After much anticipation, Beulah Baker has arrived in Ireland! The way the Taylor program here works is most of the time we do our homework independently and have class with our Irish professors, Jen and Monte, or with our directors, Kyle and Laura. But for a couple weeks during the semester, Taylor profs fly over and teach us. For the next nine days, Dr. Baker is here to give us a greater understanding of Irish Literature.
I have to start off by saying, this woman is incredible. She arrived this morning, and rather than take the day to get acclimated and catch up on sleep, she dove right in! We had 5 hours of class in which we discussed some of the literature we have been reading in preparation for her visit. It's a good thing I enjoy literature, otherwise this would be really overwhelming. This class reminds me of my high school English classes with Mrs. Hoklin. I loved reading all these random stories and having lively class discussion over the symbolism, tone, syntax, etc. For example, one time she had us read Jonathan Swift's, A Modest Proposal. If you happen to choose to go read it, know it's a satire! The whole time he is just kidding! When we read it in high school, Mrs. Hoklin chose not to tell us this ahead of time and it resulted in a very lively debate.
But back to Ireland. For the next 9 days, we will be completely focused on Irish literature. We also get to go visit some of the places the stories were written about. It should be pretty exciting! I just hope we have the stamina to keep up with the energetic, Dr. Baker!
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