Second (and Third) Impressions

I don't know that I got a good first impression of my historiography prof. During the first class, I was nervous, the course was different from my accustomed historiography course, I felt like I couldn't say anything right in the course, and I continually got the impression that the professor was judging me. This course made me grumpy, as a result, and I read the first textbook under protest. (And ended up loving it; I've already recommended it to someone.)

During my second class, we had a lot of fun, and I started detecting a similar sense of humour to mine. The whole class even had a huge debate, that ended up taking over most of the session, over the difference between history and myth.

Well, today I went to his office hours, to discuss my research paper. He was really friendly and disarming. He was excited about my research ideas, offering suggestions on how to narrow the topic (entirely along the lines of what I enjoy), and told me that my ideas were exactly along the lines of what he had in mind. He also mentioned that he thought I've been making insightful contributions to the class.

On top of that, he's friends with Dr. B, and gave me a suggestion for an essay topic for my European history course! I've been really struggling with that last one, because we're supposed to have an idea by tomorrow, and I've stalled in my efforts to look for something I thought would be interesting. I wanted to do something about the interaction between culture and politics under the Kaiserreich, but I've already written an essay on the only topic I can come up with on that issue: the Berlin Secession. And Dr. B has always been the one pointing me in directions of research topics in that area (I know, I need to grow up and start investigating for myself). When I mentioned this dilemma to my historiography prof, his immediate response was "What about Kulturkampf?"

Of course! Culture! Politics! Political Catholicism! Ties to Weimar's Catholic Centre Party! Instantly I could come up with authors who've written interesting stuff about it. I'm set. (Karl's going to laugh; I talked to him this morning, and he joked that of course I'd end up talking about the Catholic Centre Party.)

I used to mistrust first impressions; when did I change?

In other news, Chris got his new computer (RIP Compy, killed by a spider), and so he just updated his blog! He's in the midst of layout changes, so it's really basic right now, but stop over and say hello!