The Friday at the end of every Fall semester Finals Week, Wheaton hosts a Christmas banquet for all faculty and staff.
It's a wonderful expression of community, the sort of thing that I have only experienced here at a place like this. We all come together, share some awesome food, chat with our fellow co-workers, listen to various members of our community put on skits or sing (above you see the talented college library staff caroling for us), and then stand and sing songs together that lift up our shared faith and give praise to our Lord. Christmas carols, about the Incarnate Savior, when sung by a large room full of people who actually mean those words about "Gloria" and "telling it on a mountain" and "peace with God has come here to earth" give those songs new meaning. Rather, in such a setting such songs find their purpose fulfilled.
Today after I gave my Latin 201 final, I hopped in a friend's car and headed to the airport. Why? Not to pick up a friend returning from an international jaunt. Nope, this time I picked up a family of people I had never seen before but have been praying for for some time. I met a Burmese refugee family who had just stepped onto American soil for the first time! What a moment! World Relief, a great agency that helps settle refugees, asked our church to form some groups to help with a few incoming refugee families, and I got to be with the group that met the first family, and what a privilege! Peter and Benedicta and their a-DOR-able children took their first bold but exhausted and anxious steps into their new life and new suddenly freezing world -- and we were able to greet them with a smile and with friendship. As servants. There is something right about that. But that shouldn't be a surprise. Jesus told his followers as much in John 14.
Below is a group shot of our church group with the family in their new (and furnished!) apartment in Glen Ellyn. And to think they just came from a hut in an Indonesian jungle. And perhaps the biggest smile that came to Peter's face tonight came when I told him as we were navigating the snowy path to his apartment (his first snow!) that another Burmese family of his same minority ethnic group in fact lived in the same building a floor below him! He came to America to find instant community that understood and embraced him and his family. There was indeed a whole group of local Burmese there waiting for him, including one guy who had last year come from that very same Indonesian refugee camp! What a miracle!
Below is an excerpt of a letter I emailed to other people in my church afterwards:
"As one of the people there last night to walk with this family into their new life here in the *freezing* US, I have to agree that the whole thing was about the most effortless exercise in serving others I have ever experienced. What a joy! In talking with Peter a bit last night, he told me (in his better-than-expected haltering English) that he and his family left Burma/Myanmar in 2007, why he didn't get into, but almost certainly it has to do with regular, planned government programs to oppress and slowly annihilate Chin minority culture and impose mandatory Buddhism upon everybody. He went on to say that the family pretty much walked / hiked / rode buses / used any means possible (I thought he might have even said "bicycle" in this list) to get from NW Burma to Malaysia, where (as we learned from Thomas) they lived in a make-shift refugee camp in the jungle outside a town or a city or something. That journey is quite the trek -- look it up on Google Maps! But praise the Lord that his family's long trek has at last come to rest here in Glen Ellyn. They seemed so composed, and almost joyful! And that connection of Christian faith that transcends cultural and language barriers is so amazing."
I'll end this long post with this little tidbit: about 6 or 7 years ago, God out of the blue placed Burma powerfully on my heart and mind. Ever since, I have been researching the country and its (sorrowful) history, and have been waiting to meet someone in the US from the country. Well, tonight, I met my first Burmese person. Five of them. At long last. And we were all smiles. Indeed, the family of God transcends all boundaries. Amen.
Simply put, Christmas time is indelibly encoded with a lifetime of Christmas music that I've imbibed and absorbed over the years. I tend to associate time-period memories with music anyway, but Christmas has its own bustling genre of music to delight me year after year. I have an entire CD book (and not those tiny ones either) devoted exclusively to Christmas music, and I'm one of those people who break out Christmas songs at least once every summer, just because so many of them are so fun. And so full of hope and peace. It's that quality I love. Songs of comfort and peace and the hint of cherished memories.
One song that has become one of my favorites in the last few years is by Newsong, entitled simply "The Song of Christmas." Not only do the vocals just soar, but the words just speak deep Truth to me.
God came down Here with us It's the Song of Christmas.
