New Semester Overview

Well, last week (the week of August 22) marked the beginning of the school semester for Lindenwood. This semester, I'm taking some interesting courses, which I thought I'd put some initial thoughts about here.

• Victorian Lit — Probably of the classes I signed up for, this was the one I was least looking forward to. That doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to it at all, but this period just doesn't usually get me that excited. I'm a classical kinda guy.
• Modern Drama — Contrary to what my pastor though, who got all excited, this is not a course wherein I will be trying my hand at acting. It is actually simply a lit class on modern dramatical works. To provide perspective, I guess in case some in the class weren't familiar with classical drama, we took an immediate detour to Oedipus Rex (I like Oedipus, although I was disappointed we didn't do something from Aeschylus instead of Sophocles).
• Economics and the Environment — This course does absolutely nothing for me, so I'm doing it as my sixth class (for a total of 18 credit hours). I'm taking the class because the professor is a friend, he invited me to take it and I find economics thoroughly interesting. We're going to be looking at how to apply economic principles to regulation of the environment, a really important topic. This also reaches into topical areas such as oil prices. As the class is small (11 students) and mostly by invitation, it is going to be a seminar style setting.
• Old Testament — This course applies the historical/critical method to the Old Testament. So far, application of the Wellhausen (JEDP) Documentary Hypothesis has raised the ire of Christian Ministries Studies students taking the class, but that — admittedly — makes the class even more interesting, since debates always help tease out details. We'll be reading most, but not all the Old Testament in the process.
• New Testament Greek II — This course is interesting because I am the only student in it. The rest of the students from Greek I decided not to pursue the work any further. Because of this, we are not meeting at LU; instead we are meeting at my instructor's old place of work, Covenant Theological Seminary. CTS has kindly granted the use of one of their rooms, since my instructor is an alum as well as a former employee.
• Modern Moral Theory — This course is an independent study I added so that I could take the econ class without falling behind schedule. The professor designed the syllabus for my interests. We're going to look at utilitarian, Kantian, Aristotelean/Thomist and Protestant ethical theories. So far, I'm digging into the ever controversial utilitarian Peter Singer, of Princeton University; if you have not actually read his work, you ought to. I don't agree with it, but behind his inflaming opinions, he is essentially only applying the logical conclusions of a secularist world view.

At the urging of a friend, I almost opted to try Chinese, but as interesting as it sounded, I decided “for fun,” economics was a better choice.

This Makes Me Hungry

Josiah locates an open letter to the Kansas School Board concerning Intelligent Design. I'll admit it is somewhat creative, even though it misses the primary point that I think a lot of ID'ers would like to express. Personally, I don't have a big interest in seeing Intelligent Design taught in schools. What I would like to see is an acknowledgment in education that abiogenesis is not mathematically probable. Students could then decide what to make of that revelation.

As a side note: how many of you support having ID taught in schools? How many of you realize that ID does not attempt to disprove evolution, but is rather a theistic interpretation of macroevolution? Well, my readers are smart, I'm sure you knew that; but I'm always surprised how many people fail to understand the difference between creationism (7 day creation) and intelligent design (which does not disagree with Darwin so much as provides an “experiencing-as” interpretation of Darwinian beliefs).

Requesting the teaching of ID need not be a sectarian action at all: the main point is to go back to Aristotle. It seems illogical to suggest there is no cause to the effect that we see. There must be an unmoved mover and most people find it most reasonable to refer to an unmoved mover as God. My friend Thomas provides some expanded views on this idea. (Yes, I realize that philosophically I am mixing teleological and cosmological arguments, but beyond the academic distinction, they really fit together, in my estimation.)

Byte Wasting Project

I've been working on a small project over the summer moths: creating a tragedy (as in a play, not trying to cause something bad to happen). Whether it will fulfill the Shakespearian-Jonsonian-Senecan five act mold is still up in the air, but it does follow Aristotle's guidelines for tragedy fairly closely. I don't expect that Aristotle will put my play in place of Oedipus Rex in the next edition of Poetics, but at least it wouldn't risk becoming an example of a non-unified, episodic plot lacking catharsis, hopefully.

