Verbing along
Friday, 18 February, 2005
Don't feel well today—hit me right in the middle of Greek and I assure you it had nothing to do with participles (though they do look like awful things). Struggled through morning tea (someone urged me to drink a silver tea to settle my stomach but I don't think it helped). Thought I would be fine during the CMS presentation but my body rebelled so I left quietly and lay down on the grass in the courtyard, feeling sort of weird about it because Moore might think I'm some sort of hobo taking advantage of their greenery. However, there isn't really anywhere one can lie down—not that I can think of anyway. Mind you, I have yet to explore MAC.
At least I didn't have to miss the New Testament World lecture this morning which was given by Dr. John Hoskin. It was on daily life in Jesus' time and he got us to try to picture what sort of house Jesus lived in, how many people lived in Nazareth, what sort of things they ate (or how they ate), where they slept, what they did all day, etc. He had lots and lots of slides taken from various sites around Galilee from when he was there and a little collection of pottery bits from the digs he'd been on. (I love it when lecturers use visual aids!) Most households congregated around these little courtyards which had a shared well (if possible). They used to draw the water and store it in clay amphoras. The amphoras aren't flat-bottomed—they're pointy so you can dig a hole in your dirt floor and plant it in there and you don't have to worry about it falling over. There was only one main meal a day and that was lunchtime (you didn't have dinner because it would be too dark to cook). The food was cooked in a pot in the courtyard and everyone would gather around to eat it from the same vessel (you didn't get your own plate—less washing up). And I could go on but I won't ...
This is now the second or third week we've had broadband and the lack of a wireless card and a router means that my computer still cannot get the internet. So I'm using Ben's (and every now and then he hovers close by hoping I'll take the hint and stop). All my recent mail is still sitting on the server, patiently waiting until the day when I can set it free from its prison and download it. I haven't been writing to anyone who hasn't sent me something because I simply don't have their email address on me and coordination between a laptop and a desktop is beyond my energy reserves. I cannot blog the photos of the fuscia journal cover I made (and the second one I made for Ben in navy blue that still needs a button and a loop to clasp it shut) but don't feel like you're missing out on anything major.
Paul Williamson gave the devotion on Thursday with his gorgeous Irish accent. He got us to compare what it was like starting college to what it was like for Daniel starting study in the Babylonian empire. I really appreciate the way college continually reminds me of what's important (not marks, not academic success, etc.) I was telling this to someone in the afternoon and she said that it's not so much exams that are competitive but essays. I need to come up with a strategy to deal with it—maybe the one I used in the HSC (when I got my TER, I hid it in a drawer in my desk before anyone could look at it. I didn't even look at it because I felt that, to do so, was buying into the whole competitive system—I didn't want to be ranked and I didn't want others to form value judgements about me based on that one number which apparently represented everything I'd done for the past year or so. My mother threw a mini tantrum, complaining about the fact that she was the only mother in the whole of NSW who didn't know her daughter's TER but I wouldn't budge. Unfortunately the whole thing was spoilt the following day when the Sydney Morning Herald published the results and my mother triumphantly confronted me in the morning with my score, having gone through every name in the paper to find it. Then it was all over and it wasn't worth hiding it anymore and it made me feel a little depressed, especially since other girls at school, upon learning what I got, said to each other, “She only got that?” I did love going to St. George but they should really do something about that sort of mentality).
Perhaps if I refuse to tell people my marks they'll go away and leave me alone ...? I'm thinking about my own tendencies to be competitive here rather than theirs—I don't want to buy into that way of thinking.
In Greek we did the aorist active indicative which isn't really that hard once you've done the imperfect active indicative apart from the mutes and the vowel contractions. Bill still felt he was starting to lose the class, however. We were relieved to find that we only had two hours of Greek instead of three—the other two were filled with a session about the Moore college library (quite fascinating—almost made me want to become a librarian) and a lecture from Brian Rosner on the ancient writings (Pseudigrapha, Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Septuagint, etc.) and how they are helpful when it comes to reading the New Testament, eg. letter-writing conventions of the day and how Paul uses them (or doesn't use them in the case of Galatians) in his own way. I must remember to get Brian Rosner to sign my copy of Beyond Greed sometime; if I had been more forward-thinking, I would have brought it along.
Lunch was delicious fish and chips, then Ben and I drove to Marrickville so that Ben could spend trainer time with Cameron. Lara and I did work on the diniong table before she had to go collect the kids from school. I sort of miss kids from Sunday school but I also feel I don't really know how to talk to them. Then Ben and I took the back way home (which Ben insisted took longer) and I spent the evening making vocabulary cards out of foolscape manila folders cut to 5 cm x 5 cm and watching Law and Order: SVU.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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