To the creep down the hall who screams at his dog all the day long:
I know you, man. I see you around. That dog is your only freaking friend. Now, knowing you as I do, I am not saying that your total lack of human friends is a shocker. I am saying that you should be thankful for that dog, because he is likely the only thing alive to put up with you, and possibly the only thing standing between you and dying alone, as you likely have thoroughly earned.
As for me, I hope he bites your cranky, failed-anger-management ass off. Believe me, you'll deserve it, and I will personally testify for self defense on the dog's behalf, you ungrateful bastard.
Sincerely,
Chick down the hall (with a face, too, not just knockers).
Who doesn't enjoy an Open Letter?
***
PS: Have I been spoofed?
*
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Some True Pearls
These are the best of the worst answers on the last quiz written in the second year course on the Bible I TA for, which is filled with about 90 18-year-olds who all major in business and trying to get laid:
The best part is: MY MARKING IS FINALLY DONE! The bad news is, of course, there's another test in two weeks.
Sigh.
*
Tanakh: The Jewish equivalent to the Bible. (Ummmm... excuse me?)
586bc: The year somebody took Jerusalem all the way to Babylon.
Clement of Rome: Wrote something important.
Gnosticism: Light is good. Dark bad.
Dioynius Exiguus: Wrote Christian calendar with Jesus' birth starting at 0 and ending at 30.
Paleography: Things always being found by Bedouins. (Assume student is getting the study confused with what the study studies, if that makes sense.)
70ce: The year all the zealots were revolting.
Mishnah: A Jewish holiday.
Talmud: An old Rabbi.
Vulgate: The opposite of Sacred. (That one is a thinker - take a moment.)
The Uncontested Letters of Paul: The Gospel of John
Nag Hamadi: Not the Dead Sea Scrolls, I think.
Clement of Rome: Jewish king at one time, but then pope, somehow.
Talmud: The Protestant Bible. (huh??)
Tanakh: The Jewish word for Hebrew.
Clement or Rome: Wrote letters while being executed.
70ce: The year the Jews were phased out by Christians. (hurumph!)
Marcion: The guy who said "knowledge is power." (Wasn't that School House Rock?)
Talmud: The Islamic Bible. (Whoah!)
Vulgate: The part of the Bible that the Christians kept.
The Uncontested Letters of Paul: Judges? (Question mark in answer.)
Talmud: The thing the Jews all live on.
Jamnia: Some place in the middle east.
Marcion: I think I missed that class.
Best Whine: "I don't think this test was fair at all, because I got here late and had no desks left, and had to write this on my lap."
The best part is: MY MARKING IS FINALLY DONE! The bad news is, of course, there's another test in two weeks.
Sigh.
*
Pizza Flyers Just Don't Cut It
Another day of nothing more than a love note from my local Little Caesars? Where has all the actual mail gone? Has Canada Post really out-priced themselves, or have I just dropped out of the mail loop? Something more than bills would be nice, but, really, anything would be great - notices from the school, returns on those Xmas cards I sent out last month. Anything to let me know my mail carrier doesn't just have it in for me and is dropping my fantabulous letters down the sewer grate.
Well, nothing again today. I will hit the bath and maybe take my walk, as I have a phone date with the hubby at 3.30pm. Then maybe I will just lay low for a couple days and let the mail pile up - maybe I'll have a better chance of avoiding disappointment if I only check once a week.
*
Well, nothing again today. I will hit the bath and maybe take my walk, as I have a phone date with the hubby at 3.30pm. Then maybe I will just lay low for a couple days and let the mail pile up - maybe I'll have a better chance of avoiding disappointment if I only check once a week.
*
January 30, 1972: Bloody Sunday
And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart
Sunday, bloody sunday
Sunday, bloody sunday
How long...
How long must we sing this song?
Sunday, bloody sunday
*
Monday, January 29, 2007
Marking Hurts Me
I have the worst pain I have ever had in my right eye right now, as 100 quizzes, written in the new undergrad serial-killer-like scrawl, is a pain in more than just the ass.
Most of this batch is just horrible. Not only do I find answers like, "Paul's writings include Gospel 1 and Gospel 2," and "The Vulgate is a biblical battle," but really dangerous sentiments like "70 ce - the year the Jews killed Jesus, because they knew he was the Messiah and hated Him for it" (which is not only terrifying, but also the wrong answer). Mel Gibson, you have so much explaining to do.
Beyond this, you get kids who put answers that might be right, but which are under completely the wrong number - "bishop of Rome" may be correct for Clement, but not for Lessing, the German philosopher. So, do I give them the benefit of the doubt, or what? The horrid pain in my eyes and head make me less inclined to be nice, but the key is to just finish and clear them off the docket before they kill me.
Marking. Hurts. Me.
*
Most of this batch is just horrible. Not only do I find answers like, "Paul's writings include Gospel 1 and Gospel 2," and "The Vulgate is a biblical battle," but really dangerous sentiments like "70 ce - the year the Jews killed Jesus, because they knew he was the Messiah and hated Him for it" (which is not only terrifying, but also the wrong answer). Mel Gibson, you have so much explaining to do.
Beyond this, you get kids who put answers that might be right, but which are under completely the wrong number - "bishop of Rome" may be correct for Clement, but not for Lessing, the German philosopher. So, do I give them the benefit of the doubt, or what? The horrid pain in my eyes and head make me less inclined to be nice, but the key is to just finish and clear them off the docket before they kill me.
Marking. Hurts. Me.
*
Sunday, January 28, 2007
I Loathe These People
While marking, I am in the mood to seek out distractions, and this was quite distracting. One of the worst things I have ever seen.
*
*
Life Lesson
Neither puppies nor people like to have their noses rubbed in their messes. The difference lies in the results of said nose rubbing. One may learn to hate the mess. The other learns to resent the rubber.
*
*
Help/less
If a friend in need is a friend indeed, I think I may be a failure.
How can you help someone if, as much as you want to be useful, you don't know what to do? Is there anything as frustrating or as depressing as watching from the sidelines while a friend drowns? My mind mulls and mulls, but I can't see the light on this one.
I want to tell the person how much I would like to help, but that seems so trite and useless, it is almost worse than just not helping and keeping silent.
The whole world has its problems, but I have to admit that those of the people dearest to me affect me the most. This is more than the depression that comes from not being able to give more than five bucks to a charity because you're broke - this is having your hands tied in the midst of a real-life (i.e. before your very eyes) problem, and there is nothing in this world that makes you feel as dickless, metaphorically speaking.
