Academics week March 25-28

"If you knew Time as well as I do," said the Hatter, "you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him."
"I don't know what you mean," said Alice.
"Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. I dare say you never even spoke to Time!"

Caspar David Friedrich- Monk by the Sea.

"God sits in the chamber of our being in which the candle of our consciousness goes out into darkness... All drams are not false; some dreams are truer than the plainest facts. Fact at best is but a garment of truth, which has ten thousand changes of raiment woven on the same loom. Let the dreamer only do the truth of his dream, and one day he will realize all that was worth realizing in it." -George Macdonald

"The rational man will adapt to his environment, The irrational man expects to alter his environment to suit his needs. Therefore all progress depends on irrational men. " -George Bernard Shaw

Isaiah (finger in the air and somewhat oblivious of the historical superiority of the modern audience): The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field…

Edward O. Wilson (somewhat impressed, but nonetheless determined to do his bit for "evolutionary progress"): But… But sir! Are you aware of the existence of the electromagnetic spectrum?

CURTAIN
-Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle

I highly recomment reading Wendell Berry's Life is a Miracle, it's fantastic. There were no classes on Easter Monday, so we missed philosophy and one Latin class. We'll be having two philosophy classes this week to make up for it- it's gonna be intense!

Art- "Impressionism and other 19th Century 'isms'" was the title of the lecture. We started the class talking about Caspar David Friedrich who painted at the beginning of the 19th C. He was a Christian artist, and Dr. Tingley's hypothesis is that he was a "painter of relationships". You can see communication with nature and with others in his work. I really liked his stuff, its interesting that a lot of them show people in the foreground with their back to the viewer, it kinda brings you into the relationship, you know? The mainly talked about one called "On the Sailingboat" that is a picture about marriage. Instead of just being focused on each other they are focused on a shared goal that they're moving towards.

"On the Sailing Boat"

"The Wanderer above the Mists""Woman Before the Rising Sun""Two Men Contemplating the Moon"

"Abbey in the Oakwood"

Then we moved on to modern art. We mostly talked about realism and naturalism in Manet and Courbet, then on to impressionism, mostly looking at Monet and Renoir, and then with post-impressionism we looked at Gaugin and Van Gogh. Whew, we are just flying!

Monet- self portraitManet- Luncheon on the Grass. This caused quite a stir; he was using classical subjects and forms in a painting set in the present. Was this appropriate?


Renoir- luncheon. "Impressionism was a celebration of the pleasures of middle class life. Did it not play beautifully into a consumerist relation to the world?"

Dr. Patrick was gone, so we had a researcher friend of his come in to tell us about molecular biology. It was okay, but he just talked about his research when I think Dr. Patrick was hoping he would explain something to do with how molec. bio relates to evolution. Oh well. I have to start writing my paper for this class this week, and I'm terrified that it's going to be very hard...

We're still doing the passive system in Latin, but I think there's a whole new verb system coming up tomorrow. It'll be the last chapter though!

Music-We talked about and listened to opera-Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini! Prof. Warren had a great time listing off German words for Wagner such as 'Gesamtkunstwerk' (which means 'a complete work of art'). He also played along to Verdi's Anvil Chorus on the dinner triangle we use to call people to class and meals- the man is hilarious. After class we listened to Anna Russel's version of the Ring Cycle, which was hilarious of course.

We talked about Annie Dillard in lit. after reading the first two chapter of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She sees herself as an aeolian harp- lets the wind just blow through her and produce what it may. The book alternates between scrutinous observation and reflections on those observations- the main theme is seeing. Prof. Tucker gave us yet another assignment- we are supposed to go out at find 5-10 objects (not from our appartment of school) and then 'write an Annie Dillard style anecdote' using them as inspiration. I think there is potential for this to be fun, I mean it allows us to be creative and stuff, but there are a couple of problems, like the fact that none of us can just write like a Pulitzer winning author on demand, and also the objects we use are supposed to be ones we can bring in to class, which pretty much excludes nature (trees, light on the water, icicles melting etc.) and limits us to the garbage we see on the street on our walks to and from school. Annie Dillard is all about nature, and although I've no doubt she could talk about garbage, I'm a little more inspired by other things... anyway, I started writing my paper for his class yesterday so I'll get that done first. I'm talking about a the emphasis on relationships in Lilith by George macdonald. There's an interesting article by him called "The Fantastic Imagination" on writing fairy tales (he had a huge influence on CS Lewis). You can read it at: http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/ortsx14.htm.

