History Class

About a year ago I had this crazy idea to go back to school.  (Hey, I’ve got this GI Bill thing and I figured I ought to use it.)  Anyway, among the wonderful classes I get to do this summer is Survey of World History.

Here’s the kicker — it’s a 5 week long class.

All of world history in 5 weeks.

I was so sure I was going to fall over dead from subject overload, but I have to admit that I’m not.  This is the end of week 1 and I am loving the class.  In fact, I’m loving it too much.  For the first three days of class, I couldn’t sleep because I’d get done reading my history book and the Greeks and Romans would be smacking each other around in my dreams.

(Hey, I’m a writer.  Weird dreams come with the territory.)

It doesn’t help that I’m already fascinated with the Greek and Roman periods.  In fact, I wrote a short story called “The Man Who Loved Medusa” that just came out in the Love and Darker Passions Anthology.  (It’s the first story in the book, too.)

History is a great place for inspiration.  History shows us how complicated we are as human beings.  History shows us how ugly we can be to each other, and how heroes are born.  It shows us how far we’ve come, how much we still need to improve, and gives us hope for something greater in the future.

My favorite subject is probably the Romans.  (Sparta was pretty tough, but let’s face it, the Romans just had this whole … audacity thing going for them.)