28 October 2011

List #33: Things I Wish I Knew More About

1.  Art
I always wanted to take an art history class, but I never had space for it when I was choosing classes.  In high school, I took every biology class offered and I packed in six years worth of English courses in my four years there, including taking a "study hall" my senior year, during which I TAed the Anatomy & Physiology class.

2.  History (both US and world)
I've always been bored to death by every history class I've ever taken, but I get sucked into a lot of History Channel shows and documentaries.  I think (like many classes), I just need(ed) a really great teacher who didn't just stand at the front of the room and recite facts, dates, and names.  I mean, in law school, we learnt a TON of history, but it was taught with passion and as stories (which they were, since it was taught as case history), so it wasn't like the typical "learn this date and person and war so you can recite them back on a test later this month."  Everything had context.

3.  Music
I always wanted to take a music appreciation course, too.  While I love music and know a bit about playing it (I played violin), I don't really know that much music history, or that much about different composers, what they wrote, why they're significant (I mean, other than "because they wrote great piece that became famous - duh"), etc.

4.  Physics
Our high school physics teacher was completely popular because she had a kick-ass fun class.  I always wanted to take it, but (1) I didn't have enough time and (2) I didn't fulfil the prereqs anyway (again, because of the whole time thing).  But now there's a guy at work who taught Physics for years, and we've been talking about several of us doing lunches together every once in awhile to discuss real-world issues and how physics applies.  Why, no, we're not geeks at all.

5.  Basketball
This is one of the few sports I don't follow.  I don't have anything against it (like my mom's husband does - omg, please don't get him started).  But it's just not a sport I really understand.  I mean, I get the fundamentals - dribble, shoot, two-points, three-points, free throws, technical fouls, blah blah blah.  But I can't tell you much about the different fouls (I bet I couldn't name more than a few), and I DEFINITELY can't tell you anything about the strategy of the game.

6.  World Geography
I used to be fairly decent at this, but I suck at it now.  I'm good at pockets.  I know North America really well, I'm fairly good with eastern/northern Europe, and eastern Asia.  I used to kick-ass at the Mid-East, but not so much anymore.  It's kind of embarrassing, really.  It kind of makes me want to track down one of those more fun colouring books for geography and work through it.  (Hey, it's how I learnt anatomy - why not geography?).

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