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.

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.

Another One Bites the Dust

Yesterday, I had my last final of the semester. I think all of my finals, save one, went quite well, and the one that didn't go quite as well shouldn't be too much a of a problem, because I had built up plenty of cushion from other things I had turned in during the semester.

The final I was really worried about, (Koine) Greek I, turned out great — I managed to get 95.5 on the final, giving me a margin of 3.5 above the threshold for an “A” (a 92 in that class). Now the main task will be holding on to what I've learned until the fall, when I will be taking Greek II. I've already let my Greek abilities lapse once, I do not intend to do so again. I'm not sure I'll follow through, but the adjunct instructor for the course suggested that we should try learning Latin vocabulary over the summer, since the basic structure of Latin is similar in many ways to Greek; I may just do that (as if I don't have enough to do!).

The end of the semester is always a mixed event for me. I'm glad it is over so that I don't have to be rushing around trying to balance everything anymore; for the next three months, I only have to worry about my business (other than any hobbies I might want to pick back up). I'm also glad it is over in that I dislike the last few weeks of a school year, it just seems to melancholy as things wrap up. On the other hand, there are a few people I really hated saying goodbye to for the summer — particularly one professor, my religion professor whom I've mentioned before, and one fellow student I spent a lot of time talking to over the academic year. I've never been good at goodbyes. I remind myself of an old Garrison Keillor skit from the Prairie Home Companion; I was going to try to explain it, but I don't think I can do it adequately. I should see if I can find it on his web site.

I'll post my semi-annual look back at my predictions for the classes sometime soon.

Project of the Day

I'm working on a paper refuting Heather Meacock's An Anthropological Approach To Theology: A Study of John Hick's Theology of Religious Pluralism, towards ethical criteria for a Global Theology of Religions (yes, that really is the title). Meacock doesn't say anything terribly useful beyond what John Hick himself has said already, so I could basically say I'm simply refuting Hickian Religious Pluralism.

At any rate, I'm trying to demonstrate how Hickian Religious Pluralism defeats itself through its own arguments. If all goes well, I'll have the paper finished up in the next few days, after which it may appear here as a multi-part series, for anyone interested. The paper defends Exclusivism and Inclusivism (arguing for a particular one of those two camps is beyond its scope) and shows why those two schools of thought are inherently more stable than Pluralism, despite Hick's claim of the opposite.

I'm having fun! I've been reading bits of this book for a month or two now, and today was the first day I actually put any response down on paper (well, on the magnetic platter of my hard disk, actually). So far, I have about eight double spaced pages of analysis; it will likely enlarge to ten to twelve by the time I finish.

Back To Busy-ness

Well, it itime to start running like a chicken with my head cut off again. For the last few weeks (six, actually), I've been enjoying conducting business at a leisurely rate. Yesterday, the spring semester started, which means the balancing act will begin again. Right on cue, I have web design requests and major computer system failures to fix, whereas two weeks ago I was investing all of my time in SAFARI because I did not have any work at all from clients. But you don't want to hear me whine about that, do you?

This semester is going to be interesting. I have four out of five classes on Tuesday/Thursday, with one class on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. This has the distinct advantage that I will have more flexibility on things such as when I can schedule computer repair house calls I do, but the disadvantage that Tuesdays and Thursdays are essentially booked. Four one hour and fifteen minute classes in a row isn't exactly my choice of plans, but it is just how things worked out. Next semester, I'll probably have mostly evening classes (even worse for the way I do things, but enough complaining).

At any rate, this semester I flip around. Last semester I had four literature courses and one religion course, all, of course, for the double major of English and Religion (link to my explanation of that combination, why I'm getting out of the computer industry, etc., for those of you new to asisaid and looking to kill some time). So I was mostly dabbling in the world of English. This semester I have three religion classes and two English classes, making my emphasis on the Religion major rather than English. Next semester, it'll probably be the other way again.

