Whew!! It’s the end of the first week of classes, and I must say I am rather exhausted. Being a junior is hard work! I decided I wanted to be an English major last year, but my schedule is a lot more English-heavy this year. Since I am also getting a teaching license, I had mostly education classes last year. This semester I only have one education class and THREE English classes. This means a LOT of reading every night and soon lots of writing. But I guess that’s what happens when you’re an English major!Two of my classes are literature classes: American Literature II and English Literature II. I haven’t read a lot of literary classics, and these classes should help introduce some more of them to me. It’s been really interesting learning about how much society during different periods of history influenced so much of what authors and poets wrote. The other English class I am taking is called Fiction Writing Workshop. I’ve really looked forward to this one, because publishing a novel has always been a little dream of mine, and what better way to move toward that than to take a class designed to help you become a better writer? It’s a little intimidating knowing I’ll have to come up with ideas for writing short stories–plus having them critiqued by the whole class–but the only way to get better is to do it, right?Part of what makes me excited about these classes is the professors. I have Ami Regier for American Lit and Nathan Bartel for the other two. Both are clearly passionate about what they are teaching and present it in a way that makes me excited to learn about it, too. Yay for Bethel faculty!