Emmanuel. That's what it's all about -- the beautiful, earth-shaking, untamed mystery of the Incarnation. God came down. Why would he bother? The Incarnation is God's declaration that humanity matters. We matter to our Creator. As the angelic host sang: Gloria in altissimis Deo!
Finals Week has come at last! And in the Foreign Language Dept, that means Grazing Day! It's kind of a potluck, with all of us faculty providing the food, and then right before the afternoon language competency exams we all gather for a lunch and generally kick back and just chat for an hour or so.
Don't worry, most of the hot foods were on the back wall behind where I was standing to take the above picture. The spread was good.
We always see each other in the halls and chat in passing, but this is a good time to get a lot of us faculty together in one place without rushing about. (naturally, I showed up an hour late since I was having a good old yule time in the Honey Rock Office and lost track of time...)
Hooray! Today was a day I have been looking forward to for the past few weeks: it was Laura's First Annual Christmas Holiday Specials Viewing Party! (that's the LFACHSVP for short...err...)
We watched many of the wonderful TV cartoon specials from years past (Garfield Christmas is my favoritest!) and laughed to White Christmas and shared some great food:
and in general had a good time. Holidays are best shared with friends and family -- so I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that these holiday programs became even more enjoyable when viewed with a room-full of fun people!
But Glow-Worm Christmas will have to wait for another year...
Every few months, Glen Ellyn Bible Church (my local congregation) hosts a Saturday morning breakfast, a great chance to chow down on some eggs and man-meats and get to know some of the other men in the area.
Even if it is at 7:00 am in the morning on a Saturday. I mean, seriously.
This is the first one I've managed to attend, and it was good. After a time of eating and chatting, we heard Jerry Root, a fellow professor at Wheaton College, share some of his experiences of being a husband and father. In truth, it was mostly about how having unhealthy views or experiences with sex (from either end of the conservative-liberal spectrum) can damage one's ability to be a good husband and father. Great stuff -- and dead on, as far as I could speak. Needless to say, we listened attentively. It's a topic...on our minds.
Huzzah! Huzzah! We've come at last to the last day of class! And one hallowed tradition at Wheaton that I happily discovered last year is that in the last Friday chapel of the Fall semester, at the end everyone stands up and belts out the Hallelujah Chorus! Well...attempt to. There's a lot of parts in there! :-) Here are all the students sitting in anticipation of the big moment.
Fall Semester 2009 is in the books! Can you believe it? Boy this semester flew by fast.
Oh, wait. Finals week still looms next week. Not done with this road yet...
They put up a huge sheet of paper down in the student union last week for students to write little Thank-You notes for their professors, and boy did they go to town! I love this kind of thing -- it really helps build a sense of community all-around among the students and faculty.
Click on the picture and take a look! Post your favorite note below in "comments."
(I looked...I couldn't find my name on it. Surely that's because my noble students were too busy assiduously reviewing their Latin vocabulary words to stop to add a comment...)
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting -- my Fall 2009 Latin 101 class!
I had a lot of fun teaching this group! And one nice thing about being the only Latin professor on this campus is that I'll get to have a bunch of them for three straight semesters up through 201. It's a neat privilege to get to know them over a period of time like that. My first Wheaton Latin group is wrapping up right now in the 201 class, and that's been a great ride. Here's hoping for many more great runs in the future!
By the way, Mr. Leaf disappeared the morning I left for Thanksgiving, a couple weeks back. He was on the tree branch you can see in the upper left of this picture -- and amazingly most of the leaves are still on that tree. When will they all fall? Apparently, Mr. Leaf was the odd-ball leaf in falling off at all. Mr. Winter isn't going anywhere soon, however. Better get that car scraper ready...
Seen in Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago, on my back from staying at Josh's place in the city, where we watched lots of Mythbusters on Netflix and I schooled his paltry Roman armies in Commands & Colors: Ancients. (he may have beat me once or twice, I can't really recall... :-)
We've reached already the 100th day of the school year! Celebrate! But how?
I celebrated by attending a concert that I have literally been waiting for excitedly for the past 3 years!!! It's true. I attended tonight the opening performance of Andrew Peterson's annual "Behold the Lamb of God" tour, which he does every Christmas season. Many years ago, I picked up the recorded album version of this show and was immediately captivated. Around three years ago, Andrew Peterson came to Iowa on this December tour, but they sold it out about a few hours before I went to get advance tickets. That day I vowed that I would attend the next show of this tour that came anywhere near me. Which brings us forward to TONIGHT!!
