Books!

So my books for my correspondence course came in the mail today! (They could have come last week, but I gave the school the wrong address, so they got returned. Sigh.) That was pretty exciting, and I stacked them into a fantastic four storey book castle.

I like books that match each other, and I like shopping from the same publishers. For this course, the school just sent me the books I'll be needing, and I wasn't sure what I would be getting. Four of the books I received were from publishers I favour, and another seven are from one other publisher that has been unknown to me, but I'm excited that they all match each other.

I just need to finish what I'm currently working on (Persuasion), and then I'll be reading Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster. =)

Edu-vacation (and beyond)

So I signed up for school! And I forgot how expensive school is! I picked a 6-credit course, so that's like taking two classes, and the price is outrageous considering that this is just something I'm doing for fun. But it's something I really want to do, so I decided not to be dissuaded by the price - plus, between the tuition and the twelve months of part-time student credits, the tax benefits should cover almost half of the cost of the course. And all the books are included for free!

I chose to take Nineteenth Century English Literature. When I took a second look at my options, it was the one that excited me most - and it also happened to be the most advance of the classes I considered, so I hope I can live up to expectations (that basic college English class that I took was eight years ago...). I get a year to finish fourteen books, two 2000-word essays, a biography assignment, and a final "Oral Quiz." I hope to complete it sooner than that - if I drag it out that long it would become really hard to stay motivated. But then again, I'll be reading fourteen books, and they won't be easy reads. We'll see. Anyway, over the next quite-a-while, this is what I'll be reading:

Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

The Heart of Mid-Lothian by Sir Walter Scott (1818)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847)

Vanity Fair by William Thackeray (1848)

Bleak House by Charles Dicken (1853)

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855)

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope (1857)

Middlemarch by George Eliot (1872)

The Egoist by George Meredith (1879)

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (1884)

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891)

Do any of these appeal to you guys? Would you be interested in reading some of them with me? It would be fun to have company along my literary jouney!

Holiday Studying

I have three weeks booked off work in March. I don't have any big plans for this time. I might go visit Dad (it's been quite a while), or maybe Oma, but most of all it will just be nice to not go to work.

I had an idea while relaxing in the bathtub this afternoon, though. Maybe I should sign up for an correspondence course! This is something I keep intending to do "sometime," but I know how hard it is to come home from work and do more work, so it never seems like a realistic plan. But having several weeks off work will give me time to invest in it, and having something to do will prevent me from getting bored.

I looked online, and here were some of the courses that interested me:

- Anthropology 354: Language and Culture (but Amanda gave me a book on this topic, and perhaps I should read that before taking a whole course on the topic.)

- English 211: Prose Forms (this is basically just an introductory English course, which I have already taken. But in this one I would get to read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence - all which I have been wanting to read - and look at short stories and essays too! And it shouldn't be too much of a challenge, which would be nice.)

- English 302: Introduction to Canadian Literature (this one looks at interesting themes and authors, and I'd feel good about learning more about Canadian literature.)

- English 358: Literature of the Americas (this one explores Spanish-American, Afro-American, and English- and French-Canadian literature and sounds really interesting. Plus we'd get to read Fifth Business and One Hundred Years of Solitude.)

- English 395: The Nineteenth-Century English Novel (in this course we'd read Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Bleak House, Middlemarch, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Frankenstein, and Vanity Fair - and it has no exams.)

- Health Studies 200: Introduction to Human Health (wait, this one might tell me I should be eating supper right now, or two hours ago, and then getting some exercise... but it looks like an interesting discussion of health and the factors that contribute to and detract from it.)

- Human Resource Management 322: Employment Law (this one would be the most applicable to my life these days, and I could probably even get work to chip in for the tuition. But it would be the least vacation-y...)

I glanced at all the courses they offer, and these are the ones that caught my attention. Most of them are English classes. I guess that's because I like reading, I like having a reason to dig into what I have been reading, and I like writing about it. I've taken a correspondence course before - Sociology 203 - so I pretty much know what to expect, and it was pretty easy (especially compared to what I was doing in real school at the time). But I should keep in mind that if I take a more advanced course, the requirements will be more advanced.

What do you guys think? What should I take?