can has.

Something I have been thinking for a while:

It makes me very sad that Christian presence in the media (lols misspelt as ‘medea’ – too much revision?) is restricted to crazies. So much so that any normal blogger has to parenthesise any comment about not minding Christians/other people of faith with ‘even though people do terrible things in its name’. Hi, that’s a smaller percentile than I can successfully imagine. Crazies without faith find other sticks to beat people with.

On the other hand, people used to think the same about women and, even more recently, atheists, so I guess we just have to roll with the minority mistrust of choice. As Christians there’s just the unfortunate mix of traditionalism and new minority status where any service remotely high-church appears embarrassingly arrogant to a unfamiliar moderner. But believe me, just because the church struggles to adjust doesn’t mean that faith does. God doesn’t think the crazies are much fun and nor do the rest of his quieter, less newsworthy followers. This may be obvious but I feel it needs saying more often. Back to the revision…

statue statuesque

Bluebells in the late December,
I see signs now all the time

Bloc Party, delicate as you’ve never heard them before.

I like to think I can hear the Slyph influences in this one, circa CBY’s recordings of a whole effing army of glockenspiels descending like space invaders. It is, appropriately, called Signs.

I made the mistake of looking at past papers last night. Don’t do it!

the best definition of good intention

ARGH DECISIONS

I just emailed my Director of Studies today to inform her about my options for next year, only to receive an email back going “Um, are you sure?” I know I’m being a little controversial in picking a paper from Theology syllabus instead of the the Classics syllabus, but hey, I want to know more about the early Christians and how they interacted with Hellenistic tradition, and this is kindof my only chance to do this subject with such fascinatingly intellectual people. Next year is my last year in Cambridge. Now I’m torn between alleviating my DOS’s fears and picking a tame Classical subject that she’ll have be able to control and oversee… and entering an entirely new faculty as a stranger, lacking significant background knowledge, with no control and nothing but genuine interest in the subject. It’s going to be logistically complicated. But I want this. I just hope it’s worth it.

Also, I want to do a thesis next year, and I just emailed a really awesome, talented and educated lady I’d really like to be my thesis supervisor, begging her to help me and to advise me on what I should do. I’m hoping for a positive response. I’d like to think that the essays I wrote for her last year were good enough for her to be interested to take me on – because really, this is gender ambiguity and transvestisism and the thin line between male and female beauty, and that’s awesome. This is good stuff. I just really want her to be on board because I think together we would be awesome. Oh how lame I am. But. I really want this.

ANYWAY. I just got back from a formal and am mildly intoxicated, so I should go work. In a bit I’m going to visit Emily because in reality we are both unmotivated and enjoy distractiond. BUT ANYWAY. Next twenty minutes, Statius’ Achilleid…

so serene

The moment I start whining about how busy I am and how thinly I’m being stretched, remind me how much I’ve missed being in demand. Tomorrow I’ve got 410 lines of Statius, two Greek translations, three hours of choir, formal and submission of next year’s course choices. It’s busy. and I’ve / never been so alive. If you don’t know it, you should.

Reading a little Jeff Lucas before bed is doing great things for me too. I bought his latest at Spring Harvest and it’s such easy reading, full of humorous common sense. Last night’s best comment was, “Sometimes I wish there was a bible verse that said ‘Lighten up, my people’ or ‘Chill out, says the Lord’.” Amen to that.

A group of us went to see State of Play this evening. I was the one to suggest it initially, though I hadn’t yet found one review that thought it was awesome, and I like to see at least one of those before going to see anything. But a few others were keen, so I went along anyway, and actually I thought it was awesome. So, if you’re like me, here’s your encouragement to go and see it. It was one of those rare (and in my mind, classy) thrillers entirely lacking gore, excessive violence or incomprehensible plot developments. It also features Helen Mirren swearing like a sailor.

It’s funny to think how things could have turned out. In the car with Mum the other day, we were talking about faith again. And again she said to me, it was the choice for her between giving faith a chance and breaking things off forever. And we know what she chose, but what if she hadn’t? What if I didn’t? What if I did? Is it time to start second-guessing myself yet? It’s all very well letting God direct your path, but when it gets down to it, the one you’ve got to have faith in is yourself. That’s all. Seeing a life-changing decision for what it is isn’t the end of the road. Anyway, there’s nothing in all of this. But I think it’s good to think it.

And there’s things Id like to do that you don’t believe in,
I would like to build something, but you’d never see it happen

stray Italian greyhound

I’m back in Cambridge! Got back home from Spring Harvest just yesterday, nurgh, and there was just enough time to throw things in the washing machine and repack them before driving down here this morning. Now all my books are unpacked but most of my clothes are still in a colourful pile on the floor. It’s looking quite welcoming right now, actually.

Tomorrow I’ve got my first of two upcoming exams. I had lunch and a catch-up with Matt and now I’ve locked myself away to revise until dinner. Spring Harvest was wonderful and challenging and possibly the most significant week of my recent years, but it wasn’t conducive to working or concentrating. Hopefully cramming today will make up for this? We shall see!

Anyway. It is a lovely day that I can at least observe from my desk window, and I have lovely music and plenty of work to do. It still feels like I’ve fallen unwilling back to reality, working on minutiae of Greek grammar instead of how I can change the world, but hopefully I’ll rekindle some interest given tea and time. Let’s go.

going down swinging

No news from me. Days at home pass by harmoniously, picturesquely and without need for comment. I have all the sunsets and stars I could want and my gentle translation targets, daily achieved, leave me with warm, undeserved feelings of satisfaction. All good and dull, then. So instead, I have here a brief – I won’t call it a rant, because I don’t think it is – comment on how I am much more out of step with general opinion than I realised.

I belong to a ‘useless facts’ community on livejournal. I’ve not been on the internets much recently, but I read a post there today informing members what AM and PM stood for. Now I know I’m an elitist classicist, but how on earth do you not know that? Didn’t you think to find out, when you first learnt to use it? We’re hardly talking irrelevant dead language stuff here. I don’t get fussy about much in this area, perhaps being the only one of my family who wouldn’t comment on ‘PIN numbers’ or ‘ATM machines’: general usage and habit says this tautology is okay, I figure. But AM and PM is not okay. AM and PM is basic.

On the other hand, admitting ignorance is always better than trying to fake it. I was more dismayed to find in the Times today (in the TV section, but still, Times!) the use of ‘cognoscenti’ for ‘those in the know’. As in, “to the cognoscenti among us…”. Really, people not knowing Latin is dandy but people sticking the cactus -i onto any Latin word is going too far. This isn’t how it works, dudes. If you can’t do it right in Latin, then for the love of everything holy and grammatical, do not tresspass. You don’t need to know Latin to be taken seriously, honest. Own your English vocabulary. Make the most of your rich, bountiful native tongue and go buy a thesaurus.

For anyone who doesn’t know and is interested (really? anyone?), the adjective cognoscens is third declension, because adjectives coined from participles (IE ‘being –’) always are. The verb is ‘cognosco’, ‘I know’, whence English cognate, incognito, recognise. The singular participle is ‘cognoscens’, ‘knowing’ and the plural would be cognoscentes. (EG, singular testis to plural testes, with authorial apologies for that being the only example she can currently think of.)

Anyway. Now that that’s out of my system, I should go find something more useful to do. I’m not sure if sleep counts, but it’s probably a good idea.