Well, Calvin posted his book list yesterday, so I shall follow suit. I’m taking Exegesis in I & II Samuel and Intermediate Hebrew Grammar with him, so those are the same and you can take a look at his blog post for those books. My other three classes:

Akkadian (I got these on sale at Eisenbrauns - yipee!)
A Grammar of Akkadian by John Huehnergard
Key to A Grammar of Akkadian by the same

History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
The Ancient Near East c. 3000-330 BC (2 Volume Set) by Amelie Kuhrt
Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000-586 B.C.E. by Amihai Mazar
Mesopotamia and the Bible edited by Mark W. Chavalas and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (this was recommended but not required)

Historiography
The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship by George M. Marsden
Patterns in History: A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought by David Bebbington
The Modern Researcher by Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff

I’m terribly excited about Akkadian, even though it will be challenging (cuneiform anyone?). In all honestly, I’m pretty much looking forward to all my classes; of course that has the potential to change once I actually start. It’s hard to say what I’m looking forward to more - Akkadian by far the most, and then I’m not sure what. More to come soon!

Authors: Matthew Dickerson & David O’Hara

I initially picked this book up because it sounded like an interesting read about myth and fantasy literature, and for once, a book on how it is helpful, not a tool of Satan.

The book turned out to vacillate between 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 stars, depending on the section or paragraph I was reading. I probably would not recommend it for what the book claims on the back it is going to do: “explore the influence and importance of…work of “Faerie” on our literary culture.” While the authors do a decent job of overviewing some important works of myth and fantasy, as the title suggests, from “Homer to Harry Potter,” they could have done with a little less theologizing and a little more philosophizing.

Unfortunately, because the authors are Christian, they desperately wanted to, along with summarize, theologically analyze every fantastical work they mentioned and pick out how this or that lines up with some great truth from the Bible (or occasionally, doesn’t). While there is certainly value to recognizing the moral truth in story, at times it became tiring, especially later on in the book when we passed Tolkien’s era and every modern work was compared to his “Christian worldview” that apparently bubbles forth in his literature.

On the upside, wedged between the, at times, almost preaching, there are some good thoughts on myth, fairy tale, and fantasy as literature throughout time, and why it is valuable to humanity. The first two chapters, especially, are good, and there are other sections throughout that offered enough to keep me reading. Additionally, they supported why it is certainly not wrong for Christians to read the genre of “Faerie” (which is refreshing, after the frenzy of anti-Harry Potter mania on the part of Evangelicalism™).

If you can weed through the sermonizing, there are many pages of thoughtful material, but I am quite certain that there are other books out there that accomplish the same goal (perhaps even written by Christians) without the excess baggage.

Nah…Calvin’s more addicted than I am. I don’t post enough. I got such a high score because I think about blogging this or that a lot but half the time my ideas don’t materialize because I’m too lazy to sit down and take the time.

I can’t get the “badge” to show up. But I’m 68%How Addicted to Blogging Are You? addicted to blogging, apparently.

Calvin convinced me the other day that I should sign up for a Facebook, which as it turns out is a much less tacky alternative to MySpace, which I have sworn to loathe for all eternity.

I immediately saw that it could be a useful tool to find and stay in touch with old friends and acquaintances from college and before. Already I have one friend I knew from elementary school and one from middle school on my “friend list,” and I’m waiting on several more whom I knew from ages ago to accept my “friend invite,” or shall I say, to see if they remember who I am. The only downside to finding old friends this way is that until they are your friend, the only information you can view is their name, network, picture, and their friend list - meaning if their are 20 Sarah Jones’s (for example) it could be any of all or some of them, or none of them because they don’t even have a Facebook - or they got married and changed their last name. It takes a bit of sleuthing at times, by identifying one person whom you know to be the correct one, then looking at their friend list to see if they have anyone you know, or if you suspect someone is the right person, looking at their friend list to see if they have a sister or brother that you remember they had on it, or perhaps another mutual friend….etc. It’s kinda fun actually. It’d be nice to be able to view the basic info at least though, or at least something to go on.

I’m sure it will also be nice when I find all the youth in the youth ministry who have Facebooks - although I bet many have MySpace accounts, I just refuse. I’ve never seen a MySpace I liked the layout and look of - I can feel my eyes burning just thinking about it.

Anyways, it’s been fun fiddling around with it today, uploading some photos, playing with my profile, etc, etc.