What is this show anyway? Why am I so excited about it? Well, in a nutshell, it's designed as a single musical unit, rather than separate songs -- that is, each song in this show tells part of a story, and they're played in order without any interruptions. What story? Why, the greatest story ever told! The story of how God came to earth to restore His creation into relationship with Him once again, simply the greatest story of redemption and love and triumph through sorrow and hope long-delayed at-last fulfilled and all things made new in Him. "Oh, sing out for joy, for that brave little boy!" And truth be told, of all the musical versions of the story of the true meaning of Christmas, Andrew Peterson's "Behold the Lamb of God" is the best. Because it tells the full story, starting way back in Genesis. And because it's just plain awesome music and words and passion and Truth. With my 3-year pilgramage at last come to an end, could the show actually live up to my expectations?
No. It surpased them. Amen. One of the most profound evenings of pure worship and joy I have ever experienced. I think the beautiful mystery of Advent became just a bit more real for me tonight. I hope I am never the same again. Celebrate!
PS - Check out the music for yourself -- a friend of the artist created a web player for the whole album, which you can find from AP's blog site here.
My Latin 201 class on MWF afternoons meets up in the coveted Tower room, the highest classroom on campus. (not sure if the observatory is higher...I don't think so) The view from the hallway leading to the tower stairs is one of my favorites.
Today the clouds were just right as they hovered over the Billy Graham Center. I love the chance to get the long view sometimes. Another example of why this campus is a great place to work.
It's the Christmas season. And that means that I dive headlong into my sizable Christmas music collection. I could name you dozens of songs that have special meaning or associated memories, but today I want to share one that both recalls a treasured memory of a past 24/7 ugly-sweater Christmas show party AND speaks words of thrilling Truth that goes straight to the bones.
Let me know your thoughts -- what speaks out to you?
"I Celebrate the Day" -- by Relient K
And with this Christmas wish is missed The point I could convey If only I could find the words to say to let You know
How much You've touched my life
Because...
Here is where You're finding me,
in the exact same place as New Year's eve And from a lack of my persistency We're less than half as close as I want to be
And the first time That You opened Your eyes did You realize
That You would be my Savior And the first breath that left Your lips Did You know that it would change this world forever?
And so this Christmas I'll compare the things I felt in prior years To what this midnight made so clear That You have come to meet me here -- !
To look back and think that This baby would one day save me In the hope that what You did That you were born so I might really live To look back and think that This baby would one day save me...
And the first time That You opened Your eyes did You realize
That You would be my Savior And the first breath that left Your lips Did You know that it would change this world forever?
And I, I celebrate the day That You were born to die So I could one day pray for You to save my life
I inherited it from my grandmother when she passed on. It's really interesting -- a pottery piggy with a real cork nose. I can't say I've ever seen one quite like it.
And right now it's absolutely filled to the ears with quarters. Suggestions on what I should do with all those Washingtons? Put them in the comments...
I like music. A LOT. It was at some point in college that I consciously realized most other people weren't like me in having "What CD should I put on?" among the first thoughts to enter their mind upon entering their room. I still define past events or periods of my life by music I was listening to a lot at that time. As a result of all of this, I own a LOT of CDs. And tapes, which I still pull out now and then and listen to. I still have basically every tape and CD I've ever owned. They are a part of my life history, like old friends that you still enjoy conversing with from time to time.
Most of my CD collection has long ago made its way into various CD books, but in my bedroom there is a CD tower for my more recent music purchases. However, a few artists I like so much that even their older albums are still enshrined in their places.
On our last morning in St. Louis, we joined my brother and sister-in-law (and her family) for the fast-becoming-a-tradition Saturday morning breakfast break-your-fast at Cracker Barrel. My sis-in-law and I sure have fun together!
And look, I actually, genuinely solved the little peg-puzzle thingy they put on the tables! Only one peg left! (with some help from Alejandro) The peg-board says that one peg left means you're a Genius! I knew my college education would be validated someday.