Scriptures- John Wesley. Hearing the history about the Methodists was interesting. We had read A Plain Account of Genuine Christianity (1753) and Covenant Service Directions for Renewing our Covenant with God (1780).

John Wesley

Science with Dr. Metelski was about electricity and magnetism, Maxwell equations, how these advancements affect our lives...

Trivium was great again. We read and criticized some more little apologetic paragraphs we'd written, and then we talked about socratic dialogues (which Peter Kreeft uses in most of his books). Since our science paper is supposed to be written in a dialogue, this was very helpful.

Today is beautiful and sunny, and things are melting but I am feeling rather exhausted so I think I'm going to stay in and read. We have some people coming over for supper tonight, and then we're going to go sing karaoke! I'm looking forward to it.

Academics week March 17-20

We had a short week because there were no classes on Good Friday. Also, we have Monday off, so that should give us a chance to get caught up a little bit on some work and also keeps us from having Philosophy and latin homework (although I'm sad there'll be no philosophy lecture!).

Here are the highlights from last week:

Philosophy

We continued to talk about John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism. It differs from past ethical systems in that it says actions have to be decided on with regards to their outcome, but the only way to know their outcome is from human experience. There is no set end like Aristotle's "Man of Virtue", Mill simply determines right and wrong by way of a test: since the aim is to increase pleasure and decrease pain, only do things which do this. To decide between two pleasures, ask someone who has experienced both and is endowed with an appreciation for his 'higher faculties' (i.e. reason) which is the higher of the two. Mill is also differend from Hume who said our judgements of right and wrong are feelings within us. Mill says we can have no sensory instinct informing us of right and wrong. He also objected to Kant, because he says Kantian ethics "does not logically rule out the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageous immoral rules of conduct." Kant doesn't give us any list of what is right/wrong, he just gives us a standard to apply to actions:If people are universally in agreement about an action, it is acceptable. It is an ethics of what you should do in trying to figure out what to do, but not an actual ethics of what you should do. Is it not possible that people might be able to universalize things that are not good? So Mill thought he'd really come up with something in utilitarianism that would make it impossible for this to happen: do that which brings the greatest happiness. This sounds quite sensible, even in agreement with Aristotle and Aquinas where the good man is the happy man. But we know that it all depends on your definition of happiness. For Aristotle happiness=excellence, a state of being in accord with what your function/purpose is. This is very different from a feeling. But Mill talks about happiness in relation to pleasure. So his argument that his ethics would not give rise to immoral conduct is doesn't make much sense- for example, the sexual immorality of our day has been in "pursuit of happiness and pleasure"! Mill's problem with Kant comes up again in his own ethics.

We talked about various other problems with the system:

-there is no recognition of absolutes, such as absolute rights like the right to life

-it's implicit metaphysical materialism. It is committed to materialism, even though of course the presumption materialism is not a question of facts but of faith, because its not provable.

-it has a reductionist view of evil. Evil (for example, the holocaust) is seen only as a wrong calculation of consequences.

-it can hardly be called 'ethics' at all, because it doesn't anser the basic ethical question: Why be Good? He says 'we should all be concerned for the happiness of all" but doesn't give any backing to his 'should'.

J.S. Mill

We also started talking about Martin Buber's I and Thou. More on him next week...

Art

We had a really great class on Romanticism, although I was a little tired since I'd stayed up late finishing my paper. Since artists weren't under patrons anymore but were vying for popularity at the salons and in the art academies, their aim was to stand out and make an impression. The idea of avant-garde came in, and instead of portraying "the good" artists started to focus on losses and human failure. Romantic culture accepts the middle class, but it also has a streak of disaffection with culture altogether.

This is "Marengo", Napoleon's horse. People had seen Napoleon's horrific reign that so utterly failed to live up to expectations.

Fransisco Goya was drawn to macabre subjects. He painted terrifying images of war and nightmarish subjects.