I have not decided what to do with the play yet, perhaps it'll just rot in my bit bucket, but in the mean time, I thought I'd see if anyone would be interested in taking a look at a draft of it. There are much better things you can do with your time, but if you're a glutton for punishment, let me know. Depending on how Melpomene assists, it may be done later this week, or it may be a few more weeks before I get it to you.

Dead Tired

Well, I think I just spent more time reading Genesis in one sitting than I ever have before. For this semester's Old Testament class, I had to read the vast majority of the book by Tuesday. I decided to get it done tonight, and plowed all the way from “In the beginning” to “and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.” My professor, mercifully, skipped some of the side plots, but kept the vast majority of the text. I then read the corresponding chapter in the textbook that overviews what I had just read with scholarly commentary as well.

He admits that there is too much reading in this class (which is only REL 210, but has a far more in-depth reading schedule than the normal 300 level REL class), but that he cannot figure out what to possibly leave out (it looks like Numbers gets pared down substantially, thankfully — I wouldn't want to reread it in its entirety for a second time in a year ).

I am exhausted.

Photo Album

Well, I planned to post this the next day after my last post, but I've added some new pictures to my photo album. You'll find some pictures from my spring trip to the Ozarks, as well as some summery stuff in a new album. I had planned to put my PQ results for July finally up, using the gallery to post it, but when I downloaded my pictures from my camera, I could not find the ones I'd taken for the Photo Quest. Hrmf!

Monday hailed the beginning of the fall semester of classes, so I'll probably be a bit quiet, but I was a bit quiet before, so I guess nothing will seem all that different.

Still Here

It occurs to me that the last week was probably the biggest gap in my blog that has existed in over a year. I'll be back to full speed soon. I have something new to post about tomorrow.

Thanks again to all of you for your prayers and support with regard to my grandmother's passing.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

My grandmother died tonight after a horrible battle with Alzheimers that was clearly ongoing for at least seven years. It is truly a most cruel of diseases, but one thing it cannot be accused of is using the element of surprise against its victims. Still I feel a bit of “cognitive dissonence” about this — it is hard to sync the reality with my intellectual knowledge that this was imminent.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

Oh Well.

I don't think I am going to get last month's Photo Quest done, so I might as well resign myself to that fact. If I get time, great, but otherwise, I'll post it when I post this month's. I had a block of time to work on my computer today, but I spent it all getting my old files onto the new computer, rather than actually getting anything like a PQ done.

The Importance of Saying the Right Thing

Found in my old e-mail from 2001. Unfortunately, I do not know where it came from any longer.

Three women are about to be executed. One's a brunette, one's a redhead,
and one's a blonde. The guard brings the brunette forward and the
executioner asks if she has any last requests. She says no and the
executioner shouts,

“Ready!…Aim!! …” Suddenly the brunette yells, “EARTHQUAKE!!!”

Everyone is startled and looks around. She escapes. The guard brings the
redhead forward and the executioner asks if she has any last requests. She
say no and the executioner shouts,

“Ready! … Aim!!…” Suddenly the redhead yells, “TORNADO!!!”

Everyone is startled and looks around. She escapes. By now the blonde has
it all figured out. The guard brings her forward and the executioner asks if
she has any last requests. She says no and the executioner shouts, “Ready!
… Aim!! …” …and the blonde yells, “FIRE!!!”

I Did It eBay!

I'm borrowing Michael's Friday Three questions from yesterday.

1. Have you ever bought anything on Ebay?
Yes, a number of things. Most memorably, my first modern Macintosh, an iMac G3/400 (Ruby), which got me started on my journey to becoming a Mac addict, a port replicator for my old Dell Inspiron 5000e and the hard to find Sixpence None the Richer Kiss Me single (with “Sad But True”) that completed my Sixpence collection.

2. Would you buy anything on Ebay?
Apparently, yes.

3. Have you ever sold anything on Ebay?
Well, personally, I haven't, but my account is selling stuff right now. My mother wanted to try to sell some purses without signing up for an account, so I listed 'em the other day. So far, we're still looking for bidders.