his definition of terrorism for differing communities (country vs. ethnicity), but for the political scope of the class, I see why a definition like that is necessary. I could go on and on about this, but I won't do that here.
Although I was torn between the criminology class and the terrorism class, the fact that I'm still somewhat heated about the class and could write a lot about it makes me sure I want to take it.
I am about to go use the Kollegium gym, then I'll reheat some of food I made last night and maybe check out the town bar. I have no class tomorrow, so plan on using the day to explore the town around my Kollegium, Albertslund. Tomorrow night, we have a DIS party, so I'll hang around Copenhagen at night.