Finals.

Early Church History final complete.

Partial Differential Equations final survived, so far as I can tell. Update: I now have Professor confirmation and I-looked-at-my-test confirmation to confirm that I've survived not only the final but also the class.

Christian Personal Values final optional, and I already had a straight A in the class. So no point in taking it.

Real Analysis I final complete, or at the least I've used up all the time allotted in my professor's guidelines. Update: This appears to have gone fairly well and the problem that I did correctly that I was most worried about has been somewhat confirmed to have gone correctly via discussion with a classmate; this is as opposed to the one problem that I know for sure I did wrong.

Update: Religion and Science is done. Turned in. I'm probably going to bug my professor via e-mail to see about turning a bunch of stuff in to his online drop-box, because I haven't done that all semester. I'm pretty sure he and I both won't get in trouble for my not doing it; this is a just-in-case measure.

Classes ought to be survived, though I'm going to have to make some time to do some math over the break. I just am.

Theological thoughts: How do you people feel about the notion of God's self-emptying as applied to the process of creation? That is, in creation, God gives up some portion of the divine attribute of omnipotence? Update at 10:00 AM: I did write about this for the final, and it was interesting. I kind of like the voluntary-restriction-of-"omni" tack, but I wish people gave more credence to neo-Thomistic thought. In particular I wish the foreknowledge/foreordination distinction got more respect; you'd think it would from Christian theologians, considering Calvinists and Arminians have been arguing over whether it exists for years; oddly enough, in not acknowledging it so much, or in making it practically pointless, more modern theologians are siding with the Calvinists. Sigh.

Musical thoughts: "A Taste of Honey" is an awesome song. I'm not actually listening to the Herb Alpert version either; this is The Harry James Orchestra, apparently. And it's still awesome. Update: I've decided this song ought to be danced to.

Update in Placement: I did get some sleep, not entirely on purpose or entirely on accident.
Update: I'm going to go turn in a couple of finals and then get to relax, maybe sleep more. Good day and God bless.

Here's that Finals Schedule

And it's looking absolutely horrid. I might (depending on scheduling of other things, like doctors' appointments) ask Dr. Hallstrom if I might take my PDE final a day early.

ON TUESDAY:

8:00-10:00 Early Christian History
10:30-12:30 Partial Differential Equations
1:30-3:30 Christian Personal Values

ON THURSDAY:

10:30-12:30 Real Analysis I
1:30-3:30 Religion and Science

I'm Insane

Apparently I don't need Cryptography next semester. I don't even need to be in Differential Equations.

I also don't need to be in two of my theology classes, but those are good to have on hand for fulfilling my General Education upper-division stuff.

Sometimes it pays to actually check one's plan for graduation. If I had I might've been actually able to double-major-double-minor. Oh well.

Stuff on Translations

Henri Neufeld has some interesting thoughts on Bible translations.

In other news, grad school in historical theology means I'll be learning some new languages. Latin and Greek for source texts and French and German for scholarship. (Thankfully it sounds as if the learning of the latter two will be a tad less intense.)

Adventure and Inconvenience

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." - G.K. Chesterton

To be honest, sometimes these words seem to fit Disney movies more than they fit real life; what right-minded person looks at inconveniences as if they were adventures? But I'm starting to think they might be much more applicable to real life than I had started to think. After all, Chesterton never promised the resulting adventure would be fun or that the resulting inconvenience would not. He only said that an inconvenience can be looked at as adventure and an adventure as an inconvenience, and at least in the vast majority of cases I would say he's probably right.

Also, in other news, I've started a new thing where I'm trying to pray (not long, just like a line or two) every time I wash my hands.