Aplying scientific principles to the art of capturing the modern world

So, my second week of uni is going swimmingly. I had lunch with Alice today which was lovely. I think it's going to take me a while to get used to the hours, or lack thereof. Only having 12 contact hours is a bit bizarre. Apart from Wednesday I don't really have anything approaching a full day at uni. Before you starts with the "Arts Students, pfft", I have loads of reading to do. About 50 pages a week for each subject plus a novel a week for Modern Lit. I’d be interested to know how the contact hour/work loads differs from overseas. Emily? Hannah?

Excitingly, I actually talked to a boy in my modern lit class today - a real live boy. The lecturers (because we don't have one for Modern Lit, we have an army of them) were trying to set up the projector and the screen. I do think the systems here are a bit to complex, especially for the lecturers. Any the screen was actually made up of whiteboards, on slidy things and the kept sliding back up and disfiguring the picture. It was really quite funny, one lecturer would pull the whiteboard down then turn away to talk to another and up it went again, then a different lecturer would pull it down again. It took them forever to work out that it was happening. So blondeboy and I had a bit of a laugh about it and lecturers generally. Exciting story. The thing is, if I'm sitting next to a girl I usually strike up conversation and it's fine. But when it's a guy I find it awkward, because I don't want him to think I'm cracking onto him or anything... blah.

Sorry if this is terribly disjointed, I'm listening to Restoring the Balance. It's quite amusing I think. I heart the ABC.

Other thoughts from modern lit: I'm really glad my parents took me to art galleries. at the time, of course I was not that bothered. The first thing I really remember going to see was Picasso's museum in Paris. I was 8 or 10 so I doubt I really 'got' it but I did enjoy it. Actually perhaps kids get more out of Picasso's stuff than adults? I don't remember being so utterly confused by it as I am now. I've seen quite a lot of impressionism (both at the Louvre and in Melbourne) because my mum really likes it. I think I prefer it too. Anyway, I feel like i have a bit more to work with when one of my many modern lit lectures starts throwing such terms around (usually managing to turn the lights off at the same time as trying to show us the painting). However there's a bit of me that just thinks "but that's a painting and we're talking about a play', I know, that's an incredibly uncivilized thing to say... I just find it hard to see the similarities between this and A Doll's House. However, throw in a few words about Ibsen's realistic aesthetic and you're away.

Well that was astonishingly boring. Sorry.