I feel as though I am a person torn in two. I feared that it would come to this, and yet I have hoped all along that somehow I would find a way to reconcile my two passions within me, to even bring them to harmonize with each other. But it seems that it is not to be quite yet a perfect duet.

I face a terrible decision that I know really isn’t a decision at all because of the path I have already chosen to follow at this juncture in my life, and I feel as though the other part of me has been placed on a back burner set on warm. It isn’t a nice feeling at all, but I know if I deviated from my path even a little, that wouldn’t be a nice feeling either, and I would regret it ultimately.

I am a person torn in two. On one hand, I am following this adventure of education - I am driven by some unearthly desire to learn more about the Hebrew Bible and anything that will help me understand it better. On the other, I find myself back in ministry, serving with my husband, getting to know a new group of teenagers, and I’m remembering my calling and love for the church, specifically, young people.

Why do these things seem so incompatible? In the end, I don’t think they are - or I would be reconsidering my life’s path. I have blogged on this before, long ago. I am seeking education in the hopes of being able to pass it on, not merely for my own personal benefit - because I have a passion for the church - and I do believe it will benefit my ministry there, on the way, and ultimately. However, in the meanwhile, education is hard work, and time consuming - and there is only so much time in a day, in a week. If I have to take Akkadian on Wednesday nights, then that means no Wednesday night youth group at church, for me. It pains me greatly, but it would pain me if I chose not to take Akkadian as well. I know that to some extent I’m putting youth ministry in the box of one event, but I also realistically know that that is when the majority of students will come, and when I would hang out and continue to develop relationships with them. I will not be cut off entirely, but for a semester at least, I will be somewhat more a stranger to many of the students, and I cut off that night of support to my husband.

Some might criticize me for that, and were it not for the unfailing encouragement and support of my husband to continue in the path of education, and that I absolutely must take Akkadian, and any other class that may interfere at some other point, or stay home to do homework and study if I must - I might falter. I am, after all, a person torn in two, and I dislike - no - I despise having to diminish a part of me for a season in order to develop the other, even if only a little. Finding a proper balance will be a challenge, and I worry I am not up to the task, and I struggle to keep perspective, and to remember I can’t see God’s.

But, I look forward to a day when both sides of me will each have their own different melodies, yes, but will be able to sing in beautiful harmony with each other as a single song, to the glory of God.

Classes start in just a little over a month and I’m nervous and really excited all at the same time. I’ve been checking the GCTS website every other day hoping that a new syllabus for one of the classes I’m taking will be up so that I can find out what to expect, and I’ve finally been rewarded.

CH812 Historiography has been posted, and it looks like it will be a very good class. I’m a tad worried about it being an 800 level class for my first semester (that makes two upper level classes I’m taking my first semester, when you throw in Akkadian!), and I’m also hoping that though it’s in the CH (Church History) designation I’m not going to get bogged down by the fact that while I have a survey level of church history, I’m hardly an expert. However, I think the class will focus more on historiography proper, as well as preparing students who are looking to go on to Ph.D work. It focuses heavily on oral presentations, which makes me skittish, but I guess if I’m going to teach I’m just going to have to learn to get used to it.

That aside, now I know 3 required textbooks that I need so I’m anxious to go out and buy them so I can have them all read by the start of class. Of course, maybe I’m going a bit overboard there…I guess I have a little bit of Hermione in me. Meanwhile, I’ve been frantically biting my nails over the Hebrew competency exam, which Calvin assures me that we’ll do fine on, but of course I can’t help but worry, especially since I have 3 classes riding on it. So, I’ve been brushing up on my grammar by reading Pratico’s book, and reviewing as well as learning new vocab.

I’m sure I’ll have more to share as the time draws closer; right now I’m just a bouncing bean.

Yesterday Calvin and I finally managed to maneuver the treacherous waters of bureaucracy and get our car and ourselves registered in this fine state of Massachusetts. What a pain! To re-cap on our whole car experience thus far since moving here:

