First Week Recap

Well, the first week of life as a Ph.D. student is now over. Classes went well, but the pace for this year will definitely be more like my first year as a MA student than the second (read: busy!). I'm registered in 3 classes: the Proseminar, which is supposed to be the equivalent of 2 grad classes, Ethical Analysis, and a French reading course. The Proseminar is a class that consists of all and only grad students. It's supposed to be a `grad school boot camp' (as described the the prof this week), meant to catch us up to speed with things we should have read by now as well as provide an intense bonding experience among first year students. Should be interesting. Ethical Analysis is an introductory ethics course taught be a preeminent moral philosopher (who is actually a really good teacher in addition to being a good philosopher). The French reading course shouldn't be much of a problem given my background in French. Actually, I still read at a decent level, so passing this course will enable me to get my language requirement out of the way quickly and painlessly.

I'm also fortunate enough to be free of teaching duties this term, which should give me the time and space to get my feet under me and really dig into my classes. Maybe I'll even find the time to do some of my own research! (I doubt it though; I think the point of the Prosem is to make sure this doesn't happen!)

By the way, I let the first week of the college football season pass by without so much as a whisper. So, if you didn't already know, both my teams won on opening day. Michigan beat Vanderbilt 27-7, but the offence looked shaky for most of the first 3 quarters. Hopefully those kinks get worked out soon; Notre Dame comes to town next week! More importantly, my Aggies beat up on The Citadel 35-3. Yes, I know, Citadel is a D-1AA, and a lower tier one at that. But, nonetheless, the offense got into a bit of a rhythm in the first half and the defense seemed much improved. We'll see if we can keep up the improvement over the next few weeks. We'll need to; our first real test comes in 4 weeks when Texas Tech comes to Kyle Field. But before that, we get Army in San Antonio (televised on ESPN2).