The first class of any course is arguably exciting. I love course outlines and seeing what we get to learn. Of course, I’ll complain halfway through, fall to my knees, and ask God what the hell possessed me to take these courses. For now, though, they’re all pretty cool.

BIOL 210 – Vascular Plants
It’s only two classes in so far and I realized how much I LOVE PLANTS. OH MY GOD. We haven’t done much so far – maybe brushed up on basic plant cell parts and discussed why plants are important (Wine, duh). Main topics including basic terminology and sporic meiosis. Awesome.

BIOL 234 – Fundamentals of Genetics
This class in contrast is intimidating. Likewise, a brief refresher on some terminology and history. Watson, Crick, double helix, Rosalind Franklin (awesome btw), blah blah blah. Pretty pictures of nucleotides. Afraid of impending practice problems and fear of being the stupid one in tutorials.

CHEM 205 – Physical Chemistry
So far? Dryish. Prof talked about the course outline and resources for like an hour and then we reviewed the ideal gas law. He has a sense of humour, though, and apparently the last time he taught the course, the fail rate was only something like 4 percent. Further: no textbook needed. I was desperately trying to find anything interesting to connect to the material so far: ideal gas law? Distilling alcohol, maybe? Wine bottle pressure? Then there was a slide with a brief reminder of weather and air pressure, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

FNH 330 – Introduction to Wine Science
Not bad so far. It’s clear that some proportion of the class is either skeptical about wine or perhaps just plain giddy that some form of alcohol is involved (I don’t blame them, although if someone says they don’t like Chardonnay I will cut a bitch). Grade booster for me. First time ever in a university class where I raised my hand for a question and got it correct. This is big, you guys. I know a couple of (legitimate) wine geeks who have taken the course and I haven’t heard the best things. I’ll rock it, anyways.