It's midnight. My wife has blissfully gone to sleep with some cheerleading movie on USA. Tomorrow morning is my concentration-challenged son's first day in Kindergarten. He is asleep right now. But I'm not. I'm praying he somehow can hold himself together until 2:30, when I'll be very understanding if he collapses into a tornado of insanity.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to recover from online teaching burnout and a general sense that I should get around to doing the study I should have done in graduate schools of all kinds.
My most recent book attack is Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's Paul: A Critical Life. I find it quite splendid, although depressing as usual.
For example, I knew the usual idea that Claudius expelled Christian Jews from Rome in 49 over problems in the synagogues relating to "Chrestus," as the Roman historian Suetonius puts it. The fact that I know this, while generally uninteresting and irrelevant to most, is nevertheless a tidbit of knowledge that some might find a sign of my competence.
Now enter M-O. I knew Suetonius. He knows Orosius, a fifth century Christian who is the ultimate basis for dating Suetonius' reference to 49. Never heard of him.
Then M-O brings in Dio Cassius. Him I've heard of. But as usual, haven't read yet.
In the end, I'm really not that different from my concentration-challenged son. I just hope I can hold myself together enough to keep a job and then I can collapse into a tornado of meaningless blog insanity when I get home.
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2 comments:
Hi Ken,
I hope that your son did OK today. My daughter just finished her third week of First Grade(yes they start early in Florida). They are piling on the homework already.
I always make myself feel better about other scholars by claiming to be a "generalist." It doesn't help much -- but Bauer claims the same thing!
He was not in a particularly good mood and not wanting much "talking" to go on when we picked him up--a whole day is a long time to pay attention for him. But he's found Spiderman and the clicking of web shooting has resumed. He doesn't want to go back to "church" any more.
Alas. Knowing you (and with a general memory of your wife), I'm sure your daughter is well behaved and far too intelligent to be in the first grade.
My family, on the other hand, has never been known for wearing its intelligence anywhere that someone else might recognize it :)
The idea of full day kindergarten and homework!! is difficult. I'm all for learning as soon as possible. But with my son, transitions are important too...
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