between the rock and the cold, cold sea

And it was Greek.

When term began, I'd never have imagined that my favourite class this year would be biblical (koine) Greek. I mean, it doesn't have the most alluring air, does it? Learn to read the New Testament and assorted Hellenistic/Roman period papyrii in their original language.

But it's turned out to be - largely because of the lecturer, who I can't praise enough - so incredibly fun. Worth getting up for, and sometimes makes my day.

Good thing too, since I have four Greek classes during the week, and two of them take place at 0900 hours.

---

Tonight, I get a social life. Yes, I am a odd creature, who finds open mic poetry night the highlight of her quarterly social calendar.

And! I have my copy of A Companion to Wolves! At last!

1. Criminal Minds DVDs! Again! Still! Forever!

...Ahem. Moving on.

2. Stew. How a plate of potatoes and beef and carrots can be so satisfying and tasty and comforting all at once, I don't know. But it does.

3. Spartan Women by Sarah B. Pomeroy. Lucid academic discussion! Clear and readable prose! Footnotes!

4. Bank Holidays. A wonder of the modern world.

5. Did I mention the Criminal Minds DVDs?

And I have a small amount of Green and Blacks' dark chocolate, and I don't have to get up till a civilised hour tomorrow, and the clocks go back tonight. Midnight happens twice, and I get an extra hour's sleep.

Good days.

1. Lemon cheesecake.

2. Criminal Minds DVDs. (Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! Ahem.)

3. A working mic. (Finally, after long months of bemusement, I figured out what turns the mic attachment on. This makes me feel a certain kind of stupidly clever.) Not that I have a use for one, presently, but it's the kind of thing it's nice to know you have.

4. The first line of a short story. I think it springboarded off a couple of poems I wrote, oh, long time ago. And has at last had enough fermenting time to send up some froth.

5. Music by Matthew Good.

---

Today was a Day Off. God, I love catching up my sleep. (It makes me feel like a human being again, not a shuffling whingeing zombie.) And my dusting. And making enough space on my bookshelves to cram more books in. And exercise.

And pavement slick with fallen leaves and the aftermath of rain, and the smell of damp salt air and woodsmoke.

Today was a good day.

How about yours?

So, you know, we're at the work portion of this year's entertainment.

'The Book of Jeremiah and the rights and wrongs of alliance with Egypt: discuss.'

I need to be able to talk for five minutes on that topic this Wednesday, and you know? I don't know nearly enough. Hopefully I will be able to find The Recommended Book in the library tomorrow, and learn a little more.

But. Talking about a biblical text is so incredibly complex. Particularly the pre-exilic prophetic texts. Because you have, maybe, what the prophet said, and then you have what other people said that the prophet said, and then you have the exilic (Deuteronomistic) and later editors coming in to the text and adding what they think the prophet should have said.

And then we get into original intent, and redactionism, and other things.

( Read more... )

Whew. I started with bitching, and ended with a draft. It's weird how there things work out, no?

Today joins yesterday on the 'downtime' list.

Surprise surprise, turns out I do better with some.

So yesterday I finished reading some books.

Books 151-154, Fiction 143-146

143, 144, 145. Julie E. Czerneda, Survival, Migration, and Regeneration.

SF, all part of the Species Imperative trilogy. Fairly juicy and thought-provoking, if rough and draggy in parts. The aliens were really alien, and the characters were for the most part fairly compelling, but. But. I did not love these books.

It's getting harder and harder for me to love books, actually. They need to have that extra je ne sais quoi these days, a certain amount of grace and flair and clarity, before they capture my heart.

146. Mike Shepherd, Kris Longknife: Deserter.

This book? Is mediocre space opera at best. Not self-aware, and not graceful, and the main character is about this much away from being Mary Sue. But fun, fast-paced, plenty of explosions. I should get some more of the same, because they'd be perfect train reading.

#

This afternoon, I went to the cinema. Neil Gaiman's Stardust is, for a wonder, showing at the local. At it is... wow. Beautiful, heart-breaking, triumphal, bitter-sweet. Well-paced and well-acted. In short, damn near everything I could hope for from a film.

Today was a good day. And shortly there will be lamb and cheesecake (not together!), so even better.

Every so often I get an evening where I feel despair: when it seems as though I only have to get on top of one aspect of my life for another to crumble out from beneath me.

Of course, this is because I'm a perfectionist, and take on too much and still expect everything to be done and done well.

Memo: Perfect is not the minimum. Passable is the minimum. Good is a happy medium.

Excellence is something that can only be aspired to by live people.

So I read last night, instead of sleeping. Recipe for hangover without the alcohol. Fun, fun, fun!

