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Chapter Fifty-Six: Which Classes?
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Nathella said, "Aed told me that you want to take some classes."
"Yes, Nathella."
"You seem to find things to do easily; I suggest that you take two classes, three at most; other students take more, but you need a lot of sleep. Come on over to the computer with me; we can look at the catalogue with me.
"Let's see... Here's 'Mathematics as a Humanity', team taught by a mathematician and an artist. When I took it, it was team taught by a mathematician and a philosopher. It was the hardest class I took -- and the best.
"In this culture, most people are taught something horrid as lower math, and they avoid it as much as they can. They don't guess what mathematicians really do -- an art form guided by intuition. Most people think a mathematician must do more of whatever they suffered through in the math classes they couldn't avoid -- more statistics and meaningless formulae. It's really sad; higher math is easier than lower math, and that course did not make me a mathematician, but it helped me appreciate what they do.
"'Modern Mythology: An Exploration of Storytelling in Postmodern Society.' This would also be a good course for you to take; it will help you see some of the good points of our culture -- and some of the bad points. I think last year they did an in-depth treatment of a classic interactive -- the title escapes me (I'm never in tune with that -- I was 20 before I saw Star Wars), but -- ooh! it was called net, and net was hard science fiction that somehow managed to be very popular. This class didn't look at technology much, just the timeless elements of the story -- and it is timeless. I don't know what they're doing this semester, although I can find out.
"'Philosophy of Technology'. This is a good class; it's team taught by a humanities Luddite and a technology-worshipping engineer. Aed likes to occasionally go in and sit and watch the sparks fly.
"'Psychology 212: Gift Giving. This class explores how to take basic psychological insights and use them to find a gift that will be meaningful to a friend and loved one.' I wish that one had been available to me when I was in school. Classes have been shifting towards a more practical bent. There's also 'Psychology 312: Synergy. This class explores positive interactions between people, and how to create the circumstances that give it rise.' There are a lot of good classes -- hmm.
"'Semiotics 101: A Critical Look at Contemporary Society' -- this would be an extremely valuable class to you, but not for the reasons that most people take it. It would show you how people are inculturated into contemporary liberalism, and see things into the plurality that was once a holy trinity of race, class, and gender. Taking a critical look at a course like this would help you understand contemporary academia, and perhaps a little bit of contemporary society as well.
"I know you have an artistic bent; I've seen you carving. This might interest you: 'Fine Arts 212: The Art of Tektrix'. It's a class on how to build with robotic blocks, studied as an art form.
"Here's a fun one: 'Gender Studies 315: The Wisdom of Cats. A humorous look at how our lives can be made better by living out the wisdom that cats embody naturally, and a careful study of why cats are better than dogs.' Department notwithstanding, that looks -- oh, wait. You're a dog lover. Never mind."
Taberah did not see why loving dogs would disqualify anyone from taking a course on cats, but he was too busy assimilating information too quickly to ask a question. Nathella continued, "'Communication 275: Are Sacred Cows Edible? An interpretive look at the popular comic strip and exploration of its meaning in society.' That looks interesting. I'm not going to try to explain it now, but you should take it. Let's see, what else?
"There's a dance art -- kind of like a martial art, but taking dance rather than combat as its basic medium. In combat between two good martial artists, there is a harmony that arises, a kind of synchronization and attunement between opponents. Neither party walks in knowing what is going to happen -- but a masterpiece emerges. A dance art does this with dance -- there are differences; in both, you learn to read your partner, but in a dance art, you also want to be readable, instead of hard to predict -- and dance art strikes Aed as very interesting. He tried one for a bit, but then left because he wasn't able to handle the structured, monotonous repetitions that low-level training took from martial arts. Maybe that's its weakness, and come to think of it, you probably shouldn't do that either, even though I have a feeling you can dance very well.
"Here we go! 'History 339: Medieval Culture.' I think this would be valuable to you as well; you would learn something about our culture in learning how it portrays your culture. Maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea; the catalogue refers to your culture as belonging to 'the misogynist tradition', and -- come to think of it, I know who's teaching that course, and she'd fail you. That professor can tolerate almost anybody whom liberalism now sees as oppressed, but someone who is from medieval society and believes we have something to learn from it -- you'd have a hostile learning environment. Let's see: what else?
"'Integrated Science 152: Heavy Boots.' I think this course would be a good one for you to learn from; it is probably the best to teach the culture of science and scientism -- as good for its purpose as the semiotics class would have been for understanding the culture of the humanities as we now have it. Another one that you might like is 'Engineering 297: Cross-Disciplinary Commonalities of Repair and Debugging. This course covers the fundamentals of how to think about technology that does not behave as intended, with application to repair of mechanical and electrical devices, and debugging of software.' What do you think, honey? Does that interest you?"
"They all interest me, Nathella. I don't know which ones to choose."
"Then we can wind to a close -- ooh! You have to take this one, Taberah. At least if you can get in. The professor is a cantankerous, eccentric genius. This course has been taught under a dozen department names, and now the university's simply stopped assigning it a department. You'll like it."
At dinner, Nathella said, "Have you given further thought to what courses you want to take?"
Taberah said, "Yes. I want to take the last class we talked about, the class you recommended, and -- oh, yes! Heavy Boots!"
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Chapter Fifty-Six: Which Classes?
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