Otter's Rock

We watched a movie, today, in IS I (the class that's supposed to be about practical issues in congregations). The movie was about a Menonite community in 1939-1941, and a dispute within the community and with the bishop that led to the pastor leaving the Menonites altogether. We'll be discussing what we got out of it next week. "So," Seth said, as we walked back to the dorm, "if you have a dispute with your bishop, just leave the Church? Is that what we're supposed to get out of it?"

"Well," I replied, "Lutherans do like schisms. And, you know, he did say he wasn't going to stop preaching, just that he was looking for somewhere else to do it. That implies mergers in the future. We like mergers almost as much."

Somehow, I doubt that's what the discussion will be on.

( I'm still getting settled into classes )

I just signed up for sg_rarepairings ficathon. Deadline to sign up is September 17th, if you're interested in participating.

Seminary is going fine so far, but I am glad I took Greek in college and not here. In college it was a) slower (they cram what we did in two years into one school year at seminary) and b) better organized. Byron, our prof at Luther, wrote his own textbook because he didn't like the way most textbooks were written arranged. Flipping through the text used here at Gettysburg, and having sat in on a couple of classes so far, I'd have to agree with him. And I got an e-mail from the professor here after class today, asking me not to speak up when I know the answer, because he wants the people who haven't been through this already to work through it. It makes sense, but it will be frustrating, being the shy, retiring person I am. Not.

Hebrew: the alphabet is a killer. It looks nothing like any European alphabet, which makes it harder to memorize than the Greek alphabet. But I've been told that's the hardest part, and it's fairly straightforward once you've got that down. One can only hope. I'm remembering the Masoretes in my prayers tonight; they're the 5th Century CE group of Jews who managed to figure out how one could indicate what vowel when with what syllable without altering the text itself (which you couldn't do for obvious reasons). It's hard enough to figure out with the vowels, as a beginning student of the language. Without them? Eep!

Quote of the Day: He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.
-George Savile, Marquess de Halifax

I need someone to beta a fic for me. I have no clue whether or not I'm getting the effect I'm trying for. It's a pre-season Teal'c fic, and it needs to get betaed and posted soon, since it's for a ficathon and I'm the back-up of a back-up writer.

Poem of the Day:

The Unknown Citizen

(To JS/07/m/378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community:
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

-W. H. Auden (1940)

It's funny, we analyzed this poem in one of my lit classes in college, and there were several radically different interpretations, each well-thought-out with justifications. What do you think about it?

Update on the Greek: I'm past the forms part, thank God, and into the actual translation. It's going much better now.

Yes, I know, that's a terrible pun that anyone who has ever taken Greek has heard a bazillion different times, but right now I just want to tear my hair out.

Greek (at least ancient Greek, I don't know anything about what they speak today) is a very complex language. So complex, to give you an example, that it has 24 forms of the word "the." I am not kidding or exaggerating in the slightest. It's required for all Lutheran seminary students to be able to read it with at least borderline competency, and they advise you to take it in college if you go to a school that offers it, to get it out of the way. Which I did. Two years of Greek, taught by Byron Stayskal who was just about the coolest prof I had in college, and very good at teaching a complex language in a fun and easy-to-remember way. And I was good at it. Really, I was. Languages come easier to me than most people, and I'm fairly finicky with grammar details in English, so I had a head start. I've been out of college for a year and a half now.

So I have a placement test from the seminary to do, to prove that I don't need to take Greek at seminary, and can take Hebrew instead (one is required to take a biblical language in Lutheran seminaries; if one knows Greek already, one takes Hebrew, a much easier language to learn, by all accounts). Why am I so adamant that I want to take Hebrew instead of Greek? Besides the fact that I already took Greek, it's because I'd rather audit the Greek class to brush up and have the easier Hebrew be the one I'm taking for a grade

It's a nightmare. I'm pretty sure this is all stuff that I know, but a) it's been a while and b) different professors focus on different things, and c) different professors use different terminology for some things. I'm not talking about major grammatical terms when I say different terminology, I'm talking about little finicky things--the kind of stuff that (normally) it's far more important that the student remembers what that itty bitty thing does, and not the precisely, properly correct term to describe it. Unfortunately, the little itty bitty finicky things convey, like, 2/3 of the meaning in a language like Greek.

So when one combines a, b, and c, I'm tearing my hair out because it's all familiar but I don't know exactly what the answer is supposed to be, or even (sometimes), what answer he's looking for. Needless to say, I'm tearing my hair out here.