(Apologies in advance to everyone on my flist who couldn't give two figs about what the Church of Gin England does or doesn't do. I'm afraid that I give quite a lot of figs)

Well I spent most of the duration of GAFCON grinding my teeth and wanting to hit things (particularly when it emerged that, in the eyes of certain primates, you're barely allowed to step over a church threshold if you're gay, regardless of anything you are or are not doing under the cover of darkness, but if you actively persecute gay people and commit atrocious acts of violence against them... well, no comment), and now I find myself rather stirred up again by this evening's vote by the General Synod of the CofE in favour of the creation of legislation to allow the consecration of women as bishops.

( Read more... )

Speedy heads up to any fellow linguists out there- I've started to teach myself Latin as a summer project (because Koiné Greek just doesn't have enough noun declensions) and I was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions for resources? I'm using the Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin book (which teaches you via a story about a murder mystery in a medieval monastery, though I've yet to get beyond such scintillating sentences as 'mulus neque umbrae neque sarcinas amat') but if there are any handy websites or books or something for helping to remember things, or anything I could progress onto once I have mastered the ablative and the subjunctive and found out whodunnit, then that would be very much appreciated!

Hmm, I haven't updated properly in quite some time.

Well, anyway, term is over and I'm back in the old house for the next couple of months, fishing around for work and making forays into dissertation reading. I passed second year with a good 2:1 (about 67% overall) which I'm extremely happy with; it would have been wonderful to get a first, but after missing half of the lectures for three out of six modules and literally scraping together my summative essays in February it's gratifying enough to still get a good mark, and one that I can easily push up if I put in the work next year.

I am really looking forward to getting stuck into third year- modules on the history of eschatology, the role of emotion and religion in the development of identity, the culture of the first urban churches, and the current sharp and pointy issues in the study of the Old Testament, plus immersion in literary criticism and lots of feminism for my dissertation, will be great fun, and living with non-insane people will be rather nice.

I've been planning to post on both the current mess that is the British government, and the Gay Anglicans Fuck-off Conference, both of which are depressing me at the moment, but here are some good links to be going on with:

It's All Because (the Gays Are Getting Married) No, of course your problems aren't your fault!

Kierkegaard '08 The real choice to be made this November.

The goings-on within the Anglican Communion Dave Walker's humorous and gentle guide for the perplexed.

Diane Abbott on 42 day dentention It's things like this that stop me from completely losing faith in Parliamentary democracy.

I had my first ever mint julep this evening. It was rather delicious. But I am not quite accustomed to that amount of whiskey... especially not after two glasses of wine and a Long Island Iced Tea. Mmm.

This is probably old news to some, but in my mid-revision browsing I have just discovered that Spike Jonze has directed a forthcoming live action adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. There's a leaked special effects test clip here.

This is probably the coolest thing I have heard in months. I still find myself utterly enchanted by that book (... through night and day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year...), and I can't imagine a better director to bring to life the surreal and lonely realms of a child's monster-filled imagination. I can't wait to see the real thing.

This is probably starting to get boring now... two more exams today, and I feel so drained. These were the two I'd been most worried about (largely because I have been carefully staving off worrying about Greek) and overall I think things went better than I'd been expecting.

Ethics was quite frustrating in that I simply didn't have enough time to develop the kind of nuanced and careful arguments that the topic requires- I could easily have filled the entire answer booklet talking about eucharistic ethics as an ethics of community (though I did manage to cram in the classic line 'Jesus did not become incarnate and give himself over to death in order to demonstrate that he was a nice person'), and for lack of time I basically descended into a sermon about marriage as a sacrament in my final essay on cohabitation.

New Testament turned out to be quite the saving grace, however- I managed to drag up a whole sheaf of quotes from somewhere in the depths of my brain for an essay on John's portrayal of Jesus as God's 'agent' (Jewish law. Very boring. Don't ask.), though it did occur to me that it's actually really easy to make up something which sounds like it ought to be in John. I did, however, refrain from having Jesus say 'I am not the droid you are looking for, but anyone who looks for me is looking for the One who sent me'. By some miracle I had thought to skim-read Romans while I ate lunch, and thus managed to bash out a passable essay on Paul's view of Israel. I was really terrified I would end up failing this module, as I missed an awful lot of lectures and seminars whilst slightly losing it last term, but I think I may actually get a 2:1 out of it after all, which is great.

I am so, so tired after all that though, and still two more papers to sit before this is all over. One of which involves rather a lot of Greek. Argh.

'Comparing the list of exam regulations to Keats is not funny. Why do all the invigilators I've had so far think they're funny?'

'Way to give us two seconds to fill out the front of the answer booklets before starting the clock, matey.'

'The Succession Narrative is all about sex, and then death. Just like toboggan and broccoli.'

'Heehee, talking about toilet humour in an academic essay.'

'Hmm, is five adjectives in a sentence too many?'

'Heehee, jokes about Westboro Baptists in an academic essay.'

'I never thought theology would involve so much talking about anal sex.'

'I really want a biscuit.'

'David and Jonathan- 'Brokeback Mount Zion'?'

'Eunuch is a funny word.'

'I really, really want a biscuit. Why doesn't Durham have some of those weird old rules about being able to ask for pie in an exam?'

'What do you mean 'Is Qoholet a preacher of joy', he's quite obviously a miserable bastard.'

'I really cannot write 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die' in an essay on Ecclesiastes, even if it is unbelievably appropriate.'

'I should not be so disappointed that I can't shoo-in some reference to Camus.'

'I wish the other invigilator would stop fiddling with her hair.'

'I want to go home.'

Four more to go now... ho hum.

So here I am, sat in my room on a gloomy Friday afternoon, reading about Ancient Mesopotamian porn. I joke not. This stuff is... weird. Really, really weird. Apparently the lettuce is a very erotic vegetable, and women who make beer are the height of sexiness (I wonder if the beer might have had something to do with that...). I am really starting to regret thinking 'oh, the sexuality question on the Old Testament exam will be a doozy, I'll revise for that'. I did not expect to end up reading epic poems about genitalia.

However, this is slightly more fun than cranking out page after page of hack-style translation on Monday morning. I had no idea it was possible to wrangle several paragraphs of commentary out of vayashlikehu arzah vayhi lenachash (so he threw it to the ground, and lo, it became a snake!), but somehow I managed it. I hate exam season so much.

Sometimes I am quite terrified by my complete lack of understanding of how the technology I use every day actually works. I don't even understand how wireless internet works in a building- how on Earth does it work on a flipping train??

Anyway, I've had a lovely journey so far- I spent the hour from Maidstone to London reading a brilliant book by Rowan Williams (I am increasingly convinced that only poets should write theology) and playing peek-a-boo with the extremely cute little boy in the seat in front. I got to King's Cross long enough in advance to make a little trip I've been planning on for quite a while...

( It's real! I have seen it! )

I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently (largely sparked by finally getting hold of Antony and the Johnsons’ ‘I am a Bird Now’, which has stolen my soul, plus of course all the media hoo-ha over Thomas Beatie) about issues of identity in Christianity and specifically the prejudice often displayed towards people with socially ‘awkward’ identities- specifically in this instance transgendered people.

( Warning: long, rambly, and somewhat nonsensical at points )