Mín Englisc Blog

Sorry for such a late post, but I've been busy tonight. With readings due for both normal classes tomorrow, I wouldn't be up so late, if not for one factor: TADs. In the humanities class, we have to write small essays ("Threaded Academic Discussions", "TAD"s) periodically on the course matters, and tonight was one of the due dates. Besides writing mine, I decided to write my required review on one of the essays by one of the other two people in my TAD group. This made for a significantly larger study load tonight. I'm just glad I can do this now, getting it out of the way. I have to write a 5-6 page paper for Friday's European history class, and I have a 750-1000 word essay due on Wednesday next week for American history — and do a book and possibly a paper for Thursday next week for humanities. The book is Night, by a Holocaust survivor, about the Holocaust.
To relieve the boredom from reading some class materials, around 1:30 I decided to watch a couple of cartoons. You can find various Looney Tunes shorts online. Since I've been listening a lot lately to Wagner's operas, I decided to find What's Opera, Doc?, a parody of the "Ring Cycle" of operas. It was enjoyable when I was little, and now that I'm somewhat familiar with the storyline, it's much better. When Elmer's plunging the rabbit hole with his spear, he's shouting "Johohohoe" multiple times: something you might not find worthy of remark, but lines like "Johohohoe" and "Hoiho" are found a bit in the Ring.

In case you wonder about that odd post, it was intended to test Blogger's not-the-greatest posting yesterday and today — it was publishing either slower than normal or not at all.

Today was the first time that I had been to class at Eastvale in four weeks, due to various factors. It's good to be there for everything! Dr. Robson preached from the last four verses of Hebrews 5, in which we see the writer instructing us toward greater maturity.
Tomorrow morning, I have my meeting with my advisor to arrange my class schedule. It's still two weeks before I'll be able to register...


Here's a picture of four certain Indiana people, taken at Titus Martin's house tonight.


Recently, I've heard some interesting quotes, including these three. Enjoy!

From Fiddler on the Roof:
Tevye: [to God] As the Good Book says, ev...
[chuckles]
Tevye: Why should I tell You what the Good Book says?

Tevye: about Motel and Tzeitel: "They're so happy, they don't know how miserable they are".

In my History of Islam class, a source discussing syncretism in parts of the 18th- and 19th-century Ottoman Empire:
"When asked their religion, peasants in Western Macedonia would cross themselves and declare themselves Muslims, but of the Virgin Mary"

test post

I just returned from "Harvest of the Houses", a social event put on by the residence houses here at Geneva. It was supposed to be at the park up by 37th and 38th Streets, but weather forced it into Skye Lounge. The kareoke music was loud (therefore I avoided the music a lot of the time!), but otherwise it was quite enjoyable. FAR better than simply staying in my room all night, especially since many people I know are off campus this weekend.

Ugghh...sorry for no post yesterday and for such a short post now. I've been somewhat lethargic (with less to do) and also somewhat busy. Luke Dinkledine and Andrew Doerr visited campus yesterday and today, with Andrew staying with Peter Work and Luke staying with Scott and me. It was nice, but not as much as I'd hoped for. Nothing with him: it's just that he was extremely sleepy, so he went to bed just after 8PM, so I didn't have the time to talk with him as I wanted.
At any rate, I hope to see them here next year. We need more Indiana RPs at Geneva!

A couple of different notes:
• Tonight was the organisation service for the new Westside Indianapolis congregation.
• St. Louis won the World Series tonight.

This morning, in my American history class, I received back my test, in which I was quite satisfied with the grade.
This morning, as well, I finished work on my second paper that's due tomorrow. I need to get some source information for it, but otherwise it's complete. Meanwhile, the first paper needs only to be printed and stapled.
With those done and otherwise little classwork coming up immediately (although I have a midterm in History of Islam on Monday afternoon), it's time to prepare next semester's schedule. I'm probably going to try for two history classes (not sure which ones yet), a class to fulfil the HUM 304 requirement (quite possibly something on the Psalms, with Dr. Curtis, if I can fit), and a nonlab science (hopefully an acoustics course with Mr. Schaefer, one of our elders). I'll also look to get something else, an elective, for the first time in college.