I love eating at Cracker Barrel. Oddly enough, what I tend to get most excited about is the fact that you can get grits with your meal. Grits. I mean, once while driving on an interstate in the Chicago suburbs, I got this craving for Cracker Barrel and called up a friend who had an iPhone and asked him to do a search for one in the Chicago area and he found one in Naperville and so I promptly drove like 30 minutes out of my way just to go eat sausage, eggs, and grits with butter.
Here I am, at the Best Buy on S Lindbergh (looking momentarily unpopulated, which is weird) on Black Friday, to celebrate that never-ending holiday we Americans are best at: Holiday Commercialism.
I am thankful for a wonderful family that still gets along and looks forward to being together.
And for how fuzzy Sam is.
And for extra foam cushions for sleeping on the floor of dad's office while other guests get the real bedrooms.
And for yummy ChexMix desserts.
And for board games!
When we get together over holidays, board games are always on the menu. Today's treat was Commands & Colors: Ancients, a fun and fairly quick (loose) representation of ancient Greco-Roman warfare. Of course I like it! (I think Aaron won, but you know that history can be fuzzy sometimes...)
We had our Thanksgiving feast today rather than Wednesday, since my oldest brother is celebrating again tomorrow with his wife's folks. But I will tell you, that turkey and my mom's stuffing, gravy, and sweet-potato casserole tastes just as good no matter what day you eat it!
Eating all that food tends to make a body want to relax and kick back.
I'd have to say that Sam (the dog) definitely sets the quality standard in that arena.
Going home is a powerful thing. What is "home"? Where those who know and love you best are? (Or, as I often say: "Where you get your laundry done for free!")
Well, I went home today.
Dad, older brother who now lives in Florida, and my colleague at Wheaton, who is from Spain and thus needed a good place to go.
Hello, St. Louis! Thank you, God, for a home I get excited to visit.
Last day of teaching before Thanksgiving Break begins! Ahh! Thanksgiving break is coming at, shall we say, the right time. I think most all of us feel that way right now on campus.
***Yes, I took a break from blogging over Thanksgiving and am now a bit behind. Don't worry, I'll catch up.***
What a day today! I drove to Muscatine, IA to see the wedding of a friend's brother, then drove on to Iowa City (yay, Iowa City!) to attend the must-see event of the month: my good friend Megan's birthday party! She likes to celebrate. Quite literally. She celebrates pretty much everything. How did we celebrate today?
That picture pretty much sums up Megan in a nutshell.
Then back to Wheaton, IL, all in one day. Worth it, for sure.
The dynamic duo of Mark and Alejandro, compatriots of many foreign language campaigns, stand here in Cantera, having just watched the reality-challenged, special-effects-fueld, end-of-the-world greatness that is 2012. (click for movie trailer)
I mean, in what other movie can you watch an aircraft carrier borne on the front edge of a 1000-foot-tall tidal wave crush the President of the United States?
There is a board in the ground floor of the Student Commons called the "Forum Wall." You are allowed to post pretty much anything and comment on anything in pretty much any way you see fit, as long as it isn't libelous or illegal, etc.
And oh, people do say pretty much anything. I love it! At least once a week I try to get down there to see what random craziness people put up and get a chuckle from it. The picture below is of one that was up there today: it started out as a fairly straightforward request for other people possibly to join the poster on a study abroad experience to Scotland, which then morphed into, well, read it for yourself.
Hilarious. The Braveheart references (Freedom!) crack me up. Oh yes, and the ubiquitous and now seemingly-mandatory query as to whether or not the content is Biblical (both tongue-in-cheek AND serious at the same time, too hilarious). Ah, Wheaties.
2nd-year Faith and Learning Seminar, today @ 4:20pm.
The seminar is a requirement for all new faculty, as an integrated effort to introduce all of us to this wonderful and weird thing known as Wheaton College, in particular its history and quirks in the realms of academics, governance, and spiritual life. A major theme of the seminar is conscious thinking about how we as faculty can go about intelligently integrating our lives of faith and our lives as teachers and academics. It's pretty great to sit a room surrounded by other interesting faculty members and share ideas and just in general get to know each other while discussing things that actually matter.
