Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Gallimaufry

That's right--this posting is just stew. No particular subject. Who knows? I might post a photo. We'll see.

When I came back from Ruidoso, I came down with a cold on Monday. That was two and a half weeks ago. Mostly it's gone now, but I still have this hacking cough and a really sore throat. Yeah, yeah, I am going to see the doctor tomorrow. Taking a book, because the receptionist had to "squeeze me in" to the schedule, so you know I will spend most of the afternoon in the waiting room. But maybe something useful will happen.

It's weird at work. I have been an administrator at my university for the last four years. Then an opportunity came up for me to be the university's first full-time online religion professor. So I jumped at the chance. The job started July 1. In theory. The reality is that since my replacement is not on campus yet and the other new employees have to be trained and there's no computer yet in my new office, I'm hanging around the old office. And then I wander over to the new office. Two sets of keys. Two phone numbers. Two desks. It's weird.

Our Sunday school class has been studying the sermons of Jesus as recorded in Matthew's gospel. In preparation for last Sunday's lesson ("take no thought what you should wear . . ."), I counted the clothes in my closet. If you take all the short-sleeved shirts (with a collar--no T shirts) and multiply that by the number of pants, I could wear a different combination of clothes every day for 555 days! OK, so I wouldn't match at least half of those days, but think how many people in the world have two or even just one set of clothes! That's it. I'm not buying any more clothes. Well, maybe socks and undies.

I went looking for a photo and decided to give you an etymological lesson on the word zenith. It actually came from an Arabic word samt ("road") which got transcribed as cemt in medieval Europe. But because Gothic letters consist of mostly vertical strokes, cemt was mistranscribed as cenit. Because this was a scholarly word, most Europeans encountered it in books and had no idea about its original pronunciation. Eventually it became pronounced zenith. And now you know. (See how lazy I am--this appeared in a previous posting!)

3 comments:

Carolanne said...

What kind of a photo were you looking for anyway?

Seems the "random thoughts" posts or "stews" as you call them are the in flavour for blogs this week. (counting yours and mine.)

I remember one man in our Bible study once telling us about a poor country he visited and how his daughter had 10 skirts compared to 1 over there. When I was sorting out my wardrobe yesterday, this thought came to my mind, too.

Please do continue to buy new socks and undies. When they get all old, holey and frayed, they're not worth the peg they get hung up on. :)

Finally, I hope you're feeling better soon and the book is most enjoyable to read while you wait!

spookyrach said...

I like your random stew of ideas. Sometimes its fun to just dash off a few lines on the things floating around in your head.

Good luck with the book. Hope it's a long one!

I didn't realize you would be doing exclusively on-line teaching. Is that cool? Or will you miss having all those "shiny, happy people" sitting in front of you?

Thanks for the offer of the wicker chair by the way. I figured you'd let me cower under the carport as long as I didn't lean on the PWT Saturn! ha ha!

little david said...

Thanks for the replies, Carolanne and Rachel. I been feeling kinda punk this weekend, so I am just now checking blogs, including my own! Turns out the "cold" was actually pneumonia. So I am now taking heavy duty antibiotics and a fairly effective cough suppressant. But I still feel puny and don't sound so pretty either.