So, all you can offer are pearls such as "do what you gotta do" while pretending you aren't cringing at how stupid you sound, and try to be as "upbeat" as a 50s housewife in a plastic-fantastic beaming contest (even though her husband is a drunk, her son is a cross-dresser and she is really in love with her maid).
And everyone knows it is a sham, but it is all you have.
I bought an ashtray today, cause I couldn't resist it - "Zen and the Art of Smoking" is written across it. Perhaps that is what I shall do. I shall meditate on my problems with a curl of blue smoke, and contemplate the vast nothingness.
Or maybe I will just wear my heart on my sleeve and wish for everyone in pain, their comfort; everyone in need, their solution; everyone trapped, their freedom; and everyone in distress, their reward.
It may be a cliche, and I hate to sound like a five-bit horoscope, but things will get better.
Please believe that.
How can you help someone if, as much as you want to be useful, you don't know what to do? Is there anything as frustrating or as depressing as watching from the sidelines while a friend drowns? My mind mulls and mulls, but I can't see the light on this one.
I want to tell the person how much I would like to help, but that seems so trite and useless, it is almost worse than just not helping and keeping silent.
The whole world has its problems, but I have to admit that those of the people dearest to me affect me the most. This is more than the depression that comes from not being able to give more than five bucks to a charity because you're broke - this is having your hands tied in the midst of a real-life (i.e. before your very eyes) problem, and there is nothing in this world that makes you feel as dickless, metaphorically speaking.
So, all you can offer are pearls such as "do what you gotta do" while pretending you aren't cringing at how stupid you sound, and try to be as "upbeat" as a 50s housewife in a plastic-fantastic beaming contest (even though her husband is a drunk, her son is a cross-dresser and she is really in love with her maid).
And everyone knows it is a sham, but it is all you have.
I bought an ashtray today, cause I couldn't resist it - "Zen and the Art of Smoking" is written across it. Perhaps that is what I shall do. I shall meditate on my problems with a curl of blue smoke, and contemplate the vast nothingness.
Or maybe I will just wear my heart on my sleeve and wish for everyone in pain, their comfort; everyone in need, their solution; everyone trapped, their freedom; and everyone in distress, their reward.
It may be a cliche, and I hate to sound like a five-bit horoscope, but things will get better.
Please believe that.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
I'd Like to Thank the Academy...
Woke up today to a surprize invite to the Faculty of Arts awards banquet. It seems someone you all know and love is this year's recipient of the George P. Grant Memorial Award for the best paper in Religion and Culture written last year. It seems that it will come with money, but no one knows how much. In any case, it means a fancy certificate suitable for framing, an awards dinner, and a new line on my CV.
The big boon, however, is that it was voted on by the entire faculty of my department, so it means... I'm gonna say it...
They like me, they really like me!
***
And, yes, for those keeping score on Canadian political history, ME of all people winning the George P. Grant memorial anything is pretty damned funny.
*
The big boon, however, is that it was voted on by the entire faculty of my department, so it means... I'm gonna say it...
They like me, they really like me!
***
And, yes, for those keeping score on Canadian political history, ME of all people winning the George P. Grant memorial anything is pretty damned funny.
*
VR
When the only way you have to spend time with your hubby (other than short, stolen weeks at the end of long bus rides) is phone, email and IM chat, you adapt, I guess.
Like falling asleep on the couch near the comp, so you can keep the chatlines open (even if idle for a few hours of snooze) while he writes the night away. Just the knowledge that he could contact you easily and immediately if he wanted to, even if he is trying to let you sleep, is nice.
It sort of feels like being in the same room. Sorta - not exactly, but sorta.
*
Like falling asleep on the couch near the comp, so you can keep the chatlines open (even if idle for a few hours of snooze) while he writes the night away. Just the knowledge that he could contact you easily and immediately if he wanted to, even if he is trying to let you sleep, is nice.
It sort of feels like being in the same room. Sorta - not exactly, but sorta.
*
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Whole World is Blue
I think everyone I talked to today has been depressed or very nearly so. Harsh, fellas, harsh. It really killed all joy over my comp exam success.
So now I have post-victory blues. You know - the ones that come from thinking, "boy, when I pass that exam, the sky will open up and the angels will sing," but, in the end, actually finding yourself still stuck in your crummy apartment with no celebration at all.
You expected fireworks. You got cold pasta and a game of solitaire.
There's also the added depression of doing fairly well, gradewise, when you know, deep inside, that your exam was crap, or, at least, that you didn't prepare very well, even if the answers turned out ok from sheer dumb luck.
I am glad I didn't fail, but I am not keen on the feeling that I managed to pull the wool over my department's eyes, either.
Then again, maybe I really did deserve to pass, like they thought I did. Who knows?
In any case, I am glad this day is over. First batch of marking comes in on Thursday, but at least the trauma of Comp Exam I is finally, completely over, and I can go on with my life.
I think I'll just go to bed. Let's all hope for a brighter day tomorrow, shall we?
*
So now I have post-victory blues. You know - the ones that come from thinking, "boy, when I pass that exam, the sky will open up and the angels will sing," but, in the end, actually finding yourself still stuck in your crummy apartment with no celebration at all.
You expected fireworks. You got cold pasta and a game of solitaire.
There's also the added depression of doing fairly well, gradewise, when you know, deep inside, that your exam was crap, or, at least, that you didn't prepare very well, even if the answers turned out ok from sheer dumb luck.
I am glad I didn't fail, but I am not keen on the feeling that I managed to pull the wool over my department's eyes, either.
Then again, maybe I really did deserve to pass, like they thought I did. Who knows?
In any case, I am glad this day is over. First batch of marking comes in on Thursday, but at least the trauma of Comp Exam I is finally, completely over, and I can go on with my life.
I think I'll just go to bed. Let's all hope for a brighter day tomorrow, shall we?
*
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
GMail's Timing
OMG - I passed my comp exam!
This I know from the first line of email that is currently locked inside my inbox. Thankfully, gmail lets you see the start of the first sentence, because it would not let me open the email itself, and then when I tried again, it crashed.
"Congratulations, Holly, on passing the first comp exam..."
So, in sum, I don't know how I did, really, in terms of grade, just that I did pass, and I am peeing my pants thanks to that stinking email and its lousy timing.