My job naturally leads me to the Buswell Memorial Library on a fairly regular basis. This has been even more so in recent weeks as I'm doing some research prep for a couple classes I'll be teaching next semester. Some of the books on those shelves are rather old, as I discovered when I pulled this book and looked inside:
I'm pretty glad the library stays open past 5pm these days! But 2 cent fines is alright I suppose...
Socrates bids all who would pursue the self-examined life to approach. But he's generally pretty silent, so you can come in and talk to me. Besides, I speak English, which is another advantage I have over the hemlocked-one.
Lazy day today. Watched some TV, read some, worked some, watched some more TV.
I like watching this guy.
I especially appreciate the irony of my sitting my butt down on the couch, surrounded by food and drink, watching Les Stroud work his tail off while completely isolated in various random wildnerness of the world, often cut off from food and drink, filming a show entirely by himself. (unlike Man vs Wild, which is also great, SurvivorMan has no film crew other than the man himself except on the very beginning when they drop him off and the very end when they find him again).
Okay, I was reading it, set it down, and looked up to find Cinder had dug right in. I suspect she was hoping perhaps it was this version. (seriously, check it out)
Tonight was a special night. My great friend and old roommate Paul asked a lovely girl to marry him, and she said yes. (see them pre-engagement in the middle of this picture from October)
And he then surprised her by bringing her to "a friend's place so he can give you a gift, it'll be nothing, in and out" where we gave her the surprise of her life to cap off what surely was a whirlwind day. And yes, there were two professional chefs on hand (yes, in this guy's apartment...which as you can see looks a bit nicer than mine) to make sure all of us were very happy.
It is one of those special rules of nature that nothing glows quite so brightly as a women who knows she is specially loved. I am proud and happy for my friends. And a tiny bit envious.
I received some CD's in the mail today, the happy result of an old Amazon.com gift certificate I had laying around until recently. They are all recordings of George Winston, working his simple magic on the piano.
Ah, the piano. My favorite instrument. (after the human voice, that is) My mother made me learn piano as a child, and I enjoyed getting better at it, but boy did I sure hate practicing those 30 minutes a day. I mean, there were Nintendo games to play and DuckTales cartoons to watch, for heaven's sake? Did my mother have no sense of balance? Fortunately, my mother proved wiser and stronger than me, and my practicing continued. And then, in high school, that magical thing happened: I started to love playing the piano. But not everything...my passion was find in playing certain kinds of music that, thanks to my older brothers and the Windham Hill record label, I had started to discover. In those days, Yanni (believe it or not) and Jim Brickman rescued my piano-playing career, and I am so very grateful to them for this gift. Now I can play decently well and with some measure of confidence I would never had had except for my mother and those sweet, pensive, soul-searching melodies of Yanni and Brickman, and yes, George Winston.
I've been slowly trying to fill out my Winston CD collection, and as of today I'm a little bit closer. Since I'm something of a sharer, here I will share with you one of my favorite Winston arrangements from his Summer album (which I've owned for quite some time) -- "Living in the Country." My advice is to start it up and just close your eyes, imagining looking out of a country cottage window out into a sun-swept field of wildflowers and behind it hills of summer grain. That's what I see anyway. Songs like this move something in me, and that is a treasure.
Where were you today at 11:11 am, 11/11? (two years from now that will be soooo much cooler) Well, I was doing class prep for Thucydides, but that's not what today's picture is about.
Today was field trip day for my Latin 201 class! We hiked down the hill (and up the stairs, as one student reminded me) to the 3rd floor of BGC where reside the Wheaton College Special Collections. They have a relatively small but very lovely collection of books and manuscript facsimiles in Latin, and I had arranged with David Malone the director over there for a show-and-tell today! What fun!
After a little lecture (by moi) on the techniques of ancient/medieval manuscript manufacturing, we got to look at each of the books set up around the room. The pride of their collection here is an original 1519 edition of Martin Luther's Sermons on the Psalms, originally owned, signed, and written by one of Luther's own students (one Sigimundus), and one of the hand-written marginalia clearly states: "sola fide." It's a little but powerful glimpse into the very foundations of the Protestant Reformation. And all that came after it.