In case you are curious, here's what I'm taking:

Shakespeare - This is a class I've been really looking forward to. It's Shakespeare, Shakespeare and more Shakespeare. Tomorrow we'll do half of the sonnets that have been selected, then, over the next few weeks, do a half a dozen plays before returning to sonnets in the middle of the semester. We start out with Richard III, then do some of the other historical plays, going into March with my personal favorite — Hamlet. I can't recall the ordering for the second half, but we finish, appropriately, with the Tempest. Should be fun. The professor said with some irony and bewilderment that some who have taken the class have had a hard time identifying the author of a quote on the tests — I'm memorizing “all” the authors ahead of time just to be safe.

American Lit I — This is a class I probably should have taken concurrently with Brit Lit, but scheduling did not allow for it… it looks like it should be good, although I don't know what to expect. The professor was in a hurry since she couldn't find a proper parking space and didn't want her car towed. It covers 1500-1890.

New Testament Greek — I'm determined to master Koine Greek once and for all. Well, maybe not master it, but at least take my rusty knowledge of it and turn it (hopefully) into a productive skill. The professor is from Covenant Seminary in St. Louis and seemed quite knowledgeable. This course doesn't count toward anything I need, but I wanted to take it for the said reason of “de-rusting.” It's a small class that will likely have about five students once the standard amount of attrition takes place.

Religion in America — This will likely be my favorite course of the semester. It is from my aforementioned favorite Professor of all time, Dr. Alan Meyers. The class will start with the American Puritans and move all the way through the religious developments in the U.S. It is only offered every two years, so it had a lot of people sign up for it.

Religion and Culture (Anthropology) — This is a required course that I am dreading to an extent. It looks like a waste of time that includes watching nine or ten “films” (read: documentaries) during class periods. Given that there are only 32 sessions, that is, in my estimation, excessive. However, it is required, and so I'll take it. I just finished with it for the day, thus why I'm feeling a bit grumpy at the moment.

It looks like I need to write somewhere around 60-70 pages this semester, which is rather low. On the other hand, a lot of it is in small chunks, which is a bit less desirable, in my estimation, than a few bigger projects.

For anyone still with me after that list that I am sure was more information than you wanted to know, I'll provide a bit more below — an analysis of my early reactions from last semester and if they were accurate.

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Answering with Class

Well, Christopher beat me to the punch — I was planning to post about my schedule this fall, but he asked before I posted.

To answer the first question Christopher posed, I am taking the classes at Lindenwood. I doubt most of you have heard of it, but it is located in the middle of St. Charles, Missouri. It started its “life” as the first all girls college west of the Mississippi in the 1820's but went co-ed several decades ago and has expanded with multiple campuses, graduate programs and accelerated courses.

Now, about what I am taking this semester (in chronological order of the times I take them):

Brit Lit I: This class works its way from the middle ages to somewhere after the Renaissance. We've started out with some works of the Old English/Anglo-Saxon period. This includes poems such as the Reed, the Wanderer and the Wife's Lament. We also examined the finest case of Anglo-Saxon epic poetry, Beowulf (using the translation from Seamus Heaney). Next, we will be moving on to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I've never been able to get that excited about Chaucer, but I am hoping maybe this professor will be able to sell me on Jeffrey. This is one of two required classes of Brit Lit for the English major.

Philosophy of Religion: What could be better than spending a semester analytically studying the philosophy of Religion? I can't think of much. Anything that includes Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, and the like is bound to be interesting. Best of all, this class features the professor who gets my vote for the best professor around, bar none — Dr. Alan Meyers. This class fulfills one of the needed 300 level classes of the Religion major.

Modern Poetry: This class seems to have promise. We'll spend the semester studying the great poets of the twentieth century, with some detours into the great poets of the last few hundred years as well. It is lead by another excellent professor, Dr. George Hickenlooper.

