j a m e s f o r s y t h ✡ n e t

Hi all, I’ve been a bit busy to think of anything much to post here recently. When all else fails, add a photo.

Recently I’ve been lightly dabbling in the Latin language, mainly because I’d like to be able to read Jerome’s Latin Vulgate.

There are quite a few resources online for studying Latin. Perhaps not under the category of study materials, but Latin nonetheless, are Google in Latin and also Wikipedia.

It seems like a strange cross-over between ancient and modern.

I’m also studying Latin because some of the grammatical concepts are similar to Biblical Greek, which I’d like to get back to eventually.

There’s a website out there which is chock full of materials for learning Chinese.

It’s called Sinosplice.

There’s a page on there which includes an mp3 rap by a flight attendant venting her frustration about her lousy job:

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2004/12/19/rapping-flight-attendant

Check it out.

Near our place there’s a big tent that’s been set up with a multimedia exhibit. It’s fantastic.

Inside the tent there are lights which interface with various kinds of materials. Well worth seeing.

As it was very dark inside, I couldn’t take very good snaps, but I got this nice one of Asher.

I know it’s not a hymn, but I do like this song. I don’t plan on making a category for Contemporary Christian Music.

I’ve just discovered how to embed YouTube videos into the site (I know, I know, about 3 years behind everybody else). So I can see myself going a little crazy with the embedding. This one’s for Asher to watch later. I hope he doesn’t ask for some cake as a result!

A few posts ago:

http://www.jamesforsyth.net/what-am-i-doing-these-days/

I was saying that I have time on my hands, I can spend time on writing my book (truth be known I was worried about even getting enough work).

Well, for the first time since embarking on this role as a sessional English teacher I’ve found myself with too much work on my hands. I’ve had to turn down offers for work because of commitments at other schools.

I had no idea this would happen so soon.

Praise God for his mercy and grace towards me.

As someone who is long out of high school, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Wuthering Heights (and properly this time!)

One literary critic I read somewhere said that the sheer number of characters is deliberately confusing. Certainly, it doesn’t make it any easier that there are two Catherines. Nor the frequent use of surnames, rather than first names and vice versa, quite interchangably.

I found many of the characters thoroughly odious and of moral outrage. Why Nelly Dean doesn’t just leave them all is a mystery to me.

One thing I found of great help to my understanding of the book was to paste a clearer copy of the family tree to the inside-front cover of the book. I found this on page 308 of The Scribner Companion to the Brontës by Barbara and Gareth Lloyd Evans. The marriages and births are clearer and far more readable than the chart that came with the edition of the book that I own.

I also felt the need to take notes from a number of other literary critical works on the book to get my head around the whole plot, the characters, themes, imagery and Haworth landscape.

Perhaps for the most serious among us there is a concordance to Wuthering Heights! This is great for those doing a paper on some certain theme found in the book, who want to find all the references to that topic all in one place. If you are wanting to find it: A Concordance to Brontë’s Wuthering Heights by C. Ruth Sabol and Todd K. Bender, Garland Publishing, Inc. New York/London, 1984, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities Vol. 428.

Thoroughly recommended.

We asked a fine young Chinese guy called Calvin to come around to our place on a paid basis to play with Asher and strictly use Chinese.

Calvin works locally, and I got chatting to him and offerred that he come around and teach Asher. It turns out that Calvin is from Wuhan, where we lived for six months last year.

It worked very well. I expected much worse, but Asher was very willing to play and converse in his beginner’s Chinese. Of course Asher did a poo as soon as Calvin arrived, and needed a nappy change. And towards the end of Calvin’s stay there was a bit of a temper tantrum. To be honest I didn’t think Asher would put up with the whole thing at all. He’s only a bit over 2½.

We’re having Calvin over again on Friday. Looking forward to it.