I used to frown on marking up books when I was younger, but I now happily write all kinds of comments in my books, marking them as mine, and offering to it's next, future reader the invitation to continue the conversation. Who knows.... a book of mine might just end up in an archive somewhere one day. You never know.
Tonight I had an invitation: "My house is the big white one, next to a brown-brick bungalow-ish house, where my landlord's elderly mother resides. Come around back and up the stairs, all the way up. 7:30 is fine."
So at 7:30 I climbed the wobbly fire stairs up to the attic apartment of one of Wheaton's archivists, a fine fellow by the name of Keith. He served tea and biscuits (you know what tea and biscuits are, right?) and conversation.
And we held forth for many hours on everything ranging from Mormons to walking to Land's End to UFO sightings to driving through New Mexico to CS Lewis. Here at Wheaton, it usually comes back around to CS Lewis at some point.
Tonight I was up late in the office doing research for a new course I'm teaching next spring semester entitled -- Sacred Songs: History of Greek Hymns. I was planning on teaching it anyway, but with the creation of the Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies, my new course will be cross-listed with that program, and I'm in general very excited about the whole thing. Music! Poetry! Pagan gods! Jesus! Cross-cultural linguistic baggage and religious negotiation! What isn't there to love? The general idea is to spend the first half of the course looking at pre-Christian Greek hymns and spend the second half looking at the early Greek hymns of the Christian church, with an eye toward continuities and differences between the two sets of hymnic material. Can't wait!
In the course of my research on ancient music in general, one important song that pops up is the the Seikilos Stele, a tomb inscription that is famous for including not only a fun little song that passersby are supposed to sing but also the actual musical notation so that people will know what notes to sing! The inscription has been dated from anywhere around 200 BC - AD 100, but anywhere in that period makes this the oldest song with intact (non-fragmentary) original musical notation anywhere in the world! Here is a drawing of the inscription:
Crazy, eh? I LOVE Greek (and Latin)! The musical notations are the weird tiny symbols above the various words in the song (the 6 lines of text that have symbols above them). Check out this link for an explanation and a pretty sweet modern recording of the song!
Today was an another amazingly gorgeous day. Temps hit 71 this afternoon. In November! I could have put up a picture of my glorious bike ride down to Herrick Lake and over to the Danada Equestrian Park. I could have put up a picture of the yumsky dinner I shared at Red Robin with Nathan (new roommate) and his family and various friends. But instead, I will put up a picture of what is now an old acquaintance:
Mr. Leaf!
He is drooping a bit. Is the end near?! Say it ain't so! Don't go Mr. Leaf! (what's amazing is that you can clearly see some of the other leaves on the tree that are still completely green!)
A beautiful day! A beautiful day is upon us! I had to take advantage of the gorgeous day we had today, so I took an hour or so break from work this afternoon, hopped on my bike, and headed over to the nearby Lincoln Marsh, a little gem of peace and quiet just around the corner a mile or so from campus.
I watched ducks quietly quack by and the stars start to come out. [moment of peace on earth]
This evening I happened to open up a book that my new roommate has kindly brought with him: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I literally grew up with these comics, and they would greet me every morning when I'd look at the morning paper while I at breakfast (skipping the boring politics and business news and going straight to the "Everyday" section). I do not exaggerate when I say that it is without a doubt my favorite comic strip of all time. The reason is not just that it "speaks to me," as the saying goes. In a way, I essentially sort of lived Calvin and Hobbes. Not that Calvin is "just like me" or anything like that. There are similarities and differences. But the way in which Calvin and Hobbes both in their turn see and interact with the world have profoundly both reflected and shaped my own experience of life.
To quote Bill Watterson, creator and artist, from his introduction to The Complete C&H: "In Calvin and Hobbes, I used my childhood--sometimes straight out of the can, sometimes wildly fictionalized, and sometimes as a meaphor for my twenties and thirties--to talk about my life and the issues that interested me. Without exactly intending to, I learned a lot about what I love--imagination, deep friendship, animals, family, the natural world, ideas, ideals...and silliness. These things make my life meaningful..."
