i went to the opera tonight!

I'm bursting with things I want to share right now in the heat of the moment, and Michael is unavailbe at this instant because he is playing Settlers with the guys. Therefore I have no one to talk to, except for you unsuspecting blog readers! I've completed my first full week of classes, and finally got registered for the one class I was sitting in on but not really in. I'm taking 4 courses again this semester. They should be pretty good. One class is Food: composition, function & nutrition. It's just going to be a bunch of facts, somewhat science based, but it's entertaining to listen to the prof. He's an older Englishman who thinks he's pretty funny, so we end up laughing because he's laughing at himself. He's got the classic British dry humor. Then there's Corporate Finance, which I think I will find easier than intro to accounting. I have the same prof, and he's really good at what he does (and he's part of a minority in the school of business who's native language in English). I'm also taking a class called Communication for Professional Practice. This course is required for all Human Ecology students. It's about communication skills, particularly in the form of presentations (aka public speaking). I was a little scared about this class, but I think it will be alright since all of the presenting happens in lab, where there is only 16 people. The scariest project is the presentation that we have to get video taped for and then watch ourselves; that just doesn't sound like fun! And, I've saved the best for last! I'm taking an elective this semester (this is the class I had a hard time getting into). The course is called The Well-Tempered Concert Goer. I'm super excited about this. Anyway, to sum up: it's a classical music appreciation class. The requirements are to go to 9 concerts (they're already chosen) and write a 1-2 page response to each concert. There's no textbook, no exam, just the papers and classes to go that give us some background and history on what we are going to hear. And that is why I was at an opera tonight. Well, more accuartely, parts of six operas. It's put on by U of M vocal students. One of them was in German, I enjoyed that one quite a lot because I could understand the gist of what was going on. We had the story lines explained to us, but when you can piece the words actually being sung together, there's some pretty humorous stuff going on. I can't believe how outrageous the plots and story lines are! So, I think I could really get into opera, except for two things: listening to an opera sung in English just doesn't sound as good, and you miss out on a lot if you don't understand the language that is being sung. (guess maybe I should learn some other languages) Like one of them was in French, and there were people in the audience who obviously understood stuff I didn't because they were laughing and I didn't know why. Anyway, it was good, I'm really looking forward to learning stuff in this class, and just learning how to listen and understand classical music better.