to take or not to take?

Am having a headache choosing between The Body: Politics, Poetics, Perception and American Literature II. The former is known to be interesting but dense, the latter is attractive because of its no-exam and no-essay format, and having a buddy who's keen on taking it too, and the fact that it focuses on comedic prose.

But the module description for American Lit 2 reminds me so much of 20th Century, for which I had a miserable time taking, and the only one title that I recognised-- Catch-22--is no easy read, although its wicked black humour is totally hilarious, in a bleak kinda way. War story, from what I vaguely remember, with characters who use the craziest, most ridiculous attitudes to deal with their life as a soldier. (Um, didn't finish reading it last time in JC) It's that kinda read that makes you laugh, and then feel depressed about the human condition afterward. Powerful in its way.

And American history...! I'm not so fond of history, to tell the truth, and neither am I familiar with American texts as a whole, having done nearly all Brit texts the last couple of sems, although if American films are anything to judge by, in comparison to Brit films, they're a lot more... colourful, and may promise to be more interesting...

The Body... a "tough, dense, but ve-ry interesting module!" is what I gathered from feedback... I forsee The Body would offer a lot to think about, lots of interesting abstract stuff that kinda reminds me of sci-fi's style of teaching, that is concerned with your reaction as a reader towards your texts, I guess, and I'm drawn to that, dead cheem as it sounds...

"The module explores the connectivity between body and mind in the act of reading. It challenges the perception that interpretation is a disembodied and purely intellectual activity. The module is designed to make students acutely aware of the body’s role in reading, partly to remind them of the fundamental role of the senses in one’s approach to art, but also to get them to see how they are implicated in issues that are raised through the body’s representation in politically and ethically complex situations in texts. The module aims to give students, via narrative and meta-narrative considerations, a new articulated sense of themselves as bodied beings and what that entails."

Funky, right =P Would feel a lot more comfortable if I have someone taking it with me, though, so that in times of utter cheemness there may be people to wail with me, haha...

Darn, I need to learn to make friends. *pause* Okay, this statement sounds weird, considering this is year 3, and I ought to have known enough people to go around... WHY are the rest of the people I know taking Irish poetry? I love the lecturer, he's super intriguing and thought-provoking in his style of teaching, but I am very wary of Irish lit, courtesy of bad experience with 20th Century (again). And me, horrible student that I am, am still scared of doing poetry with no prose to fall back on.

Flipped a coin last night, and was aggravated when American Lit turned up three times in a row. *laughs* Silly human traits of wanting chance to tell you what you want to know, then get agitated that it doesn't. So I tried flipping some more, and The Body turned up a few consecutive times. Decided it was not helpful and abandoned the idea. Alicia mentioned that chance drives sane and insane people nuts, and her comment kinda struck a chord-- how true, indeed... so yes, I shall decide myself, between practicalities like timetables and lecturers and exam schedules and usefulness and ease of scoring... and pure interest (which kinda goes a longer way than the rest, because if I had wanted to be practical to begin with, I should have accepted my NTU communications studies offer long ago... which is a darn scary thought because there wouldn't have been all this people I've known, and the exhilaration of studying lit, and Reso, which makes up the other half my NUS life... but I digress...)

*thoughtful*

Shall bid for the modules anyhow. Gotta rush out to meet the girls now. Oh no, I'm trangressing all my curfews and should-not-dos. *exasperated* Too many long days out. Must make it home early and attempt to avoid the tirade of "will-it-kill-you-to-stay-at-home-for-a-day" and other less mild jabs at the conscience.

Till the next time~