Thank You, BILLIE!!!

This morning we got a knock at the door during breakfast. We thought it was one of the neighborhood pests, er . . . darling children wanting Moira to play. So we sent Moira to open the door but it was NOT a neighborhood pest, it was our neighbor Billie bearing a very special package. It seems that this--ended up in her mailbox instead of ours. Is the mailman trying to kill me?!? I've been waiting for my diploma for a month and a half and he has to give it to our neighbor instead?!? Oh well, that's what I get for not joining the masses for commencement.

Did you notice the name on that diploma? No? Allow me to zoom in a bit for you.

Yes, folks, that's my name on that diploma. Little 'ol me done went and graduated. Yessir!

Allright, allright, I know we already went over this--I finally graduated, blah, blah, blah, eleven years, blah, blah, blah. But now I have my diploma and I get to brag all over again. Yee-haaa!!!

You can't see me, but I'm doing a little dance right now.

Okay, I'm done.

Relief

I have written before about being an idiot in front of my Hebrew professors. Last time, I blamed it on the lack of coffee, but in all reality being an idiot in public is a big fear of mine. Especially now that I'm going for my graduate degree, I'm always thinking to myself. "Why did you say that? You know it's not that! Now they think you're an idiot!" Or some other less intelligent person or slacker in the class actually knows the answer and shows me up, because I was having a brain lapse. I hate that.

But today, I got some relief from all of that anxiety. One of my professors said, he doesn't care when we have a brain lapse, or just say the first thing that comes to mind even if it's wrong. For him, it's a part of the learning process. He said he doesn't even grade on class participation, because he's experienced that some people come to class and just soak it in, but man they get it. They'll hand in some terrifically amazing paper or midterm but never say a word in class. They have to process it and that's cool with him.

This is a relief, because I have a running list of every stupid, idiotic or basic mistake I have made in front of my professors. . . and it keeps getting longer and longer. I gain some sollace from my other friends in the Hebrew program, as we hangout laughing at our stupidity and sharing our anxiety. At least I'm not alone. But now, I can toss it all out the window! No worries! I can forget about the time I was reading Hebrew in front of my advisor and just couldn't for the life of me pronounce the most basic word right. I can forget about shouting out the wrong answer to the same question three times in a row today in my Biblical Hebrew class (I'll spare the boring geeky details). I can forget, everytime I get something wrong about the Prophets or Genesis or some basic idea in front of the person considering me for a TA position for course on the Prophets. Because mistakes are a part of learning!


All my catalogued wrongs will just go right out the window!





Who am I kidding? No they won't. . .

I was Evangelized!!!

Yes, my dear readers, I was evangelized for your sake. In a desperate attempt for material to write about (that's right--it's all for you) I sat down by one of the open air preachers this week. I know most of you would not require such sacrifices, I know you'd be crying out, "STOP! Write about your cute kids instead! For the love of all that is holy! This isn't necessary!" And I must admit it wasn't all for the sake of my meager readership. Part of the reason I decided to sit down was because one of my Jewish friends had walked by earlier on her way to our Hebrew class and was accosted by one of our classmates. Aparently, the preacher was his pastor. (You ever get one of those bad vibes about somebody the first time you see them and you don't know exactly why, except you decide to stay far away from them...that was this guy...and now I know why I got the bad vibes.)

Anyway, since the preacher guy had totally offended my friend she barraged me with a ton of questions about Christianity and what Jesus taught, so I thought I should go listen to the guy. And as street preachers go, he was offensive, but he ain't no Brother Jed. Brother Jed has his daughters walk around with signs reading "Faggots burn in Hell," (get it--faggots...burn...) "Jesus is your Judge," and other friendly, loving things to say. This guy just stood there and shouted at people all day. . . amateur.

One thing he did bring with him was his own team of crowd minglers. They would walk the crowd and ask people what they thought of the guy, what he was saying, etc. Eventually, they would get to the point of asking if you knew Jesus as your "Personal Lord and Savior." If you said you were a Christian, as I did twice, they would ask if you could pin point a date, an exact moment when you became a Christian. Seeing where the conversation was headed I said, "yes,"and pointed to my adult baptism when I was 19. (I really wasn't in the mood to point out to the people that praying to receive Christ as your personal savior is not really a biblical idea. The magic get out of hell prayer isn't what salvation is about, that salvation is a life lived for God, serving Him with what you do for others, not your belief and words.)