So close, yet so far.
*
This I know from the first line of email that is currently locked inside my inbox. Thankfully, gmail lets you see the start of the first sentence, because it would not let me open the email itself, and then when I tried again, it crashed.
"Congratulations, Holly, on passing the first comp exam..."
So, in sum, I don't know how I did, really, in terms of grade, just that I did pass, and I am peeing my pants thanks to that stinking email and its lousy timing.
So close, yet so far.
*
Jan 24th
Today is the week-two "anniversary" of my marriage (or would that semainiversary?) - who said it wouldn't last, huh? It is also my mom's birthday. It is funny how those two things collided like that. I am sure she would be thrilled by the connection, given her enjoyment of all things matrimonial.
I am sitting here picking away at my preparations for my second doctoral exam, even though I still haven't heard if I passed my first one yet, and eating some very authentic Granville Ferry dulse, as I am starting to suspect a bit of an iron deficiency in my blood these days. I am pale, and get really cold really fast. Another week of this, and I can enter the "Victorian Miss" competition, and wow the crowds with my swoon.
So life progresses, as does work. I am gathering book reviews for comp II this week - the goal is to prepare better for this one than the last, so I don't have to go through another nail-biting "will I pass or fail?" wait like this ever again.
Not much else to report, aside from the fact that I saw Road to Guantanamo last night, and though they tended to pussy-foot around the role that racism played/plays in the whole nightmare, I found it an effective story, and can easily recommend it.
And here is a recent ultra-Canadian obsession, just for your enjoyment.
Now, back to work!
*
I am sitting here picking away at my preparations for my second doctoral exam, even though I still haven't heard if I passed my first one yet, and eating some very authentic Granville Ferry dulse, as I am starting to suspect a bit of an iron deficiency in my blood these days. I am pale, and get really cold really fast. Another week of this, and I can enter the "Victorian Miss" competition, and wow the crowds with my swoon.
So life progresses, as does work. I am gathering book reviews for comp II this week - the goal is to prepare better for this one than the last, so I don't have to go through another nail-biting "will I pass or fail?" wait like this ever again.
Not much else to report, aside from the fact that I saw Road to Guantanamo last night, and though they tended to pussy-foot around the role that racism played/plays in the whole nightmare, I found it an effective story, and can easily recommend it.
And here is a recent ultra-Canadian obsession, just for your enjoyment.
Now, back to work!
*
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Screw You NFB
I had a mystical, magical post sucking the NFB's arse all written, rhapsodizing about the beauty that is their animation heritage (particularly "Le Payasagiste," "The Log Driver's Waltz" and "The Sweater"), but their fancy-dancy yuppie flash homepage crashed my comp and I lost it.
Now I am tired and frustrated, and I see no magic - only a lot of Saturday mornings wasted as a child, and a stream of propaganda for a country that is currently trying to ruin my life.
So up yours, wheatgrassers.
See how quick the worm can turn?
*
Now I am tired and frustrated, and I see no magic - only a lot of Saturday mornings wasted as a child, and a stream of propaganda for a country that is currently trying to ruin my life.
So up yours, wheatgrassers.
See how quick the worm can turn?
*
Monday, January 22, 2007
Day of Rest
Sometimes your firewall turns against you and sends you scurrying for the Rogers tech support number and a gun, resulting in hours of rebooting and cursing and fiddling with configurations.
Sometimes, it is worth it to blast through an assignment, just so you can spend some extra time curled up in a ball nursing your cold watching something completely worthless.
Sometimes, you want to avoid the idea that tomorrow brings the start of a whole new comp exam regime by playing hangman with an artificial intelligence named Spleak for several hours.
Sometimes tinkering with the new AIM upgrade features to absolutely no good end brings a few giggles and some surprizing quality time with a loved one.
Sometimes, these "useless" things are exactly what you need.
And sometimes you find yourself trying to find things to do to stay awake and preparing for a late-night phone date with your long distance husband, because that is the time that fate dealt you today.
And sometimes you settle on Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits as a means to do that, and you don't know why.
Sometimes, Sundays are weird.
*
Sunday, January 21, 2007
From Romance to Mucus
Oh dear - the roller coaster that is blog progression. Yesterday, "Love is wonderful." Today, "Wow, I just coughed up something that looked like an alien's brain."
Yes, my lungs are finally starting to reject the foreign matter that invaded them, and it is coming up and out in great gobs of nastiness. Tons of it. Massive and horrid in their chunky and dark-green awfulness. This is clearly that disgusting, yet hopeful, expectoration stage, when the infection starts to die and the body starts cleaning house a la Dirty Harry. Go, body, go.
I am not quite as bad as this guy, but it is getting pretty Exorcist around here, anyway. I need a young priest and an old priest to get this evil out of me... or at least 50 gallons of water, some Buckley's and a million tissues.
And some jasmine tea and a hot bath.
So, I have had to steal and extension from a conference for a paper they wanted from me yesterday, but I will try to finish it today amidst the hospital stink and waves of icky around here.
Just hold it together, Holly. If your lungs can get a grip, so can you.
***
PS: Monday, I head to campus libraries to pick up the books for my second comp, coming up in May - so expect more bitching to follow. However, I still have not yet heard whether I passed the first one, so who knows if the second will ever materialize? Ah, the vagrancy of life... I'm going to have my coffee and watch a movie. I deserve a treat today.
*
Yes, my lungs are finally starting to reject the foreign matter that invaded them, and it is coming up and out in great gobs of nastiness. Tons of it. Massive and horrid in their chunky and dark-green awfulness. This is clearly that disgusting, yet hopeful, expectoration stage, when the infection starts to die and the body starts cleaning house a la Dirty Harry. Go, body, go.
I am not quite as bad as this guy, but it is getting pretty Exorcist around here, anyway. I need a young priest and an old priest to get this evil out of me... or at least 50 gallons of water, some Buckley's and a million tissues.
And some jasmine tea and a hot bath.
So, I have had to steal and extension from a conference for a paper they wanted from me yesterday, but I will try to finish it today amidst the hospital stink and waves of icky around here.
Just hold it together, Holly. If your lungs can get a grip, so can you.
***
PS: Monday, I head to campus libraries to pick up the books for my second comp, coming up in May - so expect more bitching to follow. However, I still have not yet heard whether I passed the first one, so who knows if the second will ever materialize? Ah, the vagrancy of life... I'm going to have my coffee and watch a movie. I deserve a treat today.
