Mín Englisc Blog

Before beginning discussion, my humanities subgroup filled out the required course evaluations. Besides the basic questions on the form, Geneva always requires answers to six questions according to the following criteria:
(1) Strongly Disgree; (2) Disagree; (3) Neutral; (4) Agree; (5) Strongly Agree
• Geneva's mission to integrate faith and learning is an important value to me personally: 5
• This course provided a clear understand of the relationship between Christian faith and the topics of this course: 1
• Course assignments required me to utilize a Christian perspective: 1
• The required readings helped me to develop a Christian perspective on the topics of this course: 1
• The instructor helped me to develop a Christian perspective on the topics of this course: 4
• This course encouraged me to pursue greater understanding about the relationship between Christian faith and academics: 1
Personally, I'm not very excited about having a course that glorifies postmodernism. And this is a core course! Let there be changes in the curriculum!

In History of Islam today, instead of Professor Werthmuller, we had a guest speaker: Mrs. Werthmuller. As an Egyptian woman, she was seen by Prof. Werthmuller as an excellent source for talking about life for women in a modern culture dominated by Islam.
Normally I'd not like to be up this late, but I'm comfortable for a little longer, for two reasons: (1) my PED 101 class's weightlifting requirements were made heavier but repetitions cut in half, so I can finish in less time and get up later, and (2) after class today, I decided to take a short nap, which ended up lasting for three hours.

Happy 20th birthday to Avery Mann! Several of us staged a surprise for her tonight after Dessert & Devotions, with the presents being what we purchased last night. I got several funny pictures, but requests for permission to post them was quickly denied

I was very thankful to God for providing replacement books so soon, much better than I had feared. I think I could have continued with borrowing books every so often, but it would have been far harder with finals.
This evening, before going to Filberts', I went to the Fitness Center to walk a little on a treadmill while reading a book due next week for the humanities class. In case the books were only lost inside the center (where the class is held), I notified the desk attendent. To my surprise, after a little while, he presented me with my books! While I thought I had searched the facility thoroughly, I must not have done as well as I thought. Apparently, they were in a corner, behind a machine (if I guess correctly, the most out-of-the-way machine there), one on top of the other. Now I need to return the borrowed textbooks tomorrow.

Another reason I'm glad I came to a small college with one-on-one interaction with my professors:
Despite having my books disappear and likely stolen, I'll not greatly suffer. Both my speech professor and my humanities professor have loaned me extra copies of the course books, so I'll have "my own" book for each class until the final is over. At the recommendation of the speech professor, I warned the bookstore of the matter, so it's theoretically possible that, if they were stolen and the person sought to resell the books, I might get them back. Of course, if they would try to resell to another student, that wouldn't help much at all.

Today, I think, is the closest I could come to skipping a class without actually skipping it. If not for the five-point penalty for every missed class, I would have slept in.
At the class, meanwhile, I managed to lose my speech textbook and humanities reader and binder. It's a good thing that I don't have too many more readings for the speech class and can borrow the reader for humanities, although studying for finals will be harder if I don't get them back. At least I didn't have any un-turned-in papers in them. Since my name is throughout the binder (all my returned work), I know an honest person won't have trouble returning them.

This evening, I went with a couple of other people to Wal-Mart, where I decided to use my gift card (for the first time, despite having gone to Wal-Mart several times since I got it over a year ago!) and buy a CD of Christmas music: sixty traditional pieces for less than $5! Despite the hour, our ride back seemed blissfully peaceful: all was quiet outside, Christmas lights were shining on the houses, carols and traditional Christmas music were on the CD player (not my CD, another), and I was sitting with two good friends. Yes, the weather wasn't quite appropriate (I had my window wide open all afternoon), but I frankly don't care.

Thanksgiving Break is here!

STUPID Chicago Manual: I have to put in a bibliography for my paper on Candide, which I have in an anthology, but there's no listing for works from anthologies in Chicago, so I had to use the "books quoted in books" listing. Oh well; the principles of metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology prove without a doubt that the Chicago Manual was created expressly for the purpose of confusing anthology-users.

Just wanted to note that church today was very good; I appreciated Mr. Martin's powerfully-preached sermons that related the sacrament to the death of Christ in everything we discussed. Although one family were absent, we still had 28 communicants today (from at least six different churches in at least three different denominations) and a total of 37 people.

Halftime: Ohio State winning 28-14.

This weekend is an RP college conference, held at the Gibsonia Study Center in north Pittsburgh. I went to it last year, and I would go this year, but we have communion this week, and I would not miss it. It's a pity it was scheduled on top of the Sacrament, but it's impossible to schedule something without getting in the way of anything else for dozens of people.
Tonight was our preparatory service. Pastor Paul Martin, recently reordained, is officiating for us this week; he preached tonight from the first chapter of Habakkuk. The book is an expression of devastation and mourning and of awaiting God seemingly forever. However, I appreciate the end: "though the fields do not produce, and though the grapes wither on the vine, I will still praise God." How good it is to praise God in the face of stark adversity — and the adversity caused by such a famine in ancient Israel would have led to widespread starvation. Praising God through and despite starvation!