Tonight at Dessert and Devotions, Matt Filbert announced that Pastor Bob Hemphill intends to resign the pastorate of Westminster RPC (in Colorado) in order to take up a church planting effort in Laramie, Wyoming.

Fall break, officially, is now over.

Since it's rather late :-) now, I'll make this short. Essentially: my parents came for the fall break weekend, arriving somewhat more than an hour after my last final concluded. We went up to my mother's parents' house in Lawrence County, less than half an hour from here, for the weekend. During that time, I had a haircut from the man who cut my father's hair when they lived in the area; we attended Geneva's football game against Taylor (36-6 Geneva :-), where I saw a couple people from Indiana with whom I'd not talked in nearly two years; we worshipped at Rose Point, hearing the Rev. Charles Brown (pastor at Westminster RPC near Chicago) and taking the Sacrament; attended Eastvale's evening Bible study and got to see people; we saw a good deal of my grandparents. During the time, I managed to listen to the first two of the four operas in Wagner's Ring Cycle (Das Rheingold and Die Walküre), and I heard the third one (Siegfried) tonight. They needed to get back home, so they returned today, even though I don't have class until Wednesday.
Tonight, I finished a paper that I began over the weekend, a three-page paper for my humanities class that's due on Thursday. Besides that, I have what's effectively a four-page paper and a five-minute presentation for my weightlifting class on Thursday as well. I'll just be glad to be done with homework for this class...
Beside doing some work, I decided to finish reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I had forgotten some specific bits, but not much. One thing that struck me (incidentally, while I was typing the paper): I guess Snape's treatment of Neville, throughout all six books, must be related to the prophecy. I wonder why I didn't notice that before?

Tests are over. HIS 252 went quite well. HIS 221, however, I'm not so sure about: I knew the information, but she required tons of writing in less than the normal 55-minute time.

Well, I'm soon to go to bed (finally) here, looking toward my two final exams tomorrow. In case you wonder: I had two hours of nap, so that's why I'm up so late.
HIS 252, Modern America, is a test beginning at 0745 covering American history during the Depression and the Second World War. I've covered this information quite thoroughly (I believe) today, not studying much in past days otherwise. Scott was helpful this evening, testing me on vocabulary (names and events), which went very well.
HIS 221, Early Modern Europe, is a test beginning at 1325 covering European history 1500-1650. I've not studied this information quite as much, but I plan to cover it more thoroughly tomorrow (since I have several hours of time). Again, Scott was helpful this evening by testing me.

The speech didn't go the best. PowerPoint is difficult to set up for the first time, and the layout of the desk made it nearly impossible to see my notes. However, since I knew what I was talking about, I was able to give the speech with very little reference to those notes. The professor seemed to have liked it :-)

Random notes: Classes were not impressive today. Isaac took the PSAT today and thinks that he did well on it. I spent some time at the Fitness Center, walking on a treadmill and studying. I have a speech in COM 101 at 9:30.
Tonight, we watched A Streetcar Named Desire. I'd heard of it but knew nothing about it. Frankly, as far as classic older movies go, I far prefer Casablanca. Desire was interesting, but the whole movie was unusual, especially as Blanche became weird and seemed as if fey. Actually, the movie seemed rather similar to Kate Chopin's The Awakening, with the setting and the morals, the heroine's flirting with multiple men at once and her changing state of mind, the heroine's rich and "proper" background.