For the guy that is in my class (let's call him J), the conversation was a little less strange than the first fellow, since I had a little bit of familiarity with the man, but it ended with the following conversation, which I had to share:

J: So, Ben, what's your major?
Me: Jewish Studies
J: With a confused look on his face, starts to open mouth to ask, "Why is a Christian majoring in Jewish Studies"
B Seeking to avoid said question: What's yours, J?
J: Hebrew.
B: Why are you majoring in Hebrew?
J: I feel like I know the New Testament pretty well and I wanted to study the Old Testament. I'll be going to get my M. Div when I graduate, so I thought I should take something that will keep my interest and be useful.
B: You know, J, If you don't know the Old Testament, I guarantee you don't really know the New Testament at all.
J: Confused look on his face
B: Well, it was good talking to you! I gotta go catch my bus! See ya in class tomorrow.

To J's credit, he still had the guts to invite me to his Church's student group that meets on campus. I did the polite, "I'll think about it (i.e. no thanks)" answer. And got out of there with my life intact.

It could have been worse, really. But I've already been told I'm going to hell and have AIDS--what else can they do to me? Really if you're have a terminal illness and you're going to hell, there's only one thing worse--becoming a psychotically judgmental street preacher.

I really hope my current writer's block will end soon, because I really don't want to become that.

Spring Smack Down on the Oval

I forgot about one more sign of Spring at OSU. Elections for the Union of Student Government (i.e. glorified student council). The USG makes for fierce headlines in the school paper as mud is slung between opposing candidates...for student council president. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the USG accomplishes some big and important...stuff. I'm just not sure how and I fail to see that winning is so important as to justify yelling and accusing people of doing stupid things. It's college! Who doesn't do stupid things!?!

There is one good thing about all this campaigning. It's not the colorful and cute ways that the candidates use their names in chalk drawings on the sidewalks. It's not the trees being wasted on the thousands of fliers being passed out to every person who breathes and steps foot on the oval. It's not that it's windy and kinda chilly and almost raining and the campaigners are out on the oval in their color coordinated t-shirts freezing their butts off (though that is a close second). It's that today they had to share space on the oval with Brother Jed.

I don't know who was more annoying: Brother Jed yelling at me and everyone else (including the cold campaigners) that we're on the fast train to Hell, or the campaigners yelling back at him that he was ruining their campaigning. Both were actually equally amusing, and if it had been warmer I might've stuck around to see who won. My money was on the students, especially since I saw one of them on their cell phone (a tool of the devil, according to Brother Jed) to call the campus cops...I should've stayed for that one.

Signs of an OSU Spring

Yes, spring is in the air! The robins are singing, birds are making nests in the trees, the trees are budding and we actually had our first real day where it was too hot to wear my coat. But these are your normal everyday signs of spring. At Ohio State, we have a few extra signs of spring:

1) The half naked overly fit twenty-somethings running around the oval

2) The half crazed overly angry fundamentalists standing on the oval telling people they have AIDS and are going to Hell.

And yes, these signs of spring have already reared their ugly heads this year. Since I have to cross the oval several times this quarter, I'm sure that it will be the source of many amuzing anecdotes of sex and condemnation. I can't wait to share.

Funding!!

I just received the letter last night offering me a fellowship for OSU! I was planning on being a TA for some of the Bible classes, but I was offered this instead, and I can't do both. So I had a choice:

1) free money without having to do any work, just go to school and read books

or

2) go to school and read books plus put together classes, grade papers and deal with fundies distracting from the point by arguing about if it rained or not before the flood, or if they were literal 24 hour days or if they ate an apple....

hmmm....I think I'll go for the first choice.

Yay for funding!!

Still Procrastinating

I'm depressed. I have too much to do and I don't want to do it. And to make matters worse, I discovered that I have RPD. Research Perfectionism Disorder.

If I'm researching something, I don't feel satisfied until I've completely exhausted all avenues of research. (Thus, the household tension regarding library books.) But for one paper I'm currently writing I haven't done a lot of research. I found out that there isn't much academic discussion on the topic I chose, so I don't have many sources. I've done sufficient research to write the paper but not sufficient research to satisfy my RPD.