This evening, I finished August 1914. It is a sad book, although I do like many of the characters. Colonel Vorotyntsev is impressive, but my favorite is Arsenii Blagodaryov. He's faithful, he's willing to help, he's strong enough to do a lot, and (despite getting confused about billiard tables) he knows a lot. His best scene, in my mind, is the burial of Colonel Kabanov, where he sings the entire burial service (playing the parts of both deacon and choir leader), performing excellently, despite being just a peasant.
This morning, I gave my persuasive speech, speaking on why you should attend church family conferences. Not sure how well it went over, although the professor seemed somewhat happy with it. She noted that she really appreciated my playing part of a recording of Psalm 20B from Calvin, hearing the power of 1,500 voices lifted in praise to God.

Sorry for no post again yesterday. Around 7:30, I decided to take a nap and asked Scott to wake me up at 7:50, so that I could go to Filberts' by 8:00. He did this exactly. However, I promptly (accidentally) fell asleep again, and (except for a few minutes) slept until 6:30 this morning. Sleep is good, but I missed Filberts' and a good deal of work time.
Classes yesterday went decently: not amazingly, but not at all badly. There's really almost nothing to report, except that my speech class was cancelled for my group-presentation group to discuss our group presentation. Thinking of that class, I have a persuasive speech tomorrow morning.

This past week, I've been reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's August 1914, about the enormous Russian defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg during the first two weeks of the First World War. Overall, it's a really sad book, showing the utter chaos in the Russian army and the despair of some of the few generals who really knew what to do and couldn't (including the army commander, who committed suicide). However, there are a few fun parts, mostly fictional, such as the following. In this situation, the Russians are still advancing, and some peasant soldiers have captured an estate house.

The house was full of marvels. There had been a mirror covering the whole of one wall which had been smashed by the troops, who had picked up the pieces to see their reflections. Most of the furniture had been overturned or smashed. And there was the strangest billiard table: it had no cloth and no sides, and was black and smooth and shaped like an ax. How did they keep the balls from rolling off?

What do you think the "billiard table" really was? The next two sentences are typed in white letters: highlight them when you're tired of guessing.
"Bumpkin!" A lieutenant pushed the soldier's forage cap down over his face. "That's not a billiard table, that's a grand piano!"

I finished registering with everything I needed! I was able to log in almost immediately, far better than I imagined! I was praying to be able to get in rather fast, but this surpassed my expectations completely.
Here is my schedule for the spring semester:
BIB 200 MWF 0905-1000 How to Read the Bible: D. Terry Thomas
HIS 260 MWF 1535-1630 History of Latin America: ERic Miller
PHY 160 TH 0800-0930 Acoustics: John Schaefer
HIS 222 TH 1100-1220 History of Europe 1815-date: Andrea Smidt
BIB 303 TH 1530-1650 Study of the Psalms: Byron Curtis
Besides getting my schedule taken care of, I also did something else intesting today: I declared a Bible minor. This is a major reason for taking the Psalms course (which fulfils a specific requirement). My advisor suggested it as a way of filling up elective credits, and I'm looking forward to it.

Tonight I register for classes. We'll see how it goes. Of my five desired courses, I'm pretty much certain of three. Another has only eight seats left, but I have two backup classes that each have twice as many openings. My Bible class is the most precarious: there's only one seat open, I know I'll not be able to register for it tonight (due to paperwork), and apparently the instructor is not planning to add anyone extra. I suppose I can take a still-mostly-empty logic course to make up for it if I can't get it, but I'd prefer not to. Therefore, I'm going to try a backdoor way of getting into it: besides the Bible seats, there are also eight seats for humanities credit instead of Bible credit. I'm hoping to register for it as a humanities class and then switch it to Bible from humanities, since I'll already have gotten a seat in the class. I don't know whether that's allowed, but it doesn't matter right now — and I'm going to try to talk with the professor early this afternoon anyway.

I guess this is what I get for having 58⅔ credits when having 60 credits would have allowed me to register a week ago.

I'm feeling a good deal better today. I skipped going to class this morning, but by church time I was feeling pretty good. Although I'm not perfect, I'm also not dizzy and not as stuffy, and I don't have much fever left.

