Fluff Me Up

Hard to believe, but yesterday morning I registered for classes for the last time. I guess my time at Elgin Community College paid off; I will complete my Purdue career without ever taking a Math or English course here and I have only 11 credits left to take. Actually, I don't really need those 11 credits as credits, they're just required classes for my major (to graduate in my program you need a minimum of 128 credits and I've already got 132 at the start of this semester).

Naturally, of course, this 11 credit business raises a slight problem; you have to have 12 credit hours in a semester to be counted as a "full time" student (and I have to be full time to keep my scholarships). Thus, I need to find a "fluff" class to fill that extra credit. The question is, which one?

I'd take the Wine Tasting class that's so highly rated, but it meets for 3 hours on Monday nights, which is time I've already dedicated to Kent's Action Group. I took Music Appreciation a year ago and really liked it, but I've heard that most of the other similar '_____ Appreciation' classes (Art, Jazz, Theater, etc) tend to be a fair amount of work (yes, I'm lazy. I don't mind having a little homework, but I don't want to have enough stuff to do that it ruins my ability to take the class purely for fun). I haven't ruled out Tree Climbing yet, but I don't know if they offer it in the Spring (and yes, it actually is a class; forestry majors need some sort of certification in it to work certain jobs). Bowling was a lot of fun and, considering I already have my own ball, is my backup plan in case I can't think of anything else to take.

So, here's how you can help. Please leave a comment and tell me two things:

A) Any ideas you might have for a good fluff class. Even if you haven't taken it yourself and have just heard good things, I want all the ideas I can get. It doesn't have to be something silly like Bowling either, it can be a legitimate "let's learn something here" class. I just want something that's any combination of fun, interesting, useful, different, or predominantly female (shut up, we flight guys have it even worse than you engineers; out of 70 seniors in flight there
are a total of 5 girls! And yes, before any of you wiseguys suggest "Concepts in Modern Feminism," I am totally kidding on this one).

B) Tell me your favorite class you've ever taken in college (...and why. Your short-essay, double spaced, standard margins, APA-cited answers will be graded and turned back to you by Monday...jk). Yeah, even if it's just something required for your major and a ton of work, I still want to hear about it. I might know nothing on the subject and just barely able to survive a pass/fail setup, but I'm just eccentric enough that I might try if it catches my interest (at this point, Chip's probably pondering suggesting some 600-level Orbital Mechanics class where the math is so weird it'd make Einstein's head spin).

By the way, I still want those ideas from you even if you didn't go to Purdue. Frequently different universities will offer classes that are essentially the same, so I could probably find something similar in Purdue's course catalog.

In other news, I have a field trip today for my Aviation Security "class" (is it really a class if you spend your time watching Mythbusters and playing Terrorism History/Organizations Jeopardy for candy prizes?). There's an airline having an emergency drill simulating a mock crash, terrorist incident, something (not real clear on the details) and somehow our Professor hass arranged for us to be able to watch. Apparently it's a privilege for us to be able to do this because it is a drill for them to practice on and thus not a public event, so being able to get in is pretty special.

I've just ordered a new cell phone which is supposed to get here on Monday. It's the Cingular 3125 (a rebranded HTC Star Trek), a flip phone the same size as Motorola's RAZR (except a milimeter thicker) that runs Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition. That's a fancy way of saying that it's basically a Pocket PC without a touchscreen. It'll be really useful for me because I already use the primitive calendar functions in my phone (which is rapidly dying) to keep track of my life, so now I'll be able to use Outlook's Calendar and just sync it up with my phone. I also might be able to use the EDGE network (high speed data for cell phones) and Bluetooth to use the phone as a wireless modem for my laptop if I ever really need to do something and don't have any internet access. A good friend of mine also has a pretty decent Bluetooth headset that he's willing to sell me for cheap, so I will finally be able to part with the annoying headset wires. I've been stalling on getting a new phone for as long as I can because there just aren't any phones that I like on the market and this one just came out. I'd continue to stall longer if I could, but my phone has gotten so bad that when I answer it, nearly half of my calls have the problem that either I can't hear them or they can't hear me, so it's just getting frustrating. I'm also getting a new plan with more minutes (and I figured out how to get a small discount through Purdue), so I won't have to worry about my minutes as much anymore.

Anyways, it's time for me to go get some lunch before the field trip. Have a good one and don't forget to answer the fluff class questions!