*
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Wedding Announcement
Well, now that all those people who needed to hear the news in person have been cleared away, I can now officially announce on this blog that Murph and I did indeed get married on January 10 in Ohio, and I am thrilled.
Murph and I could not have been happier with the wedding, with the ceremony being very short and sweet (and very touching), and the dinner being a happy time amongst friends and family. We honeymooned in fantabulous Mount Orab, Ohio (don't all say "Where?" at the same time), and in Buffalo, NY.
I have placed the pics on a photobucket album for those of you who have not already seen the lion's share of them. They are lovely mementos of a perfect day.
Love is wonderful.
*
Mothers
Just got off the phone with my mum. I had been putting off sharing news of my recent marriage as long as I could, but I decided I couldn't put it off any more. A band-aid must be ripped off quickly, so it was now or never. It went something like this:
So, yeah. That was fun.
Any more questions as to why my parents and I are semi-estranged?
*
Me: I got married.
Her: Are you kidding?
Me: No.
Her: Christ. I knew that would happen.
Me: Thanks.
Her: No, well, you know marriage isn't fun.
Me: Silence.
Her: I had a feeling you would actually do it.
Me: You're a ray of sunshine today.
Her: Well, you know what I went through.
Me: Silence.
Her: I don't mean to upset you. You know I hope for the best for you.
Me: Sure.
Her: I hope you know what you are doing.
Me: I do.
Her: How's your ex handling this?
(See, my mum really liked my previous fellow, and she takes every chance she can get to remind me of that.)
Me: Better than you are.
Her: Well... congratulations, I guess. Now I have to go break this to your father, I suppose.
Me: Well, I am only married - not diagnosed with cancer or something.
Her: Hmmm.
Me: Well, I should go.
Her: Well, I love you.
Me: Yeah. Bye.
So, yeah. That was fun.
Any more questions as to why my parents and I are semi-estranged?
*
Friday, January 19, 2007
Trust No One
I suspect my virus scan is just telling me what it thinks I want to hear.
What has gone wrong with our relationship?
*
What has gone wrong with our relationship?
*
nononononononono...noooooooo
I just got back from Buffalo last night, dragging my carcass home after a cross-continental odyssey that left me tired, hungry and sore. To make matters worse (read: depressing as hell), Murph is still in Ohio, where he must remain until he has completed the quests on his application list.
So, for who knows how long - two months, at least, I should think - I am here alone and Murph is off bringing the Canadian Consulate a shrubbery which he has chopped down with a herring.
I know. Crappy news. But it gets slightly worse. I woke up with the chills this morning, and then a fever, and my lungs are working as if they were filled with clay, and my head/shoulders/stomach/limbs/back/hips/face all hurt like you would not believe. This is either Bronchitis II, or some new virus I picked up south of the border. What I thought was just travel ache and love sickness last night has turned out to be something a wee more tangible this morning.
But the love sickness is still pretty bad, too.
*
So, for who knows how long - two months, at least, I should think - I am here alone and Murph is off bringing the Canadian Consulate a shrubbery which he has chopped down with a herring.
I know. Crappy news. But it gets slightly worse. I woke up with the chills this morning, and then a fever, and my lungs are working as if they were filled with clay, and my head/shoulders/stomach/limbs/back/hips/face all hurt like you would not believe. This is either Bronchitis II, or some new virus I picked up south of the border. What I thought was just travel ache and love sickness last night has turned out to be something a wee more tangible this morning.
But the love sickness is still pretty bad, too.
*
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Why Are These People Smiling?
Ohio has been great - now let's see if Buffalo continues the trend...
I made it here in fine shape, despite delays and crowded terminals, and one bit of unneeded excitement when the bus crashed into a pillar at the US border. All has been remarkably well here, and I am well pleased with my visit. Monday night, we leave Cincinnati for Canada, via New York state. Then we just have to convince the Canadian consulate that we don't plan on overthrowing the government, but merely wish to live happily ever after.
On Tuesday morning, around 8am, pray there's a romantic holding the keys to Canada, ok?
*
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Ohio Bound. Again.
I leave for Ohio on the noon bus out of town today. Will update when I can, but comp use may be sporadic. Oh, the adventures of travel!
Wish me luck!
*
Wish me luck!
*
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
I SURVIVED THE COMP
I won't know my grade for a couple more weeks, but I think I passed it... at the very least, I am alive and not crying like a little girl under a desk on campus with the crisis squad trying to talk me into coming along quietly.
WHHEEEEE!
*
WHHEEEEE!
*
Ooooooooh... Gonna be Sick...
Exam starts in two hours... Urgh.
Quick, who can explain Charles Taylor's theory of multiculturalism to me? Come on - politics of recognition...? Little help here?
Crikey.
*
Quick, who can explain Charles Taylor's theory of multiculturalism to me? Come on - politics of recognition...? Little help here?
Crikey.
*
Today's The Day
At 9am I sit down at a computer terminal to basically justify my livelihood.
At 5.30pm it is all over, one way or another.
...
By 7pm, I will be asleep.
*
At 5.30pm it is all over, one way or another.
...
By 7pm, I will be asleep.
*
Thursday, January 04, 2007
To Challenge the Comp
There is a reason they call writing grad school exams "to challenge." I am learning that now, as I face my last hours before the enormity of tomorrow' first doctoral exam.
My supervisor just called from Israel to wish me good luck and to say that she has no concerns, whatsoever about my abilities to face and pass this hurdle. Knowing the pressures of PhD study, she just wanted to make sure I wasn't panicking. She told me, from her own experience, that the comp is horrifying as you approach it, grueling while you are doing it, and extraordinarily satisfying when it is done.
The doctoral exam is a rite of passage that nearly every PhD student in the world goes through, and it is done simply to cement my role as a PhD. The real test is not the exam itself, but being able to face the exam. Being willing to face the challenge means something: it means I can stand with scholars on their own ground, and try to master a huge range of material the best I can, and live and die by my abilities. It is to arm me for battles - once I get through these comps, I can look eye to eye with all other PhDs and PhD candidates, knowing I did this thing.
Having gotten this far, I am qualified to pass this exam; I just have to let my endurance be tested. I wish I were better prepared, really, but I no longer feel like I am doomed to fail it. The real test has come in these past few days as I contemplated dropping out to avoid humiliation, but have stuck it out to accept this challenge. I passed that test, and I will pass this one.
