Hello and welcome to the course blog for Geog 111 at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, Spring Semester 2008. (Wow, that was a mouthful.) My name is Ian Muehlenhaus (pronounced: mule' en asjdfldsdjfkljsdfsadf). You can call me Alex for short. I am the visiting instructor this semester. For your safety and convenience, you can conduct a background check on me here.
Though there will likely be an accompanying website, this blog is where I will post the most immediate updates to the course schedule, as well as post PDF readings for you to peruse. If any of you out there have a Gmail account, you can use this site to leave comments and start dialogs too.
I really look forward to showing you how absolutely stellar geography is, and how all of the other social sciences, though important, pale in comparison to the spatial science! (Note: I am admittedly biased, because I am hedging my future income on this discipline over political science, so take anything I say regarding other sciences with a grain of salt, please.)
To pique your interest, I will start the class by making you a promise. If 80% of you (i.e., the students that don't drop the class after the third week) aren't hooked on human geography like Britney Spears on booze'n'drugs by the time the course finishes in May, I will buy her newest album and live in ridicule the rest of my life. I promise. Now that you know I'm vested in this course being a success, let's roll...
