Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yeah, know what you mean about some "hard shizzle". sweatdrop I'm in my senior year of high school and I have four AP classes. Not to mention I have an application for the National Merit Scholarship to fill out right now... gonk

Arrg, school's got me swamped. Mostly because I attempt to have a life on the weekends.

I've got AP English and Physics, Theater, Video Tech, Art, and I'm taking Calculus at the community college. I might do an online Latin 3 course, to try to get that 3 years of foreign language. So far my school's crapped on any attempts of mine to do so.

See Myslec's post.

Actually, we have the exact same classes, with the same teachers, at the same time. We are literally side by side all day, except in Spanish where the teacher decided to put us on opposite sides of the room.

Ah, I'm taking French, History, Music, ICT and something else... It'll come to me... Art! I'm not to keen on most things at the moment, apart from history, which is just great.

Next year I'll hopefully be doing Philosophy, Music, Ancient History and Archaeology. I can't wait!

Well, Fenris is out of high school now. I think many of his problems right now come from the financial difficulty of paying for a college education.
Defunct should also be out of high school, but he hasn't logged on to gaia since February, so I don't know his status.
Deviant is doing website design and related stuff, and not currently enrolled in a college, as far a I know.

Those are the only ones that I know, besides yourself, that are of college age.

My personal answer to your second question: If my school offered it and I had enough time in a day, I would most defiantly take a political science class. Economics is offered, but again I site the issue of time.

The general answer to your second question: The people of Novos came together out of a general interest in improving the world. Not everyone had a liking for economics or politics, but they wanted to do what they could. (For example, fish bait's job in the Novos Comic was to get everyone else coffee.)
We have recognized for some time, that we needed more people with intelligence, and interest in broader areas of knowledge. Since the disappearance of Defunct Adjectives, the leaving of Ladyfriend, and the continuing absences of Fenris Claiborne and Deviant, this has been especially true.

If you see someone that you would like to invite, then please go ahead and do so, or send his/her name to me and I can sent out an official invitation.

I hope you had a good day at class, as I'm apparently too late to wish you one.

Ooh, dynamics. Heard that was hell. (probably why it's called Death Mechanics) Well, you seem quite talented in math, I'm sure you'll be able to handle it.

Your earlier government and economics class does sound fun. It is very important to figure out how America works, and you should take American Government. But don't be intimidated by community college classes. After all, if you're intimidated by those, imagine what real college is like. But CC really isn't much harder than high school, but the style is a lot more like college. I suggest to all college-bound students, "Take CC classes." Plus, your only chance of taking a real political science course or a course in comparative government is in CC. Same with a good comparative economics course. The CC is a great way to expand on the tiny bit they give you in high school...political science, economics, sociology, different types of hard and social sciences, more advanced literature...is the best you can get until you go to college.

Dynamics is hell 'cos it's (for most people) your first introduction to real, theoretical physics. Granted, it's still grounded in physical phenomena, but it's from such a different angle that most people get confused. For instance, in Newtonian physics, you learn that:
1) A body at rest tends to stay at rest
2) F=ma
3) All contact forces are equal and opposite.

In Lagrangian mechanics (dynamics), you learn:
1) Non-relativistic space and time are homogeneous and isotropic (both space and time obey Galileian transformations).
2) For adequately closed systems, you can define the Lagrangian L=L(q_1,...,q_N; t) where q_i are the generalised coordinates in N degrees of mechanical freedom, and the Lagrangian shares all group, ring, and field properties (with respect to the conservative field) of the surrounding space (i.e. all possible translations are time-independent and homeomorphic).
3) The path that the system of particles will take (in phase space) minimizes the action S=(integral from start-time to end-time) L(q,dq/dt; t) dt.

Both axiomatic approaches are semi-equivalent; you can derive all of Newton's laws from Lagrangian axioms. The difference is, Lagrangian axioms describe a LOT more about the nature of physical systems, and allows you to work with a lot more constructs. For instance, you can work special relativity with Newtonian mechanics, but not general relativity; you can't really do quantum mech at all without Lagrangian dynamics.

Sorry...like I said, I'm really excited about this course.