I just voted. Woohoo. My image of voting is of my parents walking to the municipal building in Belle Center and using the usual machines. Instead, I got a ballot in the mail and filled in the little ovals while reclining on my bed. At least there is one benefit (besides the obvious geographic benefits!) of absentee voting: I can vote at 12:45 AM :-)
Curious on what you think about an aspect of voting: party voting or candidate voting? I voted for a few people I knew little or nothing about, because I know what their party advocates for Ohio. Similarly, I voted for a candidate I dislike for the US Senate because I believe that a senator's most important vote is for Bill Frist or Harry Reid as majority leader. On the other hand, I abstained from a few contests in which (1) there was no listed party affiliation, and (2) I knew too little about the candidates to vote in an informed manner.
The question is this: do you think that this is a good idea, especially with voting for the unknown party members? Overall, my idea is that because I support one party, and because I know that party candidates are very likely to behave in accord with the way that their party behaves, I vote for the candidates because their officeholding will help the party.

North Korea Calls U.N. Sanctions for Nuclear Test 'Declaration of War'

O Lord, preserve peace!

Really not much has happened today. I've continued with work on my speech for COM 101 and finished work on a small review that I had due for that class. I did laundry. I found eleven cents on the ground. I missed the Scout troop meeting because my driver wasn't there. I did other things that aren't in my sleepy mind right now. Good night.

Almost everything went well at the house where I stayed last night. As I reported then, so it was in the morning: everyone was altogether hospitable, I enjoyed the time, and my friend's father told me that I really should come back some time. The only problems I had were with sleeping: (1) Last night, when they were inflating the air mattress, I told them to stop too early, thus leaving it underinflated and uncomfortable, and (2) I forgot that the sun will come in the east window and awaken sleepers earlier than they intended. It's amazing that these people can host an extra person without warning, as if my visit had been planned in advance — and so great that the only problems I had were my own doing.
Dr. Robson is out of town, so our preacher today was Dr. Gamble, from the Seminary. His topic was on Luke 5 (?), the passages with Jesus preaching in Peter's boat and having him catch tons of fish, and with the leper coming to Jesus. I greatly appreciated the significance of the man coming to town: as he was unclean, he was not at all supposed to come there, and Jesus most definitely was not supposed to touch him. Touch him! Can you imagine how it would be to be touched by a healthy person for the first time in years?

In case you wonder why I've disappeared tonight: on a whim, I decided to accept an invitation from a couple of friends to stay overnight. Therefore, I'm staying at his house in southern Pittsburgh tonight, where she can stay with his sister. It's interesting to visit somewhere else for the night, especially in such an unexpected situation! They entire family (whom I had not met previously) were altogether hospitable — I couldn't have asked for more. My friends will be driving me up to campus tomorrow morning in time for church — so yes, I did cover that angle as well :-)
The parade went quite well. It was somewhat boring, since I saw very little of the parade and since there were very few people for the majority of the parade route. Of course, once we neared campus, there were lots of people, but not too many watch from near the Salvation Army thrift store at 19th Street :-) After being in this, I'm definitely inclined to watch next year's parade instead of participate. I guess I've inherited my mother's spirit — I really didn't like not hearing from the bands!
Alumni Band was held this year. Every other year, alumni at Homecoming who were in the band can participate with the current student band during the football game. Mom has sometimes participated in it, but with Dad's biopsy, there was no way that they could come now. Therefore, I did my best to record everything on my camera, getting lots of pictures and several minutes of film. As expected, one of the highlights was Mr. Al Miller, one of our members at Eastvale, who is a baton twirler. During his college years, he was the national champion baton twirler, and even being in his mid-70s doesn't keep him from performing very well!

It appears that I am soon to join Geneva's Homecoming Parade, riding on the Memorial Hall float.

NO CANCER

For the first time, it's growing on me...The biopsy is at 8:30...O praise the LORD, for He is good!