Humor entered art, and Blake started making images of his own fantasy world. In the last part of the class we looked at Kenneth Clark's claim that "Landscape was the chief artistic creation of the 19th Century".

J.M.W. Turner saw meaning and beauty in everyday scenes.

Latin

We had a test on relative pronouns and subordinate clauses, we're now only the passive system and have a whole load of memorizing to do, once again.

Music

Berlioz, Franck, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky! We heard the last movement of Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique (the Dream of the Witches' Sabbath- which funnily enough we'd seen Goya's paintings of on Tuesday), some choral music by Franck, a bunch of orchestral stuff by Tchaikovsky and the Os Justi motet by Bruckner which is really pretty. It sounds almost like Renaissance, Palestrina-esque. He adds a little bit of chant at the very end, which was being recalled during his day. "The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just. The law of his God is in his heart; his feet do not slip."

Literature

We talked about two short stories by Wendell Berry: Pray without Ceasing and A Jonquil for Mary Penn. These are beautiful pieces, really well written and all about family and home and although they are realistic they are hopeful, unlike a lot of 'realistic' writing that is really depressing. We also watched the first half of a film called "The Apostle" which kinda relates to Frederich Bueckner somehow... (obviously I wasn't listening very well). Its a super uncomfortable film about a preacher from the south who goes around doing tent revivals yet his personal life is super messed up. We'll watch the rest of it next week...

Scriptures

We had a small class since a lot of people had gone home for Easter by this time. We finished up with Calvin, talking about the sections in his institutes on the Ministry of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Eschatology, and also his commentary on Romans 8. Even though he saw people as very rotten to the core, he was able to hope in the fact that Christ is our Head and God would not sever the Head from the Body. Doubts will assail us but they will not overwhelm us. Next week we start on John Wesley. I've started writing my Sciptures paper on the Resurrection (appropriate for this time of year, I think) and what Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin say about it, especially with regard to what it means for us. We are assured of the victory of our faith and our God over death, we can have new spiritual life and live righteously, and we can wait in hope for the resurrection of our bodies in the last day.

I get really frustrated with myself for struggling as I do with writing papers. It takes me so long to get my thoughts into ordered and coherent paragraphs! I also have a hard time knowing how to get just the right thesis, not trying to cover too much. 'm definitely better at grasping concepts like in math or physics, but I'm grateful for the practice I'm getting with all of this and I'm trying to remind myself that my grades here don't actually count for anything, so its nothing to stress about. Am I better at thinking than I was in September? Absolutely. Am I better at producing those thoughts in the form of a paper? Probably, but as the papers get more challenging and I deal with stuff I haven't thought about much before it feels like I'm not making a lot of progress. Also, my roommates are both really quick and good at writing cohesive and coherent papers. I'm thankful that I have them for inspiration and for their editing ability haha but I do fell a bit of an inferiority complex some times, especially in busy times like this when I realize how much longer I have to spend on everything than they do. So while my roommates take a four day weekend, I am only taking today off and hope to have things somewhat out of panic mode for next week.

There are 3 papers and 3 presentations left for the next 3 weeks. Time is flying and I'll be so sad when its over, although there is no way I could keep the frantic pace up for very much longer. I bought my bus ticket home this week- it was only 147 dollars to get from here to Regina! I'll have to pay a bit extra for the extra baggage I'll have, but still, so cheap. Surely it'll be worth the 50 hours of travelling, right???

We've been invited out to the Tucker's once again tonight for Easter dinner and a film night. I plan on reading a little this afternoon and playing some guitar. I wish I could be in Vancouver this weekend to hear Robyn's opera, be with the fam, and see some green. Tonight will be fun, however. We'll get to see the Tucker's kids who are soooo much fun!

peace and love,

Starr

Seder Supper and Easter Services.

Happy Easter!!!

The sun is shining brightly today, and even though it's cold the bright light is warm and encouraging. Susan and I just got in from church, where we got to enjoy the lovely Easter liturgy of the Anglican tradition. We did, I must admit, sneak out during the last hymn because the choir that usually only sings in the 11 o' clock service had stepped in to sing the Halleluia Chorus for us 9:15ers. Now I have heard this choir before, and let's just say it was less than angelic? Their hearts are in the right place, but they really do butcher the music. So what would Handel have done? Susan gave me the option of sneaking out to avoid hearing the massacre and I accepted... if they practiced hard and ended up delivering a wonderful and perfectly in-tune performance, well I guess I'll never know. Anyhow, the service was good and very joyful.