With the ancient bear hunters, once you had killed a bear you were equal to any bear hunter; it was a rank to be achieved.
Tomorrow, I slay my first bear.
***
(And best wishes go to my valued cohort, Andrew, Mitra, Sio, Margie and Chris, who will enter the initiation tent and undergo this bonding experience with me tomorrow. There will be no Mama Lola around, but we can shake a few rattles if you want.)
*
My supervisor just called from Israel to wish me good luck and to say that she has no concerns, whatsoever about my abilities to face and pass this hurdle. Knowing the pressures of PhD study, she just wanted to make sure I wasn't panicking. She told me, from her own experience, that the comp is horrifying as you approach it, grueling while you are doing it, and extraordinarily satisfying when it is done.
The doctoral exam is a rite of passage that nearly every PhD student in the world goes through, and it is done simply to cement my role as a PhD. The real test is not the exam itself, but being able to face the exam. Being willing to face the challenge means something: it means I can stand with scholars on their own ground, and try to master a huge range of material the best I can, and live and die by my abilities. It is to arm me for battles - once I get through these comps, I can look eye to eye with all other PhDs and PhD candidates, knowing I did this thing.
Having gotten this far, I am qualified to pass this exam; I just have to let my endurance be tested. I wish I were better prepared, really, but I no longer feel like I am doomed to fail it. The real test has come in these past few days as I contemplated dropping out to avoid humiliation, but have stuck it out to accept this challenge. I passed that test, and I will pass this one.
With the ancient bear hunters, once you had killed a bear you were equal to any bear hunter; it was a rank to be achieved.
Tomorrow, I slay my first bear.
***
(And best wishes go to my valued cohort, Andrew, Mitra, Sio, Margie and Chris, who will enter the initiation tent and undergo this bonding experience with me tomorrow. There will be no Mama Lola around, but we can shake a few rattles if you want.)
*
23 Hours til Comp
What would you do if you only had one more day to live??
What?
NOT spend it trying to cram the last of secularization theory, and sacred space history of America, and social scientific methods of religious studies, etc. , etc., etc., into your brain?
Yeah, I don't think it's such a hot idea, either.
*
What?
NOT spend it trying to cram the last of secularization theory, and sacred space history of America, and social scientific methods of religious studies, etc. , etc., etc., into your brain?
Yeah, I don't think it's such a hot idea, either.
*
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
A Pre-Exam Flow of Consciousness
For my exam, I am expected to contemplate the most fearsome and loathsome subject any religion scholar has to face: The definition of religion. I think I could tell you, in general, what religion is, though I am better at deconstructing definitions than I am at constructing them. Definitions confine and stifle. As we cannot name G-d without being G-d, because to name something is to own and control it, so too can we not name (define) religion without that act having serious repercussions for our field and work.
Definitions of religion try to (a) give the essential nature of religion, (b) help categorize, describe and identify religion, and (c) make religions translatable for an audience. They often try to encompass all the traditions the author can think of in some way, and they also try to include some stand on why religion exists (i.e. religion is made for social control, or social cohesion, or for human comfort, etc.).
Sadly, definitions of religion are most often written by scholars who consider religion the humanities equivalent of cancer: study it, recognize its importance, but don’t catch it, and, for heaven’s sake, hope for a cure. As my friend A. has reminded me, though, they treat religion worse than cancer, because at least they recognize cancer is real.
Therefore, if any of us do try to define religion, we do it awkwardly and with heavily varied success rates. Most of the time, scholars give primacy to one side or the other of observable religion; Either religion is a set of rituals or organizations, or, which is more popular in post-Enlightenment western thought, religion is a belief system that creates actions and organizations. That is to say, scholars often base their definition of religion within the observable ethical codes expressed by religious traditions. They give priority to the internal, rather than the external.
Now this is far from saying that religionists discuss faith. Far from it. Faith for religionists is a bit like the theory that Martians built the pyramids: You can’t see evidence, so it doesn’t exist, and if you tried to argue based on it, you’d get laughed out of the academy.
To put it bluntly: Cat lovers love cats, but rarely do they like to handle their poop. This is how religionists seem to take faith. Faith is religion’s poop, and no one knows how to handle it except to pretend they don’t smell it.
So religionists stick to talking around religion: what religions do, what the say they believe, and how they function. Also, religionists love to talk about how religion will end, and stroke their apothecary’s beards and predict its demise now that the world is smarter.
And they love to ask their students to define it. Because, truth be told, no one really knows what religion is.
You may not know that. I think everyone thinks they know what religion is until you have to define it, right?
Is it belief in a deity? Then what of atheistic forms of Buddhism? Is it a set of theological beliefs? Then what of humanist Jews who practice the religious traditions of their ancestors but have not adopted their spiritual beliefs? Is it a set of rituals? Then where does belief come in? And what do we do with flag ceremonies? Is it designed by people, or revealed by a higher power?
Is it like this or that, and this or that only, or is it wider? What does it smell like, taste like, sound like? Can you pick it up?
Does it have a beginning and an end, or is eternal?
For religion to have a definition, or an end, for me, it has to have a form and a shape. It has to have an essential nature, and that is where I stumble. I understand the need to have, as Plato recommended, a vague idea of what a chair is so you know where to sit, but when you actually sit down to write an abstract and generalized definition of religion – that is where the proverbial poop hits the fan.
Religion is one of the most reified objects on the planet. If we are Catholic, than that becomes the abstract measuring stick by which we see religion. This limits one’s view a bit, and, no matter how liberal minded you are as a Catholic (or Jew, or Wiccan, etc) you will be tied to the assumptions you make about all religion based on what your own religion is like. Therein lies the pit-trap of defining religion. Once we give it a form, it is no longer accurate, and rarely do we fully understand the power and roots of our act of definition.
If you say something has four legs and a back, it may be a chair, alright, but you’ll never know what it really looks like, or how comfortable it is, or where it was purchased, will you? And don’t you, just a little bit, kill creativity in yourself if you were to design a whole new chair? Doesn’t that definition limit, just a bit?
And doesn’t it narrow your choices when looking for something to use as a chair?