Next time, I will be sure to have the paracetamol on hand, For the help with the relaxing enough to be sleeping thing.

Well, so.

There was study. Much of it, and much interesting. I like Near Eastern history of c900-c300 BCE (our course is with specific reference to Judah and Israel, and their relationship to the great empires - the NeoAssyrians, the NeoBabylonians, Egypt and the Persian Achaemenids). It has much that is fascinating.

And Greek. Both the language (koine Greek), and the history and archaeology of Greece from the Bronze Age on down to (and through) Classical times has much to recommend it. Settlement patterns, development of social differentiation and stratification, possible cult and ritual significance of buildings, material culture, oh, I love it so.

Wouldn't want to live there, as they say, but it's an interesting place to study.

Much joy, however, arises from the fact that my Prophecy lecturer will not be present for his lectures this week. Which means I may actually get to have lunch at lunchtime sometime this week.

(I am appallingly sleepy, and will probably think better of having posted this in the morning.)

I have my booklists for all my courses now - well, for the first half of all of them, anyway - and so I hied me to Amazon.

I know, I know. Most people don't find titles like The Aegean Bronze Age as alluring as all hell. But my courses this year? Are all so freaking interesting.

I'm doomed to be an academic. Or worse, a failed academic.

And you know, if I keep doing this collecting thing, I'm going to need bigger bookshelves.

#

Project: get fit! took a back seat to Project: don't die so far this week. If I'd ever thought wrangling a society would be easy, I have since been extremely disabused.

#

Writing: 500 words on Monday, none since. If I can get 1.6K before Monday, I'll be back on track.

Preparation. Persistence. Perseverance. Patience.

#

Books 148-149, Fiction 141-142:

141. Jack McDevitt, A Talent for War.

Archaeology in space!

Well, sort of. Historical investigation, conspiracy, peril. McDevitt writes compelling characters and great story, and while he may occasionally go heavily into finicky detail, it makes the geek in me go oooo. Great book.

142. Linnea Sinclair, Finders Keepers.

Where A Talent for War is a fully-realised future history in a recognisably hard-SF context, Finders Keepers is... Perhaps the word I'm looking for is 'Star Wars-esque'? I like Star Wars (apart from the films we speak Not Of), so that's not a complaint. It's a pleasant space-western-fantasy-romance. Light. Not too taxing of brain. In short, exactly what I wanted to read, when I wanted to read it.

#

I'm an accidental money-launderer: I found a tenner in the pocket of my jeans that'd been through the wash. It's really clean money now.

#

It's a bad thing, being right beside a bookshop with a great selection. I took a trip down to the bargain basement, meaning to come out with a Collected Marlowe and the Odyssey.

Somehow, on my way to the tills, Thus Spake Zarathustra, The Twilight of the Idols, and an Everyman's Library edition of Twain (Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn) found their way into my grasp. As well as a history of the Orange revolution in 1688.

Of course, after this week such extravagances will be No More, but sometimes I wonder about myself, really.

#

( And now, whining and navel-gazing )

Including commuting? It looks like I will be running sixteen [16] hour days for most of the week this semester. And since I'm working weekends, well...

I doubt I will be much in evidence in this space in the close and middle future.

(I can no brain this evening. Pls excuse.)

Performing triage on my bookshelves. Out go thrillers I will never (ever) read again; in goes room for the college book collection that is expanding more rapidly than I ever could have imagined.

I'm donating all the Never Agains to my old secondary school. But I'm beginning to feel a bit dubious. Should I really send them some Karin Slaughter and Janet Evanovich (don't ask)? What about Jeanne C. Stein's The Becoming? Does a Catholic girls' school library and vampire!sex really mix?

Reading broadens the mind. Much like travel, but less expensive. So on the whole I incline to yes. My only regret is that the only YAs I still own are immensely re-readable, so I won't be parting with any actually 'age-appropriate' reading.

(You know how appallingly under-stocked that library was when I was there? The encyclopedias were many decades old, I don't remember ever seeing any non-fic younger than twenty years old, and the fiction was... Well. Limited is the word that comes to mind. And it only opened every other lunchtime. These things combined to make it of excessively limited utility. I feel goddamn obligated to attempt to rectify that, to the utmost of my limited power.)

So. Here's a question. (Answers solicited.) Or even a meme, if you like.

1. What one [1] novel do you think ought to be part of every school library (ages 12-18)? Pick three, if you can't narrow it down any farther.

2. What one [1] novel were you most startled to find in your school library?

3. What one [1] novel (if any) do you think should never form part of a curriculum/school library?

( Read more... )