World Lit II: This isn't exactly one of the courses I'd hand pick, but its required, so that's that. Unlike other World Lit II sections, this one is going to focus a lot on eastern cultures and — since the professor has a degree in religion and philosophy — also focus on the religious aspects of the works. The literature is suppose to be from the Renaissance and onward. Some of the western works included are Hamlet and one of my personal favorites, Voltaire's Candide.

Renaissance Literature of England: If the name doesn't explain what this course is about, I'm not sure what I can say that will. Like Brit Lit and World Lit II, it will have some Shakespeare along with other greats of the Renaissance period in Britain. The professor is Dr. Ann Canale, who is an English professor, but does a lot of courses on mythology and legends of different cultures.

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Classy Business

This was a busy, busy week. It takes a few weeks to arrange work so that I can accomplish it effectively while also taking a full-time load of classes (for those tuning into asisaid since last May: why am I taking classes?). Fortunately, my clients did not have too many problems this week, so that made everything a bit easier than it would have been otherwise.

The good is that the courses all look interesting. The bad news was that this week was one of the warmest of the summer and not all of the classrooms have a/c (chalk that up to nearly one hundred year old buildings). Going from an air conditioned room into one that is “enjoying” a 110 degree (F) heat index isn't much fun (that's 43 degrees celsius for my non-American friends). The actual temperature was hovering around 95 degrees for several days, but that was compounded by ninety something percent humidity each day. Yes, that's the weather Missouri is infamous for — and for good reason!

Today, I am sore. My uncle, who lived with my grandmother for most of his life has bought a condo now that my grandmother is in a nursing home, and I spent the day at the condo helping clean things up and with various other tasks needed to get the place ready for him to move in. He just closed on the place yesterday. It's a nice place — it was a display home when the complex was first built, so it has a lot of neat options that normally wouldn't be on a home in his price range.

Hopefully he can move in next weekend — I know he's looking forward to having “his own place.”

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The Other Thing that Is Keeping Me Busy

One thing I have never really addressed on asisaid is my desire to exit direct work in the computer industry. I love computers, I love writing about them, but I get really tired of repairing them, supporting them and programming them. You fix them, they break. You tell people how to keep them running smoothly, and they ignore you. As a hobby, it is enjoyable enough, but as a job, it just is not very meaningful and it starts to gnaw at you after awhile. Well, I should not generalize that much, but it does gnaw at me.

It also makes me whiney at times, like right now, and I don't like that. I tend to think that part of this is because I do not believe that computer help desk and consulting is really my purpose in life. I have tried to ignore that fact, but it hasn't worked. Finally, awhile back, I realized it was time to do something about this problem.

I have been working on an “exit strategy,” in other words. For a variety of reasons I felt it best not to mention this publicly at first. It was not anything against my blogging friends, just to be completely clear. More recently, I did not have time to put together a post to explain what I am up to, so I just omitted what perhaps I otherwise would have posted. I finally decided it was silly to leave part of what I am doing, and where I am heading, off of my blog.

So here it is. What's my exit strategy? I am presently working on earning a BA in two fields completely unrelated to the IT sector: English and the Academic Study of Religion. More than a few people have said, in more or less direct ways, that I am truly nutty for trying to get out of information technologies. But, after praying and thinking about it for several years, it has become clear this is what I need to do.

I am presently about half way through, which means I should complete the program by about this time in 2006, or six months later than that should I opt to add a minor in Business Administration (I already have half the appropriate credits I need for that). Either way, I am on the road to switching gears in a very serious fashion.

I feel rather badly about not mentioning such a major change of course sooner on here. I do not want those of you who read my blog regularly to think I am hiding a bunch of things from all of you. Truly, I'm not. Frankly, this concern made me somewhat hesitant about saying anything at all at this stage. “Maybe I should just keep on truck'n for now — I can always say something later… you've kept your thoughts to yourself this long.” But, it just seemed like I needed to quit that stalling nonsense finally.

There I have said it. I've now pretty much put the whole me out here. And, with that, I shall go to bed.

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