Sorry for no posting over such a long time! I had a paper due on Friday of last week, another due on Wednesday, and another on Thursday, so I was extremely busy and staying up late. Therefore, I needed to sleep a lot more than I normally do. I ended up falling asleep at 2045 Thursday evening, awakening at 0045 Friday morning, staying awake for nearly four hours, and awakening at 0745 yesterday. Friday morning was fine, but at lunch I began to become cold. With three full hours of lunch and class to be cold, and falling asleep by the end of my last class, I crashed as soon as I got back to my room and slept for a bit over an hour. Although I was awake for a few more hours, I went to sleep around 2000 yesterday and slept until about 0800 today (with a few awake breaks). Today, I've mostly just lain around or sat around, leaving the building only to go to meals. Besides somewhat of a fever and increased fatigue, this minor illness has given me minor balance problems that pass after a short while of standing up. I'm planning to go to church tomorrow (but not class), and hopefully I'll be pretty much well by my first Monday class, but we'll see. I'm thankful that I'm not at all seriously ill and that I have no sore throat. Thanks for your prayers!
Yesterday evening, I had visitors: a family from Belle Center, who have a highschool senior who is considering coming here. I didn't have a lot of time with them, but it was good to see them for a while, and I'm sure good for them to be able to talk with a student whom they know well.
Geneva lost their football game today to St. Francis, the highest-ranked team in the NAIA. This was their final game in the NAIA, as they will be moving to the NCAA-Division III next year. Still, it was a loss to the top-ranked team, and it was a loss of just one point (21-20). Besides doing well in this game, a few weeks ago they shut out the fourth-ranked team for the first three quarters.

On Wednesday evening, I attended an optional lecture (put on by the humanities program) by one Mr. Sam Gottesman, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. Their invitation to have him speak was, in large part, a connexion with our reading of the book Night by Nobel Prize-winning author Eliezer Wiesel. Mr. Gottesman noted explicitly that his experiences were quite similar to Wiesel's. As someone whose ancestors were Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews, I feel a sense of connection with him that most students at Geneva cannot. When I shook his hand, I shook the hand of a person whose boyhood was somewhat similar to my great-great-grandfather's and who spoke the same language as he. Had my ancestors not been expelled from Russia in the 1890s, my grandfather likely would have experienced the same as Mr. Gottesman did. Impressive as well it was to ask him about the city whence my ancestors may have come (Zhytomyr, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine) and to find that he had met many Jews from that city. I even managed to borrow a friend's laptop before the speech and find the Yiddish for "good evening" (ah gutn ovent), with which I greeted him when I shook his hand. I'm sure I mispronounced it, but it was recognisable enough that he gave a similar reply, which I took to be the standard reply or the proper pronunciation.

Donald Rumsfeld is resigning, to be replaced by former CIA Director Robert Gates. How many members of Bush's government will stay? Or will he have to form a new government? I'll guess that most members of the Cabinet will stay; it's not like most of them are politically significant.

Today is the anniversary of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Let us be thankful that changes in government in America happen through ballot boxes, not putsches!

Blessed the man that fears Jehovah And that walketh in His ways; Thou shalt eat of thy hands' labor And be prospered all thy days. Like a vine with fruit abounding In thy house thy wife is found, And like olive plants thy children, Compassing thy table round.
Lo, on him that fears Jehovah Shall this blessedness attend; For Jehovah out of Zion Shall to thee His blessing send. Thou shalt see Jerus'lem prosper All thy days till life shall cease; Thou shalt see thy children's children, Unto Israel be peace.
Psalm 128

Peace. As I mentioned, I've frequently been distressed by loneliness, especially at bedtime. Tonight, despite receiving the worst news I've heard in a very long time (see previous post), I can be at peace. What will happen? I don't know any more than you do. But peace, peace, peace to those who seek the face of the Lord.

Ohio is gone.
Pennsylvania is gone.
Rhode Island is gone.
The House of Representatives is gone.
Brace to resist impeachment!

As Katie had to remind me, let us give up the election into the hands of God. We must not begin to go crazy at this wretched news. The Republican Party are not the Party of God [on a side note, English "Party of God" = Arabic "Hizballah", the terrorist group], even though many of their policies and people are closer to Christianity than are those of the Democratic Party. God will lead us, be it through the valley of the shadow of death, which I'm sure won't happen here.
Please pray for me, that I might not become so frantic with ill news as I did tonight, talking with Katie, that I forget all God's care. How much I need God's help!

On a brighter note, the Filberts announced tonight that Heidi is pregnant and due at the end of June. They freely permitted this to be announced, including (explicitly) online, noting that the privacy of their news could not long survive the rumour mills.

"Seamus", Micah Wright's afro

Dr. Robson preached today from the first several verses of Hebrews 6, speaking about our need (among other things) our use as Christians to God and the idea of God forgetting about us. All of our psalms (13, 42C, 44F, 9B) today were "forgetfulness" psalms, and well did I appreciate them. With a few visitors, we had 37 people at worship this morning.