PED 101 was cancelled this morning, so I didn't have class until 9:30 :-)
Little significant occurred otherwise. Lunch, as normal, was pleasant — I'll usually be meeting the same two people for the each Tuesday and Thursday for the forseeable future. I've almost never eaten with friends in the Brig — it's small enough and its takeout option mean that there are often few people eating there, except at those times when I'm getting takeout myself.
By the way, the Student Senate or whatever they're called decided to appropriate money for new trays at the Brig. There had been none because of thefts. Hopefully we'll see less of that this year...
We heard that a close relation of one of our elders had a successful major surgery today and that she is doing quite well!
Dad has his biopsy tomorrow morning. Apparently, we'll get the results tomorrow as well.

With the possibility of Dad having cancer, it's important to remember God's care for us. I myself am not really thinking about it much (as I may have said already), but it's still key. I am so often forgetting God's care for me, even in small matters! Therefore, I decided to post these two small verses, Habakkuk 3:17-18:

Though the fig tree does not bud
And there are no grapes on the vines,
Though the olive crop fails
And the fields produce no food,
Though there are no sheep in the pen
And no cattle in the stalls,
Yet will I rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

I remember when Dad preached through this passage some years ago. He made the point that this is not an economic downturn like we think of, or even the Great Depression. This is starvation. Habakkuk is declaring that he will praise God through the greatest difficulty. Can you imagine starvation? This is not even a quick death, nor one of incurable illness. You would know that you were dying because you lacked a simple thing, that your death could easily be prevented by that which many other people had in surplus. And yet he praises God! Come what may, now just eight hours away, God will protect my father, and God be ever praised!

Little of importance has occurred over the past two days. I should post something about it, but I've not gotten around to it previously, and it's not on my mind now, so I won't.

Tonight at Tony's, we watched Fiddler on the Roof. I knew what it was about, and I had even watched it once (when I was little), but I had no idea how deeply it went. All I remembered were the rabbi's blessings and the scene at the end where the men believe that living in Chicago and New York will make them neighbors. I am extremely thankful that they put it on: I have wanted to see it again for many months, but not until now have I actually seen it.

Does this man look like he could fit in Fiddler? This man was my great-great-grandfather, my grandfather's grandfather, whom he remembered as long as his mind was hale. Mr. Pokrass was born and raised in the Ukraine, where he lived until he was more than forty years old. In the 1890s, when my family were expelled as part of a pogram, they went to London; several years later, most of them continued westward to America.
When I consider the movie compared to my ancestors, I'm just amazed. Take the shtetl of the movie and replace it with a city, and you have my ancestors' home environment. Make it ten years before. Make the people speak Yiddish (since obviously English wouldn't be a factor!). Make them grocers instead of milkmen. There are so many similarities with my family history, it's amazing. We even have the socialist radical!
I kept thinking during the movie: wouldn't it be amazing to visit them? Truly it would be amazing. But to be there in that time...what oppression (not to mention the aforesaid lack of English), what poverty, what civil strife, what hatred I might face for my Christianity...I am so thankful that I live where I do now, and that God worked through anti-Semitism in two different major ways to lead my grandfather to Christ.

A picture of one of our demonstrations in my speech class

You found no post yesterday because of the erratic Internet: by the late afternoon, it was frequently alternating on/off/on/off/on/off. You can imagine that it caused serious problems for instant messaging as well!
I worshipped at Geneva RPC yesterday morning, vising there because of a lunch invitation from Dr. and Mrs. Robert Tweed. Our preacher — Mr. Tim McClain, one of the elders there, who is attending RPTS — discussed Peter's denials of Christ. This helps me to remember, along other things, that we are always vulnerable, that I need to ware myself lest I fall into sin. Because I wasn't paying attention, I missed my ride to Geneva for evening worship, so I ended up worshipping at College Hill instead. I was disappointed not to see my uncle and aunt.
Visiting at these two churches, I felt rather odd. Although there are many people from those congregations whom I know, especially at Geneva, I felt as an outsider. Those with whom I spoke welcomed me and sought to make me feel comfortable, but it still feels odd not to be at Eastvale. It's hard — very hard — being the only student at Eastvale, but yesterday only reinforced my feelings. It's uncomfortable, being in such a large group of people after worship and standing around looking for someone with whom to talk. How good it is to know and to be able to talk with anyone at church!