Another great part about my Holy Week was the seder supper Susan and I attended on Thursday evening. (Jenny is in Texas this week). I'd never even heard of this before this year, but the seder is the Jewish Passover meal, like what Jesus and the disciples shared in the Last Supper. The Christian Passocer Seder is to remember the Pasover meal Jesus had with his disciples and to retell the story of how God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and to remember how God in his mercy passed over the Israelits' homes in Egypt and saved the Israelite children.

So its starts with the women lighting the candles on the table ('the festival lights'- symbolizing the coming of the Messiah, the Light of the World)

The women pray (of the mother would be the one doing this if it was done in a home):

"Blessed are you, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has set us apart by His Word, and in whose name we light the festival lights."

There are four cups/toasts of the Passover. The first is the "Kiddush" (Sanctification) where the feast is blessed and the words of Luke 22:17-18 are read: "take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

Next is the "Urehatz" (washing), where you wash your hands in a bowl on the table to remember how Jesus washed his disciples' feet at the last supper. (I think sometimes there is actual footwashing involved).

Then everyone eats the "Karpas" together, which is a green herb (we used parsley). It represents life. But you dip it in salt water before eating it to remember that life in Egypt for the children of Israel was a life of pain, suffering, and tears. "Blessed are you, O Lord, Our God, King of the Universe, Creator of the Fruits of the Earth."

Next is the "Magid", the Recital of the passover story. A child asks questions and parents answer the questions:

"why is this night different form all other nights?" (the parents answer with the story of the exodus and the plagues- then everyone eats the Matzah, the unleavened bread)

Why are there bitter herbs on the table?" (life was bitter and hard for the Israelites)

"Why is there something sweet as well?" (this is the Charoseth, a fruit and nut kind of relish. It reminds us of the mortar the Egyptians used in slavery under pharaoh, but is sweet to remind us of the hope the Israelites had).

"Why is there a hard boiled egg of the table?" (Pharaoh hardened his heart towards God and his people)

"What is the bone for?" (the meaning of the paschal lamb for Jews and also to remember Christ the lamb of God)

Then you drink the second cup which is a cup of thanksgiving to God for His salvation: "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood"

Next comes the meal. We ate lamb and potatoes and carrots and salad.

The Third cup is accompanied by a thanksgiving prayer. Everyone prays:
"We will bless the Lord,
From this time forth and forever.

The Lord is my strength and my song,

And he has become my Salvation.

The stone which the builders rejected

Has become the chief cornerstone..... etc."

The last cup is "Elijah's Cup". In the Jewish tradition there was an empty place left for Elijah and the door is left open for him to come in and announce the coming of the Messiah. But as Christians we know that Jesus is our messiah and he is here with us already, so the cup of Elijah is a sign of hope for salvation for everyone who doesn't know this.

"In Christ's death, there is life

In the shedding of blood,

There is atonement for sin.

In the coming of Jesus,

Our Passover is complete."

It was a lovely experience and I hope I get to do it again.
After the supper there was a Maundy Thursday communion service upstairs. Did you know that 'maundy' comes from the Latin 'mandatum' which basically translates into 'mandate'? So basically, its about the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples at the last supper: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." (John 13:34). As the service ends and a hymn is sung, the all the decorations are taken down and the altar is stripped bare to symbolize how Christ was totally abandoned on the cross. The lights slowly go out and the service ends in darkness.

We didn't make it to any good Friday services, but we did watch the Passion of the Christ, which I hadn't seen before. Something in me doesn't like the idea of 'hollywood-izing' the Passion. And I was worried that just showing all the physical suffering of Christ would overshadow His spiritual suffering and fail to clearly show the reason for and effect of his death and resurrection. I have to say, though, although it was extremely hard to watch (or not watch, in some cases, I couldn't) I think it stayed Biblically accurate (within the Catholic tradition, anyway, there are apocryphal stories included) and with flashbacks and such really does connect the events with salvation. Of course we don't like to see the gruesome reality of what Jesus went through, but He did it for us and sometimes its good to get out of our comfortable sunshine-and-daisies kind of Christianity and realize how serious a thing our sins are and how high a price was paid (and is still paid) for them.

