Classics 34 - Epic Poetry. I took this class to satisfy a requirement (of course) and because I had never really done that much reading of classics. Maybe it's just the school system I went to, but I don't recall reading any classics in grade school or middle school or high school. Well, there wasn't that much in school, even in English classes. Usually Shakespeare or the more contemporary classics. Not the ancients.

It's for this class that I first read the Illiad and the Odyssey, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, some Germanic epic, an epic skald from Iceland, and a few others that I don't recall. Probably we had essays to write and tests take, though I don't remember those either. Another good class to take, and another class with more women than men.

Speaking of which, it never occurred to me that there were so few women in the sciences and engineering, considering Berkeley is about 50% each way. It's only in the last few years that I've read about this problem, although it's been recognized for a few decades. Not so much that women are not suited for the sciences (my personal experiences not withstanding), they can be just as adept at the guys. It's hard to imagine a woman geek spending 48 hours straight on a project. Then again, that kind of man is less and less common in CS because CS people tend to have more a real life nowadays.

EE 40 is an Introduction to Electronics class. There is an EE 42 which is the same as EE 40 but with less math. Strangely, the EE 42 class is called "Introduction to Electronics for Computer Science" like CS people are stupid or something. Come to think of it, they don't have to take as much math as EE majors do, so maybe they are a bit stupid :-). There used to also be an EE 40I class which I think was harder, for the real men.

In any case, I took EE 40 which is a specific requirement for my major ("take one of EE 40/EE 40I"). Digital and analog circuits, DC and AC voltages, calculating current and voltage, Kirchoff's laws and other formulas. I have no idea how I got an A in this class. Analog circuits with AC voltages -- good grief those were hard. Lots of calculus. This is the class that thoroughly convinced me that Electrical Engineering was not for me.

For some reason we were supposed to partner up in this class. Always very hard for me, so it was a surprise when these two women wanted to be my partners. They weren't the greatest at math and required a lot of tutoring, but that helped me too. One of the best ways to learn a subject is to try to teach it to someone else who wants to learn. Looking back on it I guess it was a nice class after all.

At the BCAC the Erzo campaign continued. I'm thinking this is when Sweet arrived, like the last new person we had in the group until Eric Fulton (I don't count Chris since he was playing in the Ars Magica campaign so he was already in the group, even if I hadn't met him). Then again I'm probably thinking of the following Fall, since Winter break is a bit short. More likely that Sweet started playing with the guys during Summer, as I went home and they all pretty much stayed in Berkeley.

That was pretty much it for Jim and I. He and Darren and Brett got an apartment up in the Oakland hills, sort of over the Caldecott Tunnel on the Berkeley side. I went up there once to visit and they borrowed my old vacuum cleaner. Meanwhile, without a roommate I decided to go back to the dorms for my Junior year. Hard to tell whether that was the best decision or not.