Scholastic discontent

So, I am neck deep in my senior year at college. So far so good, I am keeping up with my classes and absorbing the material as I should.

However, I must be honest and say, I am a little discontented and disappointed. Three of my classes are taught by an instructor who is very knowledgeable in the material she presents, a veritable fount of information. However, it is not presented in a very interesting fashion. This professor tends to lecture tirelessly and asks for little input from the students. Then when she does, she sort of sets people up with trick questions. I have been left with the feeling that I don't want to say anything in class simply because I don't want to be made a fool of. So, I sit quietly, take notes, and daydream when possible.

This contrasts with another instructor that conducts his class as a seminar, meaning we all sit in a circle and talk openly about the material we are studying. We look for passages in the primary source documents and read them aloud, then we talk about the historical context and ramifications of the subject. I find myself eager to participate in class and put my two cents into the discussion.

This may come from how I learn, and what it really is that holds my interest in history. I am drawn to emerging thoughts, concepts and philosophies that change the course of the modern world. For instance, how individualism and intellectualism led to the American revolution. How natural law and capitalism led to the French revolution. How Stoicism influenced Roman thought and helped to shape Christianity.

In short, raw historic trivia only bores me, while the living element of the past electrifies me.

While I am on the subject of my instructors, I feel the need to say that I sense a general dislike, or distrust from them, towards me. It is a very subtle thing, but something that I have experienced many times. It is like they have stereotyped me, and do not know how to relate to me. Granted, I am the only 30something, Gen X'er in a class full of aspiring, young, and eager historians It is a bit lke they just don't want to waste time on getting to know me because I am not the typical student that they are used to. Perhaps something else is at work here, but it is a feeling I have experienced with almost all of the professors I have dealt with so far.

In other news, I am enjoying my time here in Chico, despite being away from my family. My roommate is an agreeable fellow, a young man that is mature beyond his years. He can be a bit morose sometimes, and is a tad moody, but overall I enjoy his company. However, I see in him the same kind of sickness I have in my own soul. That being the need to please everyone, and suffering with the notion that no one likes him. Like me, he tends to think way too much, and reads much more into a situation than is really there. I don't know how to help him with this condition. Perhaps it is best to just let the tide of maturity, and the wisdom that comes with age, wash away the angst of human relations.

More often than not, we are our own worst enemy.