So today is Easter Sunday. Christ has risen!

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

Alleluia, Amen.

week 10?

This afternoon is wonderfully sunny and warm- such a nice change from last week! I've decided not to do any homework on Sundays, and I've discovered its an amazing thing to have a guilt-free day to rest and do non-school related things, even though I do enjoy my schoolwork (for the most part). They gave us palm crosses at church today, to celebrate palm sunday. This afternoon my goal is to back up my files only cds, since Susan's computer quit working this week and I figure I should take the hint. Susan and I plan on going to a Seder Supper on Thursday at St. Alban's church, a commemoration of the Last Supper that uses the Jewish Passover traditions with Christian readings. It should be really cool! Jenny is taking off for sunny Texas on Wednesday, spending Easter there and partying with her med. school classmates.

The birds have started to come back. I heard crows on the way to school on Friday, and there've been few times when that sound has come as a bigger relief.

I came down with a cold this week, but it wasn't too bad and its starting to go away. Yesterday and Friday night I managed to get a first draft of my Rembrandt paper written, so I'll finish that up tomorrow and get started on my Scriptures paper Tuesday.

We continued to talk about Kant in philosophy this week. His system managed to remove the threat to science caused by Hume but it posed a serious threat to metaphysics, and therefore to ethics. He based his ethics on duty, he talked about categorical and hypothetical imperatives, the former being things that are determined by duty. His ideas did bring in some positive things, like the idea of respect. We also started talking about John Stuart Mill who wrote about utilitarianism. Unlike Kant, his philosophy was based on empirical knowledge, we have to always keep the consequences of actions in mind. We'll do more on him tomorrow.

Tuesday was a Student for a Day, day. There were probably about 7 kids there, who of which have already applied and had interviews so it looks promising for enrollment next year; they always get most of their applications over the summer. We're up to the 18th Century in art class, so we talked about Rococo a little bit and then moved on to neo-classicism, the academies in Europe, and Jacques-Louis David in particular.

There wasn't much for new material in Dr. Patrick's class, I think he was catering more to the parent and student visitors than to us... anyway it was good to get a bit of review for once instead of pouring yet more new information into our heads.

Prof. Blaedow surprised us all in the quiz this week by giving us sentences to translate from a few weeks ago... I had to dig to the dregs of my memory to remember what the latin word for barber was!

We had a busy music class- Brahms, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Liszt! We listened to a ton of music, and my list for what we need to know for our listening exam has gotten ridiculously long! We got our midterms back, so we're definitely on the final stretch now!

We continued to talk about Frederick Bueckner in Lit. class, and for next week we get to read a couple of essays by Wendell Berry, which should be beautiful.

We talked about Calvin in Scriptures. Being made in the image of God, the Nature of the Soul, Original Sin, Regeneration and Free Will...

Dr. Metelski taught us calculus in science class- he has no idea that most people get completely lost when he does this kind of thing. He has the best intentions- he said several times that he doesn't expect us to be able to do any calculus, he just doesn't want us to have any fear of it. I don't mind the review, but I felt kinda bad for the girls who've never done any calculus at all....

We've begun to do rhetoric in Trivium class, which will be more specifically focused on apologetics. Some of us read out assignments we wrote giving reasons for why we are Christians, and we talked about the way non-christians would hear them and what problems they would see in it. Its really great and challenging to do this, and also good to be reminded that apologetics isn't about winning an argument, its something you do for the sake of the other person.

We just found out last night that we're supposed to have a big section of Martin Buber's "I and Thou" read for philosophy tomorrow, but since I'm not working today it'll have to wait till our break tomorrow. In the evening we plan on having an essay editing/green beverages party in honour of St. Patrick's day, our lack of funds to allow us to go out, and our paper due tuesday. I'm actually really enjoying the lack of topic sentences and endnotes/references in this blog post. I only have 5 more weeks with my classmates, which makes me really really sad, but I'm trying not to think about it. For now, we're just taking things one day at a time, learning lots, writing lots, reading lots, talking lots, and laughing lots. (and sneezing lots, at the moment)

Happy Holy Week,

Starr

snow on snow...