“Religion,” like other large and (from my assumptions) universal concepts such as “medicine” or “terrorism” or “sexuality,” will always be with us. This is precisely because it has no distinct form, but, rather, it is something that bubbles beneath our surface. It is a part of humanity’s tool kit, and we can pull it out and use it whenever we have the need. You cannot just erase it from being. Only distinct forms of religion, such as the Church of England or Neanderthal mother worship, can fade away, but the actual impulse remains. Likewise, we can only describe the manifestation of religion, not necessarily the essence of religion, at least not in a paragraph, and certainly not completely detached from some context.
Religion is a non-thing. You can’t prepare a slide of it and look at it. It is intangible, and one thing I have learned from studying it for ten years is that the more you look at it, the harder it becomes to see.
If we took it in engineering terms, religion is an energy. Energy travels through conduits with concrete shape and specifications, and human kind has learned to use it. You can see the effects of it, you can almost see the thing itself, but you can’t destroy it, and you can’t pin it down. Energy (of which I have a wholly imperfect understanding, so be kind to my analogy), like religion, is unending and quicksilver. Once you have seen it, it has already long sense moved on.
Some people will use the water analogy, as in religion is like the flow of water from one point to another – it changes surface and speed, and cannot be harnessed fully. I can dig this, but religion, for me, is much more free than water. Water has a density to it – it is inherently earthbound. Religion, more accurately, is not water as a liquid, but as a vapor. Traditionalists want religion to come in ice form, frozen into a solid shape. Liberals want it to be water – partly because this is oh so deliciously hippy and gynocentric imagery, but mostly because they want to promote an idea of progression or evolution of religion. But religion is gaseous in its natural state
Remember, religion is so light that immigrants carry it over in a nap sack, so it has to be lighter than air. Also, it cannot spill, dent or shatter, can it? Otherwise, it would not have survived the unification of the brain hemispheres, or Luther, or Auschwitz, or television. The vapor, like faith, is ephemeral and without form, it can only be contained, not molded.
For example, we speak of "Judaism,” but that is false. There are millions of "Judaisms." There are over 13 million Jews in the world and each has his or her own Judaism, unique to the way that person constructs their identity and place. The best we can do is to group these people into kinds, such as Orthodox or Reform.
But, then, at each point in their life, the person's particular Judaism is also different, so we not only get linear variation, but also circular, temporal and circumstantial, like a spiritual fractal, as Murph the math whiz reminds me. My Judaism when I speak of it to you is different than the one I present to others. So with in just myself I have a dozen different Judaisms. That does not mean there isn't a core, that which is the tradition as I have inherited it. But, rather, like a pearl, the layers change it, and, like a pearl, it changes in the different lights
I can present Judaism with authority, not because I am a rabbi, but because I live the faith as I see fit. My Judaism is merely the one which I present. In reality, Judaism is one of those pointillist paintings, you know? From a distance, you see a picture, while up close, you see a million dots. Some would say these dots are unconnected, but they are still made of paint.
And before you come at me with an Asadian attack, I don't believe that my individualist understanding of religion is strictly post-Luther or post-Enlightenment. I think that religion has always been this way, Luther merely reflected what people were doing anyway. I don't believe even the basest of cave men was devoid of his own sense of his religion. That is why we have Socrates, Jesus, Abraham, Mohammad, the Buddha, Plato... Each one just had the charisma and rhetorical abilities to make his own faith a popular and public idea.
But where was I?
The danger of making concrete something that is inherently non-material is that you lose the variation. That is when people start to feel they have to right to burn the witches, never realizing that there is always the witch, the conservative and the iconoclast in each of us, depending on the moment. We all adapt – religion’s face is the negotiation between what we have been told is right and what we believe to be right. In a way, religion is that mediation between the transcendent and the material.
That is what is fascinating about studying religion – it is never the same river twice, to return to the water analogy and to steal an image from Wittgenstein. Religion is a composite of authority, tradition, texts, life, agency and subjectivity, and that is the basic point that makes defining it impossible for me. That grey zone and variation, for me, eludes capture and confinement into boxes.
It is true that, as scholars, we do need some functional definition of religion, at least enough so that we can know what to look for. Sort of akin to needing to know roughly what a wall is before you can find the light switch, eh? Mine happens to be “I know it when I see it,” but I have a feeling that that would not win me any points on this exam.
My other working definition in order to locate religion and religious behaviour to study is “that which someone presents as having religious value is religion.” Too simple? Very likely, but I feel that this also prevents us from missing phenomenon we might otherwise over look. The revolutionary idea here? Why not ask religious people what religion is, and stick to the particular forms?
The more mankind tries to bottle and contain and segregate religion, the more it bursts forth, because, in all honesty, man needs faith or some kind or sort. Faith in what is his own decision, but it must exist. Even atheism is a type of faith; you have faith that G-d doesn't exits. And it does take a lot of faith to say "hell doesn't exist and I am going to live this way, even if I am wrong about it."
Whenever you give primacy to one reified concept of religion, you lose a lot – you focus on a tree to the point of missing out on a wonderful forest, a precious forest that is ours to protect and enjoy as part of our human heritage and shared culture.
(Aside: So now religion is a forest?? Ok… fine.)
This forest has trees; the trees have branches; the branches have cells, and so forth. The Tree Itself is composed of the bark, the cork, the cells, the veins, the leaves, the fruit, etc. Each of these things represents an aspect of the tree, but each of these things is no more The Tree Itself than is any one part less a part of the tree than another. For what can we say is the essential part of the tree?
But the forest also has shrubs, grass, birds and rain. And also wonderful amounts of mulch – that which enriches the soil and feeds the trees, made from other trees that have long since died. Somewhere between the food of the tree, the parts of the tree, the product of the tree, The Tree Itself, the birds who live in the trees, and the animals that takes shelter in it… therein lies religion, along with the loggers who kill the trees, the wardens who protect it, and the entirety of the forest itself as a primordial network of flow (not to mention the literary or conceptual idea of the forest that doesn’t even depend on a single acorn to grow).
None of this ramble is a new concept, so don’t accuse me of patting myself on the back (all none of you who are still reading). But I do like to remind people of this issue when they ask me to define religion.
I know, you see, that if I could define religion, religion would be not worth studying.
*
Definitions of religion try to (a) give the essential nature of religion, (b) help categorize, describe and identify religion, and (c) make religions translatable for an audience. They often try to encompass all the traditions the author can think of in some way, and they also try to include some stand on why religion exists (i.e. religion is made for social control, or social cohesion, or for human comfort, etc.).