1. We find out the Geico does not insure in MA while doing routine change of address notifications.
2. We check the time until our current policy expires - a little under 2 months - should be plenty of time to get signed up with a new insurer and register the car, right? - and start the search.
3. Geico recommends us to a place where they send their MA exitees, we call for a quote, they send us paperwork.
4. We begin the process of filling out the paperwork. For some reason, they need our DL #’s for all states we’ve driven in in the past 6 years and our date of first licensing ever! For some other reason, we’ve just never thought to keep that information?
5. Calvin calls the PA DMV and explains the information that he needs from them. They tell him he has to pay for his own personal data, and then after directing him to the form online he needs to fill out in order to obtain it, we read on the form where in order to obtain the information that he told them he needed, he has to give them the very same information. *smack*
6. We call Geico. They were happy to provide us with all the information we needed, that they already had on file. I’m reminded again of my consternation at having to switch.
7. We finally can fill out the paperwork and send it in.
8. We wait.
9. We receive the form to take to the RMV (Registry of Motor Vehicles) with the insurance companies stamp on it with instructions on what to take.
10. We go to RMV to get our car registered and new drivers licenses. We wait for 30 minutes in queue.
11. We get to the new available window. The lady, who reminded me severely of the lady at the New York DMV who didn’t know what a Social Security card looked like, took one look at my title, points to a line and says, “Who’s that?” “My dad, he’s still on the title because it was my car before I got married…I want to take him off of it if I can.” She looks at me sternly. “He needs to sign this paperwork.” She pulls out a form and slides it to me. She then starts highlighting sections on the title. “He needs to sign the title saying he’s sold it to you.” “But he lives in Virginia…” “Then you’ll just have to mail it to him.” She stares at me. End of discussion. “Um…can I just leave him on it for now then…?” “You’ll have to get the insurance to give you a new registration form with his name on it then, and he would still have to sign it.” She stares at me again. End of discussion. “And…there’s no way of registering my car without just…leaving it a Virginia title?” She scowls at me. “NO.” “Okay. Thank you.”
12. We leave, quite depressed about the whole situation. I call our new insurer to tell them what the RMV said. They put a new registration form in the mail with my dad as the “seller” of the car instead of the dealer I bought it from, so it’s all “proper” now.
13. Pressed for time, I then pay $30.00 to overnight the TITLE to my dad so he can sign off saying he “sold” it to me (IT’S ALREADY MY CAR!) and the other paperwork saying it was transferred within a family so I don’t have to pay sales tax again. He overnights it back to me.
14. My dad somehow forgets I’m married (???) and puts my maiden name on the envelope. They get confused up at the mailroom and didn’t put it in our box, because for some reason GCTS doesn’t have FedEx, UPS, DHL, or large USPS packages delivered to our own apartment, but has everything delivered right to a student mailroom. A minor irritation of ours that got alot bigger when the title to my car almost got lost.
15. Meanwhile, I get the pink notice from Geico saying that they are canceling my policy as of the expiration date because I didn’t pay my renewal fee. I panic, thinking I’ve done something wrong. Obviously I want it canceled as of the expiration date! We’d already called a thousand times to talk to them about this, but never officially “canceled,” I didn’t think I needed to, so I call to make sure everything’s okay and to tell them, yes, I do want to cancel, I moved to MA as we’d already told them we did.
16. The lady I spoke with says she actually can’t cancel my policy anyways, because if she did, then they would have to tell the NYS DMV that we don’t have insurance and we’d get fined since the car was still registered in NY. She said once we registered the car in MA, we had to actually mail the NY license plates to the NYS DMV to prove we were no longer operating the vehicle in NY, with a return receipt. Once I had the return receipt proving NYS was in possession of the license plates, then they could cancel the policy. However, if this didn’t occur before my expiration date, they would be mandated by law to notify NYS of the expiration of my policy and I could still be fined. Unbelievable!
15. Back to the RMV, and we wait 30 minutes again. Finally, the registration goes smoothly. Back in line for a driver’s license for almost 45 minutes. While waiting, I notice that they put the wrong city and zip on my registration. After I’m done, and Calvin is doing is stuff, I go and get that fixed. Fortunately, that goes fairly smoothly, and we’re done at the RMV after almost 1 1/2 hours and $266 poorer. $90 for a driver’s license! Each! I’ve never paid that much, even in NY!
16. Next day, I mail the NY license plates back to the fine happy NY to the tune of $15.

And here I am, breathlessly waiting to see if NY gets my plates before my Geico policy expires so they won’t have to fine me for something I didn’t even do, considering I’m now 100% legal to drive my car in MA as an MA resident. I don’t even know if they can fine me, given that I’m no longer a NY resident, but oh, I’m sure they’d love to try. It really makes me angry. I’ve never experienced bureaucratic bullcrap like I have with D/RMV’s.

What a nightmare. Sorry for the long whine. I’ll try to be more productive next time.