I am not bitter against God or man. Please pray that I might never be bitter against my friends or against God!

Today was the annual "Big Bad Big Wheel Rally", in which various floors of the different dorms competed in racing tricycles. Ours didn't do the best, although I did get a picture of ours winning a heat in the downhill section — our guy crosses the finish line just as the other guy is falling off his, rather behind. Although Memorial and Pearce competed strongly, there were only six women's teams, and I only know of three teams (although there may have been more) from all the apartment buildings.
Tonight, I was invited to Tony's room, for an unexpected and well-enjoyed time of Pit, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and talking.

While I was walking up to the apartments, I was musing, as I often am, on my social situation here, why I feel so isolated sometimes, especially considered in the light of last year. I eventually considered one likely possibility. Consider this picture, which I originally posted in April:

Look at the ten people (plus me) in this picture. Besides Katie and the guy with the blurry head (from down the hall, who simply came in because he felt like it and because we really didn't mind his presence), there are nine Geneva students. Of these, six lived in dorms and two commuted, with one in Young East 3½. This year, of these nine, I am one of only two to live in dorms, while four live in Young and three commute. I am simply so far away from my friends, both in location on campus and by church, that it's less convenient for them to have me. Just tonight, I missed out on fifteen minutes of talking, during the time there, because I had to come back and get my laundry out of the dryer.
Never would I have expected that lighter schoolwork would hurt my social life. But so many of these people are busier now: four are experiencing heavier workloads (whether schoolwork for many or being an RA for Tony), and the others are surely not diminished. Meanwhile, I sit here with a similar difficulty.
I do not complain against any of my friends in this post (or otherwise, for that matter), for the circumstances are what cause the difference. When I am so far from most of these friends, and when work is harder, they are less likely to be able to include me. What reason do I have to expect to be included in a study group for a class I already had or won't ever have? I believe that none of these friends are ignoring me. Schoolwork is important, and we definitely need RAs! And when I live fifteen minutes' round trip away, it becomes harder.

Not everything with social matters is negative this year. I still have a bit of contact with friends last year, and they're still definitely my friends. I am able to keep contact with all my Indiana friends and with other friends scattered here and there. I've been able to speak more with people I knew somewhat last year. Most importantly, I still have so many great people at church, including a fine new family. But still, it's hard.
• Why must I go to eat almost always without anyone going with me?
• Why must I be the almost-one to live away from others?
• Why must I be the only Geneva student to go to Eastvale? It may seem of less importance, but to find that the only other student who went there is now unable to go is really discouraging.
• Why must I eat and live otherwise so often in solitude or on the edge of the group?
• Why must I wait so long?
Yet is Jehovah righteous in His dealings:
• By waiting so long for all I desire can I become more ready to wait for other parts of God's plans
• By being the only person from my group at Eastvale can I be more ready for church planting and similar activities, where there would not (by definition) be lots of others.

But truly, O Lord, it is hard! That is why I posted the line from South Pacific a few days ago: I feel so far away, through noöne's fault, with no immediate prospect of reunion as I once knew. I am weary of going to bed distressed and, occasionally, indeed in tears.
I could simply withdraw from society more, seeking to drown the loneliness in working or studying or something else. But what purpose would that serve? Surely if I am short on something, the solution is not to reject it altogether. I cannot imagine how people could cut themselves off from society. How can anyone stand to become a monk?

Kyrie Eleison!
Kyrie Eleison!
Kyrie Eleison!
Christe Eleison!
Christe Eleison!
Christe Eleison!
Kyrie Eleison!
Kyrie Eleison!
Kyrie Eleison!

My paper turned out fine, as did the classwork for all three classes. I'm quite relieved finally to be done with that paper — especially since I must now read two more small books and write a separate three-page paper on each one!


A Martian valley, 4500km long and 11km deep

Tomorrow I submit a major paper for my European history class. I've mostly finished it, but I still have about one page to go. I have a feeling it won't be completely done until tomorrow — thus why I'm thankful for three hours of free time tomorrow morning!
Really there has been very little of import today. Maybe you'll like this picture of the Clipper Butterfly of southeast Asia:

Today's speaker in chapel was very hard to follow, largely because he was so quiet. I could have understood more either if he had spoken somewhat louder or if the audio people had turned up the volume. Also, for the second time, the pianist at chapel allowed the last stanza of each psalm to be sung acappella.

"So far away..."

Not much going on today. We mowed in the rain for part of the time, as the weather was still good when we began. In connexion with my advisor meeting yesterday, I'm to be meeting on Friday with both Dr. Curtis (Bible) and Dr. Wollman (history, retired). I woke up late for PED 101 today, so late that (although I was able to get to class on time) I missed breakfast until after class. I am drawing a complete blank, so I have nothing else to say.