Sadly, definitions of religion are most often written by scholars who consider religion the humanities equivalent of cancer: study it, recognize its importance, but don’t catch it, and, for heaven’s sake, hope for a cure. As my friend A. has reminded me, though, they treat religion worse than cancer, because at least they recognize cancer is real.
Therefore, if any of us do try to define religion, we do it awkwardly and with heavily varied success rates. Most of the time, scholars give primacy to one side or the other of observable religion; Either religion is a set of rituals or organizations, or, which is more popular in post-Enlightenment western thought, religion is a belief system that creates actions and organizations. That is to say, scholars often base their definition of religion within the observable ethical codes expressed by religious traditions. They give priority to the internal, rather than the external.
Now this is far from saying that religionists discuss faith. Far from it. Faith for religionists is a bit like the theory that Martians built the pyramids: You can’t see evidence, so it doesn’t exist, and if you tried to argue based on it, you’d get laughed out of the academy.
To put it bluntly: Cat lovers love cats, but rarely do they like to handle their poop. This is how religionists seem to take faith. Faith is religion’s poop, and no one knows how to handle it except to pretend they don’t smell it.
So religionists stick to talking around religion: what religions do, what the say they believe, and how they function. Also, religionists love to talk about how religion will end, and stroke their apothecary’s beards and predict its demise now that the world is smarter.
And they love to ask their students to define it. Because, truth be told, no one really knows what religion is.
You may not know that. I think everyone thinks they know what religion is until you have to define it, right?
Is it belief in a deity? Then what of atheistic forms of Buddhism? Is it a set of theological beliefs? Then what of humanist Jews who practice the religious traditions of their ancestors but have not adopted their spiritual beliefs? Is it a set of rituals? Then where does belief come in? And what do we do with flag ceremonies? Is it designed by people, or revealed by a higher power?
Is it like this or that, and this or that only, or is it wider? What does it smell like, taste like, sound like? Can you pick it up?
Does it have a beginning and an end, or is eternal?
For religion to have a definition, or an end, for me, it has to have a form and a shape. It has to have an essential nature, and that is where I stumble. I understand the need to have, as Plato recommended, a vague idea of what a chair is so you know where to sit, but when you actually sit down to write an abstract and generalized definition of religion – that is where the proverbial poop hits the fan.
Religion is one of the most reified objects on the planet. If we are Catholic, than that becomes the abstract measuring stick by which we see religion. This limits one’s view a bit, and, no matter how liberal minded you are as a Catholic (or Jew, or Wiccan, etc) you will be tied to the assumptions you make about all religion based on what your own religion is like. Therein lies the pit-trap of defining religion. Once we give it a form, it is no longer accurate, and rarely do we fully understand the power and roots of our act of definition.
If you say something has four legs and a back, it may be a chair, alright, but you’ll never know what it really looks like, or how comfortable it is, or where it was purchased, will you? And don’t you, just a little bit, kill creativity in yourself if you were to design a whole new chair? Doesn’t that definition limit, just a bit?
And doesn’t it narrow your choices when looking for something to use as a chair?
“Religion,” like other large and (from my assumptions) universal concepts such as “medicine” or “terrorism” or “sexuality,” will always be with us. This is precisely because it has no distinct form, but, rather, it is something that bubbles beneath our surface. It is a part of humanity’s tool kit, and we can pull it out and use it whenever we have the need. You cannot just erase it from being. Only distinct forms of religion, such as the Church of England or Neanderthal mother worship, can fade away, but the actual impulse remains. Likewise, we can only describe the manifestation of religion, not necessarily the essence of religion, at least not in a paragraph, and certainly not completely detached from some context.
Religion is a non-thing. You can’t prepare a slide of it and look at it. It is intangible, and one thing I have learned from studying it for ten years is that the more you look at it, the harder it becomes to see.
If we took it in engineering terms, religion is an energy. Energy travels through conduits with concrete shape and specifications, and human kind has learned to use it. You can see the effects of it, you can almost see the thing itself, but you can’t destroy it, and you can’t pin it down. Energy (of which I have a wholly imperfect understanding, so be kind to my analogy), like religion, is unending and quicksilver. Once you have seen it, it has already long sense moved on.
Some people will use the water analogy, as in religion is like the flow of water from one point to another – it changes surface and speed, and cannot be harnessed fully. I can dig this, but religion, for me, is much more free than water. Water has a density to it – it is inherently earthbound. Religion, more accurately, is not water as a liquid, but as a vapor. Traditionalists want religion to come in ice form, frozen into a solid shape. Liberals want it to be water – partly because this is oh so deliciously hippy and gynocentric imagery, but mostly because they want to promote an idea of progression or evolution of religion. But religion is gaseous in its natural state
Remember, religion is so light that immigrants carry it over in a nap sack, so it has to be lighter than air. Also, it cannot spill, dent or shatter, can it? Otherwise, it would not have survived the unification of the brain hemispheres, or Luther, or Auschwitz, or television. The vapor, like faith, is ephemeral and without form, it can only be contained, not molded.
For example, we speak of "Judaism,” but that is false. There are millions of "Judaisms." There are over 13 million Jews in the world and each has his or her own Judaism, unique to the way that person constructs their identity and place. The best we can do is to group these people into kinds, such as Orthodox or Reform.
But, then, at each point in their life, the person's particular Judaism is also different, so we not only get linear variation, but also circular, temporal and circumstantial, like a spiritual fractal, as Murph the math whiz reminds me. My Judaism when I speak of it to you is different than the one I present to others. So with in just myself I have a dozen different Judaisms. That does not mean there isn't a core, that which is the tradition as I have inherited it. But, rather, like a pearl, the layers change it, and, like a pearl, it changes in the different lights
I can present Judaism with authority, not because I am a rabbi, but because I live the faith as I see fit. My Judaism is merely the one which I present. In reality, Judaism is one of those pointillist paintings, you know? From a distance, you see a picture, while up close, you see a million dots. Some would say these dots are unconnected, but they are still made of paint.
And before you come at me with an Asadian attack, I don't believe that my individualist understanding of religion is strictly post-Luther or post-Enlightenment. I think that religion has always been this way, Luther merely reflected what people were doing anyway. I don't believe even the basest of cave men was devoid of his own sense of his religion. That is why we have Socrates, Jesus, Abraham, Mohammad, the Buddha, Plato... Each one just had the charisma and rhetorical abilities to make his own faith a popular and public idea.
But where was I?
