Shopping Daze on September 11

Today was the first day of "shopping" at the K school - yes, that's right, except it isn't for material goods, per se, but for intellectual knowledge. Oh, please, pick your vomit up and listen up - we get to try out classes while the profs pitch them to us. As one of them called it, "A dog and pony show." Well, I guess given the fact that it does cost so much money per class here - hmm... well over 5k/class, they darned well should let us try it on before we buy.

It is September 11, and didn't George the I implore us to go out and spend spend spend.

It's pretty cool, but also very overwhelming. It does give us a chance to figure out if we really do want to take a course, but of course, I'm even more confused now. So many great classes to choose from.

It was also Liam's first day at preschool - just for an hour with Chris there, and Kalian was supposed to go to the co-op, but juggling our schedules for this week has been a complete nightmare - trying to figure out drop-off for Liam on his first solo day tomorrow. Chris was supposed to work at the co-op tomorrow, but he has to be there at 8.30am, which is the earliest time we could even drop off Liam, so Chris can't be too places at once, and I need to leave at 8.15am to go straight to a class. Long story and confusing, but we have so many kinks. Chris and I were fighting like crazy over who had it tougher in terms of scheduling. Some times it just feels like a competition - it's so trite, but I really do want to be on the same team!

I feel like we're doing a lot more arguing these days - this new beginning and juggling our schedules has been so intense and stressful.

The first class I had this morning had this long name - like a lot of classes here at the K school - "Why are countries poor, volatile and unequal" or something like that - it sounded fascinating and the prof was overall pretty cool and at least wasn't too far out in right field, but I'm not sure his analysis is spot on. He definitely at least talk the talk that the disparity was wrong, but his solutions seemed more along the liberal lines of Jeff Sachs rather than any structural changes.

The second class I shopped was JC's - "Journalism in a Time of Upheaval" - yet another long name. I think it will be intriguing and exactly down my interest path, but he's not an academic and has never taught before, so I don't know how that will pan out. He does come from a heap of experience as editor of some of the most major daily papers and on the Pulitzer board. It was also weird because it was the beginning of being "followed" by a contingent of the Nieman fellows who were also shopping the media classes at the K school. I found myself feeling somewhat resentful of them after Chris' experience - resentful in that I didn't want them to get a spot in a class that is sure to be packed.

The third class was MI's class on Media and Foreign Policy - I think the title is longer than that, though it just doesn't have to be. She's a big time Washington insider, but also went back and got her PhD, so she could be someone I should put on my "talk to" list. She was some bigwig on Mondale's campaign staff. She made some interesting points about the differences between mass and elite opinion, but all in the context of polls, which to me tend to deal more with process than policy - more of the horseracing and short-term than anything longterm. I wish I could put my finger on it.

The fourth class was, believe it or not, another media class. The Nieman pack was there, as well. It was ET's class. He is an editor at Newsweek. He was entertaining and his class actually fulfills one of our distribution requirements, but he basically talked about himself and his war stories - and lo and behold, most of the reading is from, you guessed it Newsweek. 'nuf said.

The final class I shopped was my advisor's - Alex Keyssar's. He's my advisor, whom I chose. His class called, "Reasoning from History," seems incredibly thought provoking, and he comes from progressive roots - he's assigning a very interesting book on the history of Iraq, which he introduced as a reading that if current policy makers had read, they would have never gone to war, but I've certainly already thought about these issues .

It was an exausting day and is making my head spin. It was also a bizarre day to be back on campus with it packed with students, and so much security for the 5th anniversary. They shut off traffic all round the Harvard Square T right at the time the first plane went into the World Trade center, and there was tons of security around campus, as well as a moment of silence organized by the Dean here. I didn't go - felt guilty, but felt like there was too much going on....I'm sure this will be a familiar theme.

When I got home, Liam said, "Everyone has a name tag and everyone has a ticket to the game." His mind is really working - much more than mine right now.