Today's classes went decently well. There is virtually nothing of import (other than the continued North Korea crisis) for me to post, so I won't.

United States Confirms North Korean Nuclear Test

Today has generally been rather relaxed. I got up at 11:00, went to lunch, and then went to church. After returning, I returned to my room and then went to get dinner. In the evening, I went up to Young for a little while. With little work to do, I wrote an essay for my humanities class and did little else.
This afternoon, seven of us Geneva students went over to church, along with an out-of-town friend and a recent graduate. There, we met five people from the congregation to do simple door-to-door work in Eastvale: distribution of fliers advertising the church and Treasure Diggers. As before, I don't know how this will go, but even a little time spent in the service of God is blessed.
Dinner was interesting: I had been busy on my computer when I suddenly realised that the dining hall was closed. I didn't want pizza. What could I do? I considered going downtown to the Arby's or McDonald's, but it was already past 6:00, and I do not want to go downtown after dusk. I eventually got carryout from the Sub Palace, a small family-owned restaurant just off campus. It was $4.50 for a half-sub, but it turned out to be a nine-inch bun that was significantly wider than one at Subway or at the Brig here on campus. If I had been able to get as many vegetables as I can normally, I'm sure I would have had more food than a footlong at Subway.
Recently, I've taken several pictures that I wanted to post but never got around to posting. Here are four of them:


Taken at home, over the summer. Looks like Wal-Mart needs to do some cleaning.


The Rev. Paul Brace, the pastor of Rimersburg RPC.


For this, look here and here.


Mike Minor, our MultiCultural Ambassador, has no camera, so he's had me take several for him. He doesn't normally look like this :-)

Today was overall somewhat more relaxed than other days this week. Classes went well — we watched more of the movie in HIS 270 today, including a scene directly from Monty Python's Flying Circus — and I think I did well in the one quiz I had.
We ended up watching a movie in HIS 252, the modern America class: a War Department support-the-war film produced during the Second World War. I found it rather interesting and enjoyed watching it — not to mention finding it useful for the class's purpose. Of course, there were some problems with the movie: when showing Italy's conquest of defenceless Ethiopia, it conveniently forgot to mention that Ethiopia had defeated a similar Italian conquest attempt fewer than fifty years earlier. As well, when it showed a slave world (Axis) against a free world (Allies), there was absolutely no mention of Russia (except a short bit about them being invaded), nothing at all of their political climate. I suppose I should expect that; the Roosevelt administration was always more comfortable with the "Great Uncle", and I shouldn't expect the War Department to treat even a dictator radically differently.
I should mention that I finally have a refrigerator. Since Tony is in the apartments this year, he gave me the small refrigerator that we used last year, which he told me before the end of last schoolyear. It took more than a month to get it, however, as it was in storage and we hadn't been able to get a vehicle. Would you like to carry a refrigerator six city blocks?
Tomorrow, we're doing door-to-door literature distribution in Eastvale, similar to what we did a year ago. We should see good attendance by workers — some of my friends have volunteered to come. Let's all pray that our attendance at church might be increased, especially by people being saved by God.

My test for COM 101 seems to have gone well. I'll be extremely surprised if I get everything correct, but overall I should have a pretty good result. It's always nice when the test is a lot easier than you feared.
In my discussion for HUM 303 today, each small group was assigned to put itself psychologically in the place of the main character in Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" and answer questions from there. I'll tell you, it was weird for me to be talking about "he wants to marry us".