The danger of making concrete something that is inherently non-material is that you lose the variation. That is when people start to feel they have to right to burn the witches, never realizing that there is always the witch, the conservative and the iconoclast in each of us, depending on the moment. We all adapt – religion’s face is the negotiation between what we have been told is right and what we believe to be right. In a way, religion is that mediation between the transcendent and the material.
That is what is fascinating about studying religion – it is never the same river twice, to return to the water analogy and to steal an image from Wittgenstein. Religion is a composite of authority, tradition, texts, life, agency and subjectivity, and that is the basic point that makes defining it impossible for me. That grey zone and variation, for me, eludes capture and confinement into boxes.
It is true that, as scholars, we do need some functional definition of religion, at least enough so that we can know what to look for. Sort of akin to needing to know roughly what a wall is before you can find the light switch, eh? Mine happens to be “I know it when I see it,” but I have a feeling that that would not win me any points on this exam.
My other working definition in order to locate religion and religious behaviour to study is “that which someone presents as having religious value is religion.” Too simple? Very likely, but I feel that this also prevents us from missing phenomenon we might otherwise over look. The revolutionary idea here? Why not ask religious people what religion is, and stick to the particular forms?
The more mankind tries to bottle and contain and segregate religion, the more it bursts forth, because, in all honesty, man needs faith or some kind or sort. Faith in what is his own decision, but it must exist. Even atheism is a type of faith; you have faith that G-d doesn't exits. And it does take a lot of faith to say "hell doesn't exist and I am going to live this way, even if I am wrong about it."
Whenever you give primacy to one reified concept of religion, you lose a lot – you focus on a tree to the point of missing out on a wonderful forest, a precious forest that is ours to protect and enjoy as part of our human heritage and shared culture.
(Aside: So now religion is a forest?? Ok… fine.)
This forest has trees; the trees have branches; the branches have cells, and so forth. The Tree Itself is composed of the bark, the cork, the cells, the veins, the leaves, the fruit, etc. Each of these things represents an aspect of the tree, but each of these things is no more The Tree Itself than is any one part less a part of the tree than another. For what can we say is the essential part of the tree?
But the forest also has shrubs, grass, birds and rain. And also wonderful amounts of mulch – that which enriches the soil and feeds the trees, made from other trees that have long since died. Somewhere between the food of the tree, the parts of the tree, the product of the tree, The Tree Itself, the birds who live in the trees, and the animals that takes shelter in it… therein lies religion, along with the loggers who kill the trees, the wardens who protect it, and the entirety of the forest itself as a primordial network of flow (not to mention the literary or conceptual idea of the forest that doesn’t even depend on a single acorn to grow).
None of this ramble is a new concept, so don’t accuse me of patting myself on the back (all none of you who are still reading). But I do like to remind people of this issue when they ask me to define religion.
I know, you see, that if I could define religion, religion would be not worth studying.
*
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Because I Haven't Had Enough of Books...
A meme of a higher category supplied by a blog of finer quality:
1. One book that changed your life:
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography
3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The Penguin Complete Works of Jane Austen
(Yes, that is probably technically cheating, but tough.)
4. One book that made you laugh:
Groucho Marx, Memoirs of a Mangy Lover
5. One book that made you cry:
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
6. One book that you wish had been written:
Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By
7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the 20th Century
... or any of the 40 books haunting my life right now for this comp, especially a certain book about a certain Lotus that can kiss my arse.
8. One book you’re currently reading:
Thomas Tweed, Our Lady of the Exile
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Qur'an
10. Now tag five people:
Since tagging has almost lost me one very dear friend, and alienated dozens more, I leave it up to you to take this as you will.
I will add one more: The most meaningful book you've ever read. For me, definitely the Song of Songs. I could re-read that a million times and never get tired of it. It's one of those things that grows with you, I guess.
1. One book that changed your life:
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography
3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The Penguin Complete Works of Jane Austen
(Yes, that is probably technically cheating, but tough.)
4. One book that made you laugh:
Groucho Marx, Memoirs of a Mangy Lover
5. One book that made you cry:
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
6. One book that you wish had been written:
Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By
7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the 20th Century
... or any of the 40 books haunting my life right now for this comp, especially a certain book about a certain Lotus that can kiss my arse.
8. One book you’re currently reading:
Thomas Tweed, Our Lady of the Exile
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Qur'an
10. Now tag five people:
Since tagging has almost lost me one very dear friend, and alienated dozens more, I leave it up to you to take this as you will.
I will add one more: The most meaningful book you've ever read. For me, definitely the Song of Songs. I could re-read that a million times and never get tired of it. It's one of those things that grows with you, I guess.
Tuesday
Is it three more sleeps until my exam? No more sleeps, if I could manage it, since I still have gobs of reading to finish. I am unbelievably high on white bread, lumps of coloured sugar blasphemously shaped as fruits, and Coke, so I just might not sleep from now til then, any way.
So how many cups of coffee does it take to send you into an alternate time frame, exactly?
*
So how many cups of coffee does it take to send you into an alternate time frame, exactly?
*
Monday, January 01, 2007
Muslims, and Buddhists, and Jews, oh my!
I am knee deep in diaspora theory, linking Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist forms of diversity in North America for my comprehensive exam - their experiences, their similar patterns, their divergent patterns, their modes of identity construction in North America, and their organizations. The ways that education can be a mode of preserving their religious (or ethno-religious) heritage.
Reading all these traditions simultaneously in such a short time period has been quite terrific, really, and I am feeling much better about this exam. I still have a lot to learn about the social scientific study of religions and on secularization, before Friday, but I think I have tackled a few subjects in good detail.
I think I will survive, after all.
*
Sloan??
Yes. Sloan.
A&A had invited me to go see ultimate Canadian indie band Sloan in a free outdoors concert for New Years Eve, but I, like the dutiful student I am (=cough=) said that I had to study. So, tonight, they landed at my door at 10.30pm, caught me in my pjs, and basically dragged me out of the house, and, there I was, at a Sloan concert of all places.
Goth was not the tone of this concert, I can assure you. With lyrics like "I like you" over and over in my head, I felt distinctly out of place amongst all the corduroy and re-vamped Beatles cuts.
But it was ok. Watching all the couples kiss at midnight made me want to drop through the concrete, but the evening was pretty nice overall. Thanks, A&A - Thanks for not taking my word for it when I said, "I'd rather be alone."
I have good friends.
Have a great 2007, all!
*
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