on my wariness of graduate courses

After my...disappointing...class choices last semester, I definitely went into the spring semester holding my breath.

The Class: History of the English Language (Dr. Busbee put a sign on the door that said "Welcome to HEL."  Yeah, us English-types are pretty clever.)
The First Day: We spent 60% of our first class on phonics, staring at the mouth shapes of the people across the table and collectively sounding an awful lot like Professor Higgins' record player from My Fair Lady.  The other 40% was spent listening to our professor lecture on important dates that changed the English language forever and speaking to us in Old English.
The Initial Verdict: AWESOME.  Seriously, have you ever heard Old English?  It's pretty legit.  Also, it's hysterical listening to a group of 15 postgrads sound out letters like preschoolers.  There's no term paper, but we have short etymology papers, a 45-minute presentation (Who's presenting on the Norman conquest?  This girl!), and recitations in Old, Middle, and Modern English--in addition to the midterm and final, of course.  There's a lot of emphasis on lingual structure, which I am totally pumped about. 

The Class: Writing Pedagogy (or something like that)
The First Day: We did some teacher/undergraduate student role-play (the course is specifically designed for those who want to teach high school- and college-level writing courses), sat through a lot of explanation that I thought wasn't very necessary, and spent the rest of the time signing up for multiple presentation dates, syllabus projects, and when to bring snacks.  (It's a three-hour evening class--snacks are 100% necessary.)
The Initial Verdict: Undecided.  I was hoping it would be more of a grammar-based course, but it seems to be leaning more toward the psychology of writing--why students are good/bad at it, communication issues, expression, etc. etc.  Hopefully another class will be more telling.  There aren't any tests for the course, but it feels like I signed up for about a dozen presentations, so I'm assuming those are going to make up the difference. 

Sometimes I feel like an imposter in my English programs because I really don't enjoy writing 95% of papers.  I much prefer tests and presentations.  Papers are graded so arbitrarily--it's especially difficult when you have a new professor and you're not sure how they grade.  Plus, I remember details about the topic longer and more accurately when it's in presentation format.  One of the reasons I balk at the idea of teaching as a ranked professor (Assistant, Associate, or Full) is because of the professional development required of most schools, which requires you to write a certain number of publications and submit papers to a certain number of conferences and yada yada.  It's a mess.  Why do college professors get paid so little to do so much? 


In other news, I bought a 7-inch, touch screen, digital picture frame today for $25.  This is how low the price gets (down from $110!) when a store stocks things no one would actually buy there.  (Who goes to Borders for a digital picture frame?  Zero people.)  I didn't particularly need a digital picture frame, but all my rich and fancy customers wave their iPads in my face all day and I wanted some sort of gadgety upgrade that I could afford to feel hip for the new decade.  Maybe.  Or maybe I just want my wedding pictures to play on a loop in my living room all day, every day.