If you add God to the list, his list almost perfectly describes me. If you, faithful reader, would like insight into my mind and heart, what makes me tick, studying the comic / philosophical / humanitarian genius of Calvin and Hobbes is a tremendous place to start.
Wheaton is in the process of building a brand-spanking new science building, and they're making good progress. While faculty and students won't get to go in for some time yet, one guy I know of is already getting ready to make the switch.
A little over a week ago, I came down with a cold for a few days and gamely fought through it, discovering in the process that the ultimate weapon one can wield against a nasty cold is 10 hours of sleep. "Sweet sleep" as the Greeks would say. I shared this with my friend Anna, which apparently proved somewhat inspirational. For lo and behold, what did I find waiting for me on my doorstep the other day but a package from Anna! A real genuine-article package from a real person! (this doesn't happen that often, so by itself it is worthy of celebration) When I opened the package, the descriptive instructions (hand-written onto the packaging itself, I might add) boldly declared the contents to be The (chronologically incorrect) Penultimate Cold-Fighting Weapon! Hallelujah!
The ginger cookies (by Anna, the box says so) and the Sleepytime tea thus far have done the best to sustain me during this dangerous time of dubiously-obtainable patterns of regular sleep, but surely the Emergen-C and Ricola will bring their preservational powers to bear when a sally is needed against the ever-present cold foe.
But mostly, it warms the heart to know you have cool and thoughtful friends.
(PS - those commercials in the links above are pretty funny)
Two of my Latin 201 students were in the choir (Men's Glee Club and Women's Chorale, respectively), AND the Requiem text is in Latin, so I first had our whole class translate the Latin text over two class periods this past week, and then I offered extra credit to any student who attended. I like to support the arts and culture. (through bribes if necessary...)
Every year Wheaton College hosts a big-time Talent Show to allow undergrad students the chance to show off and strut their stuff. Well, it was tonight. I didn't go last year, and I ended up not going this year either, but it was *the* buzz of campus today. A professor I had lunch with gave me two VIP tickets to the show that some students had given him, but I wasn't sure what to do with them. A couple hours later I sit down with my TA Julia to work through a stack of papers that needed to be graded and she says: "Hey, do you know where I can find two tickets to the Talent Show tonight? They're sold out." The result?
Priceless.
As was this piece performed at the Talent Show by a bunch of Mantastic guys, some of whom I know. Ahh... the joys of college life.
Today was the day many people at Wheaton have been working toward for a long time. Tonight marked the official opening of the new Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies. And as the Classics guy on campus (and the only person teaching Latin, and one of only a few teaching Greek) I get to be a part of this! We had a fancy-pants dinner:
followed by the inaugural lecture given by Dr. Robert Louis Wilken (out of U Virginia), which was very stimulating.
I have to say that it feels *very* good to be connected with the only center for Patristics studies attached to an evangelical school in the nation. It's sort of ironic really... ten years ago I actually visited Catholic University of America out near DC and talked with the faculty that teach Patristics since I was interested in studying it. But I opted for the more traditional Classics route, and I have loved every minute of it. And now, here I am, the Classics professor at Wheaton College, being invited to participate with a new center for Patristics studies on the early church. God is good.
My brother Aaron is in town right now because of mandatory training sessions (which he calls monumental waste of time and resources, since he already knows how to do his job). The side benefit is that we had the opportunity to see each other, so I headed downtown tonight to meet up with and catch some dinner on the town!
We found a nice Thai restaurant close to his hotel, and we had some fun sharing stories and in general being brothers. At one point it struck me that something altogether new and noteworthy was taking place: although we have known each other our whole lives (well, at least all of my life, and all but three of his years) and although we hang out on a regular basis when I'm in St. Louis or wherever, it has almost always been a situation of domesticity of some sort, at somebody's house. This was, I think, the first time we had ever met in a neutral location, at the end of the business day, both of us meeting up after working at our professional jobs, two brothers both in their 30's, and meeting up in the active, thriving downtown of a very large American city to boot.
Gosh, the whole thing was ... well, so adult-ish. What am I turning into? A responsible, employed adult? Well, it had to happen someday. Getting older can be kind of cool sometimes.
