But the course has taken a drastic drift.

   This morning I arrived at the classroom fifteen minutes earlier. We waited until Jill came in. We first handed in our mid-term paper, then she took away all her stuff and told us to go outside and meet at the Henry Moore's sculpture in front of the Lamont Library. We were excited, though confused, to go outside for the class. It was a clear sunny morning, with the scent of green grass washed by yesterday's pouring rain. The weather is pretty cold, and it's a typical pleasant New England summer day. 

   

   We met in front of the sculpture. Jill came the last, as always, and announced us to free write for three minutes. We immediately picked a seat that we thought we convenient to observe the sculpture, and that was on the edge of the path that lied beyond the sculpture. Jill was laughing about how we would block the way, but everybody settled down and started to write. 

   You couldn't stop writing when you were doing the freewriting, otherwise Jill would smack you-- at least she said so.

   So we kept writing and writing and writing without a pause, you couldn't even stop your pen to think. Then three minutes were over and she asked us to stand up and walk around, wrote about the sculpture and handed in a one-page essay in forty minutes.

  

   Thanks to the inadequate education in arts I've received in China, there's nothing I could write about the sculpture except recording down its shape, its look, and how its involved in the whole environment. I also wrote down how confused I was when I looked at it, and that I had no idea what emotions it had, or what emotions the artist-- Henry Moore-- wanted it to convey.

   Then forty minutes were due and we went back to the classroom. We started to read out what we had written down one by one, and I found out everybody else was as confused as I was. After everybody else was finished, Jill asked us whether we thought it was beautiful.

   We had an argument about what's beauty, and we all agreed that beauty is something that's highly subjective. In my opinion, beauty is something that can provide you with the sense of happiness; something is beautiful when it contains both intrinsic and extrinsic traits that make it pleasant and joyful to whoever thinks it's beautiful.

   

   The argument seemed to be endless, so Jill again, asked us to take out one piece of paper and write down whether we think the sculpture is beautiful, and why. 

   I simply wrote that it was not beautiful, because I didn't appreciate its outside appearance, and I was confused by what meaning it contained--the inside message. It failed to attract me with either its extrinsic or intrinsic qualities, which didn't provide me with a sense of beauty at all. I pointed out that the most important reason why I didn't think it's beautiful was that it was such a confession, and that I didn't understand it. 

   We had an argument on that as well: can't you think something is beautiful without looking into it and getting the inside message it contains? 

   I think no. Beautiful is a strong word; I will personally choose "pretty" or "attractive" if I want to describe something that is visually appealing. But the word "beautiful" can only used to describe something that you understand, and that you can appreciate both the inside and the outside traits of it. 

   There's no clear definition of beauty, that's why Jill started to hand out the reading assignment for the rest of the weeks. 

   We started with the last article in the handout, one written by Susan Sontag. We only read one page together, and that took us more than forty minutes, and still haven't completely understood what she's talking about. 

   The words she uses in the article is so hard, I'm pretty sure if there's a vocal quiz in the beginning of the next essay class, it can last for like two hours. And her humor is so hard to catch; we didn't find anything special or funny until Jill pointed out that the writer was actually joking around.

   I need to go online to see who on the earth Susan Sontag is.

   Worst of all, we have to write a two-page response paper about a piece of art that we think is beautiful, using one of the definitions on beauty in Sontag's article to support our claims. Given the fact that I have a three-page paper to write for Law and Psychology, and that the mid-term exam for Law and Psychology is on next Monday, I will be pretty screwed this weekend. 

   Jenny has to stop laughing at me and the course I'm taking. And I need to advise KD not to take the course: he told me yesterday that since all of his courses were on Mondays and Wednesdays, he talked  to the dean that he wanted to get into my essay class which was on Tuesdays and Thursdays, simply because he heard that it was really easy (which was pretty sure before today's class). 

   It's such a challenge---

   And I'm going to lunch.