diaries.

this past semester i was teaching a new course called 'psychological themes in popular anglo-american culture'. i am quite happy with how it all went, considering how experiemental it was. i still need some feedback from the students, but i have a feeling that most of them enjoyed the classes, too.

one of the requirements for 10% grade points was a diary they were supposed to keep during the semester, writing about how they understood the things we were talking about, and which associations they had watching, reading, and listening to the material that illustrated the psychological topics. it was the first time i ever assigned such a task and i was unsure of how it would turn out.

not all of the students who attended the course handed in the diary, some 60% of them did. several were slightly disappointing, because they were passionless and flawed, but most were remarkable, and some outstanding. it was a joy to read them.

i could read in these half-official pages that the students closely followed and contemplated all the themes we discussed in classes. they recommended many movies, books and song lyrics dealing with psychological themes that could fit into the course. some dared include their personal musings and experiences, which was a delight to read. all in all, the diaries proved to be a great success.

in order to show off, i am now giving the translation taken from the summary of one of these diaries: 'i cannot say that i learned many new things in this course, probably because i have already passed exams in developmental and educational psychology and so i was familiar with some of the things. however, i can say that i did expand on my knowledge, that some of the things made me think, which is very important, because curiosity is in the heart of knowledge. i have seen fantastic movies thanks to this course and i finally felt as a student in a western university.'