...on snow on snow on snow! It's been going since about 11 this morning, and shows no signs of stopping. There was also a little wind this afternoon, which is uncommon here, but not really a wind by prairie standards so it could be worse as far as blizzards go. Its actually kind of fun to walk in, provided you don't care about getting wet and being slow. We'd had 11.69 feet so far this winter. Think about how much snow that is. And they're forcasting another 50 cms with this storm. It's beautiful but... I've been catching myself daydream of tulips and crocuses.

Today I've been trying to do research for my art paper. I had a frustrating time, since we need at least one good primary source and no one seems to have written on the things I'd like to talk about. I think I've decided on Rembrandt and something to do with Protestant art... its just too bad that a lot of the scholarly articles on him are written in Dutch! I was at the U of O library... I'll try the public one tomorrow.

Speaking of art, we got to go to the national gallery for class this week- it was great! Time was a little short, of course, but we'll be heading back there next month so I'm excited. Dr. Tingley is totally in his element at the gallery, he worked there as a curator for a few years.

All this just hours after he lectured for 2.5+ hours on Immanuel Kant. I understand why people say "Kant changed my life". I haven't thought through it enough yet, but basically he developed his philosophy because he was disturbed by Hume's, who de-objectified ethics, causality, metaphysics, the self... He said all our ideas come from sensation and are justified by sensations. There can be no such thing as a moral argument because ethics is not rational- he gets rid of the because in 'good because'. He says ethics doesn't need to be rational, it can just rest on our feelings. Just as he got rid of the 'because' in morality he took the 'because' out of causality (which destroys causality completely) (Causality: the necessity that a thing that happens was brought about because of another thing.). There is no foundation for the belief in necessities in nature in this thinking, which is what disturbed Kand because it made SENSE, but it threatened to totally undermine Scientific thinking!
SO Kant said that there is objective reality but that we can have no idea of what exists apart from how we see in and eventually came up with the idea that instead of the mind conforming to reality, reality conforms to the mind. Space and time and truth are judgments, but all humans have the same framework of mind so we usually perceive the same world. Anyway I'll stop confusing everyone with my incomplete and probably incorrect philosophy synthesis...

The rest of the week was fine. In Science with Dr. Patrick we learned that in 1952 a guy names Toynbee in 'An Historian's view of Religion' made a list of indicators that a society is dying (from looking at all past cultures in history) :
-Schizm of the Soul (which leads to cultural suicide- no coherence)
-A growing sense of antinominalism (lack of respect for the law)
-Escapism (retreating into private lives)
-Drift yielding to inevitable determinism (fatalism)
-Guilt and self-loathing (no more repentance/ forgiveness)
-General promiscuity- intellectual as well as sexual

yeesh, our culture fits into all of those! But Dr. Patrick thinks that our generation can be hopeful and that a change is completely within reach- he's a big advocator of starting with the family.

We covered Schubert and Schumann and part of Brahms in music. PLUS we wrote our midterm (which went well, i think).

In Literature we talked about Godric (by Frederick Bueckner) which is a really really cool book- completely different from everything else we've read. It makes you squirmy in a few places- its about this guy who lives a totally ascetic lifestyle and everyone else thinks he's this great saint but he is the narrator and is totally aware of all his sins... I had to madly read it since I didn't have much time to do so, but there are definitely a lot of passages to re-read and meditate upon.

I'm still struggling with what to do for my Scripture paper. Ugh. We have no Latin homework this weekend, however, which is a blessing indeed, especially since my phil. assignment on utilitarianism took longer than I would have liked.

We had the Weston Lecture on Friday- Craig Gay from Regent College in Vancouver came and talked about Dialogue, how its being lost in today's culture, and how it is very important for us as humans. It was interesting!

My roommate just informed me that its time-change day, so we're losing an hour of sleep! :( i guess that means its time for bed. Our house may well be buried in the morning, so I'll need lots of energy to tunnel out!

xox
S

March Madness

Good Evening!