It's a vicious cycle. I'm depressed because my paper won't be as in depth as I would like, so I procrastinate on writing it, which further ensures that it will be a rush job and a less than satisfying paper, thereby increasing my depression and creating more procrastination.

I'm depressed.

Sociology Without a License

Wow! 6 days without a post! You might think this means I have a life. But no, my friends, no; it’s just the end of the quarter. This means I have three papers due all at the same time and two finals to get ready for, which means no life for me and no time to post. Actually, as I’m writing this, I am skipping my Prophets class, but that’s not so bad because I’m just auditing it. But anyway, I’m glad this quarter is almost done.

Of course, it’s not like I’ve actually been doing any school work either. I’ve been dutifully procrastinating with Muppet movies, Lord of the Rings and reading books that are unrelated to school. I’ve discovered that ignoring your school work doesn’t make it any easier the night before it’s due, and the resulting depression just makes things even worse.

But through this procrastination I have made some interesting sociological insights into my family.

1. Evie cannot comprehend Muppets. (Heck, she can’t even say Muppets. She keeps talking about Muffins.) She was introduced to the Muppets via the Great Muppet Caper. We were at a Hebrew class party at Jessica’s house and, being good parents, we were downstairs playing Trivial Pursuit while she was upstairs watching a DVD by herself. Well, not really by herself, because she kept yelling downstairs “I need you!” and one of us (actually mostly Jessica) would run upstairs to support her in her Muffin watching. During one of these “I need you times” we had a touching father-daughter talk about Muppets.

Evie – “I scared.”
Me – “They can’t get hurt. They’re just puppets.
Evie – “No, them like cartoons, but them real . . .
Me – “No, they’re puppets; people’s hands are inside moving them—like this (insert very well done impression of moving a puppet)
Evie – “But I can see all of them. I can see them legs.”
Me – “Well, they’re puppets, they’re not real, so you don’t have to be scared.

(Here’s where I can’t explain something so, after a little more comfort time, I just pat her leg and walk away. How can you see all of them move anyway? Jim Henson, that evil wizard!)


2. Moira doesn’t like Muppets. Something deep in the core of her being says that talking animals are weird, just weird. She was close to being won over by Miss Piggy’s synchronized swimming scene. And she was sucked in by the escape from jail and showdown with the bad guys stealing the Great Baseball Diamond. But still there are lingering doubts. She just needs time.


3. Although Jaime likes Muppets, she does not like Fantasy. No one should ever watch a fantasy movie with Jaime. Perhaps she was scarred by her obsession with fantasy and science fiction in her early years, I don’t know, but I do know that watching Lord of the Rings with her was NOT fun. Some comments included “This is so stupid--It’s just a ring, people!” “Why can’t wizards fly? What’s the point of being a wizard if you can’t fly?” “I thought elves were little. Aren’t elves supposed to be little?” “This movie is so racist. All the “good” people are white and all the evil things are dark skinned. What is this—some sort of Nazi propaganda? Aryans conquering the evil less than human indigenous monsters who would take over the world if we don’t stop them?!?” (Actually, I was starting to think the same thing before she said that. I was a little worried that we were on the same wavelength.)
She basically talked through the whole thing. Now we have the next two of the trilogy and I think I’ll tie her up and gag her. (And, yes, this is the FIRST time we have seen Lord of the Rings. This is also due to Jaime and her everyone-else-is-doing-it-so-why-should-I attitude. This is usually something I love about her, but when I want to watch a movie, it gets annoying.)


Wow, after all that I just realized that when I’ve run out of movies and books to procrastinate with, I can always write an overly long, pointless post for my blog. Life is good.

A New Family Member!?!

Yes, you may not have known that we were expecting, but a new bundle of joy has entered our house. His name is Mr. Spot. He's a rat, and I have to say he's pretty darn cute. He really belongs to my friend Jessica, but she's on a trip to California to visit her husband in Santa Barbara, and we have the honor of rat sitting.

We first met Mr. Spot when we went over to Jessica's house for dinner. The girls played with him so much that, when Jessica took him out after we left so he could get some exercise, he curled up on her lap and went to sleep instead. It was that fateful night that he received his name; Mr. Spot was Moira's idea. I think Evie's idea was "rat."