On a side note: I seem to have memorized the first line of the Lord's Prayer in Arabic without intending to.
Abana ilaði fi-ssamawati li-yataqaddas ismulka
As I may have mentioned before, Professor Werthmuller has us read the Prayer once each week in class, and enough of these readings makes the words somewhat familiar. I suppose this really isn't very practical knowledge, but it is interesting anyway. Just one more note: as "Our Father..." is analogous to "Abana ilaði", remember that Hebrew "Abraham" and "Abram" refers to "father". Now that I've totally lost you, I'll finish this post before you fall asleep :-)

Time for my test in COM 101. I've not studied too much, but I think I'm properly prepared. I privately scorned Mrs. Jewell's idea of giving us a quiz on Tuesday to prepare us for today, but I now recognise this as having been a good idea. Another example of a shortsighted college student :-)
Today is the first session of Treasure Diggers for the year.

While I sit here in HIS 221, waiting for class to begin, I'm remembering some pictures we saw in the HIS 270 class last period. Professor Werthmuller showed us parts of the movie Crusaders, made by one of the Monty Python people. Although it's strongly anti-Crusader, and somewhat joking (what do you expect from someone with Monty Python?), I was amazed by some of the scenes. Amazing, especially, were the various shots of the Theodosian Walls at Istanbul, many closeups and one aerial view. And this is their degenerate condition after more than five hundred years! Fancy going back to Constantinople 1000 years ago, in the years of Basil II, when the Empire was the strongest it had been for many centuries. Imagine seeing the Theodosian Walls in their full power, the Hagia Sophia in its full glory and with no minarets!


This isn't the best picture, but it does look better than what it looks like today.

This is post #1000 on this blog. Wow. It's hard to believe that I've been blogging for a bit over two years now!
Singing in chapel did not go well today. They tried having bits of Psalm 55 set to the tune of some historic spiritual — not at all a problem in the concept, but still...The tune has the words repeat several times each stanza, and it's mostly slurred eighth notes and sixteenth notes. Between these factors, it was really hard to tell where we were in the tune, and hard to figure out where we were going next. Very few people around me were singing. Still, it's a good idea to go for different kinds of tunes, since some people really are put off by traditional tunes.
This morning I got results back from two tests: (1) in HIS 252, where I found I'd done quite well, better than I expected, especially on the essay, and (2) my blood test, which has now been faxed to my doctors back home. The optimal levels of the medicine in the blood are between 10 and 20 microgrammes per millilitre, and I registered at 25. I'll probably be calling the neurologist's office in Belle Center tomorrow.

For some weeks, we have been aware of the problem I mentioned with Dad's health in yesterday's post. I would have posted more yesterday, but I wasn't sure whether it were appropriate. Since Dad put it on Covienet, however, there's no question.
In summary: Dad will soon have a small lump of lymph tissue removed from his neck. It's 2-1 that there's no danger — but while the 2 isn't a problem, that 1 would mean cancer. If so, it is likely either a sort of lymphoma or a thyroid cancer.
Please pray for all of us through this. It's not hitting me really out here, separated from my parents by two hundred miles, but it's still on the back of my mind. I don't think I need to talk very much about how it's hitting my parents, especially as it's likely to be on their minds all the time. It's obviously too late to pray "please keep this from being cancer", but it's not too late to pray (1) for wisdom and composure for us regardless of the results, and (2) for his health and safety if it be cancer.
If you want to see the whole text of the email and you aren't on Covienet, just email me at the address at the top of this page.

Kyrie Eleison

With not much time, I can say little. Classes today went well, although a family matter kept Professor Werthmuller from arriving on time. I discovered, however, that I have a paper that I may well need to do by Wednesday night — not nice. Tonight I've been preparing for a COM 101 quiz tomorrow morning. Furthermore, I have a COM test on Thursday morning — why must we have a quiz in the class immediately before a test?
Please pray for my personality. I've had a hard time remembering that God will carry me through difficulty, and I know I'm not trusting God as I should. I need to calm down and remember that God makes my path straight.
Also: Dad had to go to the doctor for something today. I don't know what it was, but it's still not nice for him to have to be going to the doctor.