I just got in from snowboarding with Peter, Ben, and Stephen from my class. Harold, who has loaned us his van while he's away, will be getting back this week so it was now or never. There is a pretty decent hill only half an hour away and on saturday night the student 2 for 1 price is $11.50! So sweet. I was really tired but I perked up eventually and I'm really glad we went! My eyes aren't focusing very well though so this will be short.



It was actually kind of a crappy week. Nothing bad happened per se, which was why I was getting really frustrated with myself for feeling sad and irritable. I think the fresh air and excercise and lack of thought about school was definitely the best thing for me tonight.



Speaking of school, I haven't done an update for a while so here's an abbreviated version:







In philosophy we've covered Descartes, Pascal, and Hume. This week is Kant. Its super cool to be getting into modern philosophers!!! I wrote my paper on pascal and really enjoyed it. As research I read a book by Peter Kreeft called Christianity for Modern Pagans which was really good. Its basically just a heavily footnoted version of Pascal's Pensees. (I also used a paper by a local professor but I think it would only be good if you'd read the Pascal first).







We're up to 17th C catholic art in Art History (yes, I know we're slow!) and next week we're going to the national gallery for class which i'm so excited for!!! I'm also going to have to start writing that paper this week...hmmmm I don't know what to write it on. Maybe Dutch/Flemish school? Or maybe something about the High Renaissance. Raphael and Michelangelo et al are so huge that he kinda skipped over them quickly, I think since he knew we could learn about them on our own if we so wished. (this Picture is of the 'wheel of fortune'. Its more connected to philosophy, when we studied Machiavelli and such... but I think its really funny!

The Inspiration of St. Matthew. He had to repaint this, (you're looking at the second version) because the first one he did made Matthew look too homely and pitiful (the angel was pushing his hand and he had big gnarly feet- it offended the Church people)

Anyway, our science classes have been pretty good. People are doing presentations about evolutionary arguments and they've been doing a really good job so far. Mine will be on DNA, but later on in the semester. And Dr. Metelski lectured on Galileo and Newton this week... we're getting close to Einstein where things really will start to get interesting! :)



Latin is latin. I'm trying to not spend a ridiculous amount of time on it even though you easlily could if you wanted to know everything. Its just not worth it, especially since I can do fine with just a decent amount of work! haha.



We heard presentations this week in music class as well. Kendra talked about the French Revolution, Susan talked about Napoleon, and Stephen talked about the Industrial revolution. Prof. Warren said we needed historical background and he though it would be nice if he didn't have to teach it for once haha. THen he talked about the transition to the Romantic era from Classical and it was a super long lecture with no break and we hardly listened to any music but at the end of class he remembered that we have our midterm this coming wednesday and he had questions on there he hadn't lectured on yet so he quickly did so- basically handing us answers to two of the questions that will be on there! It was great.



Napoleon 'the schmuck'




We talked about G.K.Chesterton's THe Man Who Was Thursday again this week- such a great/weird book! Now I have to read Brueckner's Godric for this thursday...



GK Chesteron was a huge, huge man.

Scriptures was scriptures. we looked at Luther's introduction to the new testament.

'nuff said.


We began the official Rhetoric section in Trivium. He talked about why it is kind of a lost skill today and should be taught at school, and then we started watching a video called 'the Four Horsemen" of a conversation between four really well-known atheists: Dawkins, Hitchins, Dennet, and Harris. For next week we need to watch the first hour of it, because its important that we keep in mind what we sound like to non-christians when we're trying to say something about religion. Then we have to write a bit about something that is important to us, defending it. I think this section will be really awesome but its kinda hard to know how much work to put into it since its only a pass/fail class. I guess there's "always time for more homework at Augustine College" (that should be their motto. "Semper tempus mas homeworkus in Collegia Augustina est" if you want to Latinize it).

Here's the link to that Dawkins et al conversation:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2025,THE-FOUR-HORSEMEN,Discussions-With-Richard-Dawkins-Episode-1-RDFRS

Okay that's enough about school. Since I took today off as my 'sabbath', I'll be hitting the library tomorrow after church, so lets hope for some productivity! There are about 5 books I need to read, 2 papers to edit, and 2 to write. yipee!!





peace and love


Starry