So Jessica thought it would be a good idea for our girls to help keep an eye on him while she was gone. And they were excited to do it. All week, all we heard was, "We're getting to watch Mr. Spot! Is today when Mr. Spot's coming?" We're going over to a small group meeting for church tonight and Moira will get to see a good friend of her's (who happens to also have a room packed floor to ceiling with dolls). Is she excited to go to her friend's house? Yes....BUT....when she woke up this morning and asked if we knew what today was, it was NOT the day she gets to see her friend Jenny, no it's the day Mr. Spot is coming.

So we have a rat for 5 days (until Sunday) and hopefully this doesn't cause a rat craze leading to a rat of our own. Personally, between my dog and my daughters constantly popping their heads up by the cage to see our visitor, I'd be surprised if we didn't take at least one year off the poor guy's life. It's sad, but I don't know if our home is fit for rats.

And, Jessica, if you're reading this right now...I'm sorry, really sorry.

I'm In

Today I got my official letter from OSU saying that I have been accepted into the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures graduate school.

Yes, yes . . . I was irresistible. They took one look at my application and everybody was just falling all over themselves to accept me. I'm sure they're still sitting there stunned by my undergraduate achievements.

Okay, actually, I've been biting my nails for 2 weeks. It only got worse when they called and told me they needed an academic resume in 3 hours and they didn't see fit to tell me why--just that "it would be helpful." I was too busy panicking to press them for more information.

But here I am, holding my acceptance letter, now wondering how I'm going to pay for it. But I'm sure a genius like me can figure that out . . . somehow.

Charlton Heston Was On My Exam

The last post is not the best thing in the world to leave up for so long, but I've been too busy to worry about it. Graduate School applications, Fellowship applications, Teaching Associate applications, job applications and midterms.

Ah, the joys of midterms. In my history of Hebrew class we had a take home exam. When I found this out at the beginning of the quarter, I was pretty excited. What could be easier than a take home exam? Then I saw the first question. Here are the exact instructions:

Exhaust me by thoroughly discussing everything you know about the following words:

Let me just say there is nothing more nerve wracking than that kind of open ended question on an exam. If I'm exhausted by writing the essay, does that mean that the professor will be exhausted when he reads it? If you've never met this man, he's the kind of guy that couldn't be exhausted by anything. I haven't found one thing he's not excited about. This means that he's really great to be around, but it also means that if he's using his exhaustion to gauge the quality of those essays, I just hope he's reading them at 3 am . . . on a treadmill.

And, once again, I get to lament my geekiness, because although the exam took all weekend to complete, I actually ended up enjoying it.

My favorite part--analyzing the Hebrew on the stone tablets for the movie, The Ten Commandments. Yes, that is real Hebrew. Charlton Heston--who incidentally played every ancient Jewish character in the movies of the 1960's--was actually carrying fake stone tablets with authentic ancient Hebrew on it. Well, not that authentic--the script was a few hundred years off. Fools.

Don't Go without the Jo

I have been such an idiot today. It's been one of those days that starts out kinda' down and then only gets worse. I was going to go to campus a bit earlier today, to talk to one of my professors about grad school and one of the classes I'm taking. This means that I have to get up early so I can catch the 7:30am bus to get to campus by 8:30.

I of course over sleep while my wife is out walking with our neighbor. My oldest daughter wakes me up at 7:18. (I know it's sad that my daughter is up before me, but, hey I tend to be a night owl. Honestly so does she, so I'm not sure what she was doing awake that early anyway.) So it's one of those running around with my head cut off mornings. When I get to campus to talk to my professor, I realize that I've left everything that I wanted to talk to him about at home. AAARRGGHH!

Oh well, I think, I can call my wife to get the syllabus so I can get a book I need for a report in that class from the great OSU Library. I must say that the OSU library is really quite good. Only a few times have I not been able to find what I needed there. Usually when I have problems I'm looking for the English translation of an article written in German and they have the German article and the Hebrew article, but not the English. But today, I'm looking for a text that was written in English, they should have it right? Wrong! I think, well maybe I can get it on Amazon or something. I sure can, if I want to pay $227.05. $227.05! That is not a typo! See!

Scratch that idea. I try to order it from an inter-library loan, but I really need it earlier than they can get it to me and I can only get it for 28 days. It occurs to me that there are several seminaries in the great town of Columbus, OH that just might carry this book. I look them up and viola! I can get it tonight and renew as often as I need it. Slight problem, though, I owe them $10 because I'm a slacker in returning things...the price I pay for convenience!

Now I'm nearly late for my 9:30 class. Yes, I spent a whole hour trying to find this book and now I've missed the office hours with my Rabbinics professor and I'm late for my class on the Prophets. Actually, I get to the Prophets class right on time. But everytime I get called on to answer a question, I totally cannot remember a darn thing! And this is an undergraduate course being taught by the man who will determine if I get to teach these courses next year in graduate school. Not looking good.

Bell rings, and I'm off to Greek! It's all good, I did the homework on the bus this morning, I'm feeling good about everything we've covered. I volunteer to do the first translation.... And then I get The Face. The Face says your close, but wrong (at least it wasn't the Where-The-Heck-Did-You-Get-That-From Face; which is the face I got in the previous class.) The short of it is that I got close to the right translation for all of the sentences but not exactly. Good enough for now.

Bell rings, off to Hebrew! This is taught by the same professor from this morning's Prophets class. At least here, I get some things right, but mostly....I'm strugling. I can't even remember that it was Titus who sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE (ala the Arch of Titus; basic 101 of Jewish History here) no...I say Timothy. Close, you know Titus is also a name of a book in the New Testament like Timothy, but close doesn't count here. This is a Graduate level course. I suck...

Bell rings...who cares? I go to work. I'm thinking to myself...what the heck is wrong with me today? Suddenly, I remember...dude, you got up way freakin' early and you didn't have time to get any coffee all day! I walk to work make a fresh pot of coffee (which I am currently sipping delightedly), and I am now reflecting on the deep, deep connection that has just occured to me:

If you have to choose between being late and drinking coffee or being on time and being idiot....my friend, drink the coffee.

Adventures on the Oval, Episode 1

One of the great things about going to school at Ohio State is all the crazies that seem to find their way onto the oval. . . I mean the wonderful diversity that a fine public institution allows. People wanting you to sign various petitions, Brother Jed and other various fire and brimstone preachers damning everyone to hell. Really almost anything you can think of people arguing about finds it way to the Oval.




This means that whenever the weather is even remotely nice, if you have to cross the oval, you get to play cat and mouse with the various groups (one of my favorite past times!). The various crazy experiences can make for some good stories so I'm beginning a series posted only as consistently as they happen about my adventures on the Oval. ENJOY!

The other day they had EVERYBODY out there. Some fire and brimstone guys and a couple of student groups. I scout out their positions and chart my path I realize I have only two options...

1)Walk by the fire and brimstone guys

OR

2) Walk by the recycling guys.

Easy choice right? Walk by the recycling guys. WRONG. Apparently nestled in with the recycling group was another "sex education, women's rights" group which I didn't see at all. Do I get a flyer discussing the great benefits of recycling? No! Do I get offered a free condom? YES! To top it all off I still had to pass a cleverly disguised (i.e. he didn't have a big 5ft x 10ft sign) fire and brimstone guy....who told me I have AIDS.

I'm sure nothing like that could happen to me at Wheaton. Do I really want to go there and miss being offered a free condom and told I have AIDS on the same day?

The Best Excuse

Okay, the Greek homework I had the other night was so incredibly hard that no one in the class did it. But I had the best excuse for not having done it:

I spent the whole night transcribing from Moabite the stele from Dibon. Yes that’s right, I’m sure everyone is familiar with it. Dated to the 9th century BCE and written in the ancient Moabite language it is the first written account outside of the Bible of the country of Israel and the god YHWH. 34 lines long and I transcribed the entire thing for homework in my History of the Hebrew Language class. So by the time I got to my Greek homework my brain was fried. And I took one look at it, laughed then went to bed.

The actual conversation in class went something like this:

Student 1: Why didn’t you do the homework?
Ben: I spent the whole night transcribing a stele in ancient Phoenician
Everyone: Yeah right, etc.
Ben: No, really. See?
Teacher: …. ok, you win.

Of course later in the day I would find out that I only had to transcribe the first 5 lines. Doh! When I said I did the whole thing, I of course got kudos from my professor. Did I take the credit? Heck Yeah! Did I tell him it was because I didn’t pay attention to his instructions to only do the first five lines? Nah! Why does he need to know that?

So not only am I a geek, but I’m also an idiot because I can’t follow basic instructions. Oh well.