Happy Birthday to my mum today!!! And happy birthday to my cousin Alessandro as well!

Internet connection is rubbish on my computer and Mr Wireless Network I have to say I hate you, but just a bit because I'm a nice person.

Happy windy day!

What a flopped out weekend; I seem to feel quite okay for a Monday though.

Monica and I forgot to go and see Dave's band, which is a bit rubbish, as I was honestly looking forward to it. I think we were too tired anyway though.

I can have Wednesday morning off, it would appear, thus enabling me to get to mass for All Saints and have the Italian lesson that I paid for. And get a watch. And a haircut. And a mid-week morning off. Great.

With reference to his link to the Dobsons - with the alt text as stated:

I looked at your blog. Why are we "not for the faint hearted"?
Mark Dobson

I should of course have said "In what sense are we &c."

Because of the hugely religious bent to the blog.
[...]
hoose | Homepage

And Rosy's link to us says "The (slightly religiously oriented) Dob-log". I find this all a little odd. It occasionally enters my mind to do a reciprocal link to Rosy calling it "The (slightly heathen oriented) Rosy's blog" but I shouldn't like to cause offence.

Woooooohhh (that's in a ghostly way, not a hurrah kind of way) I'm a Catholic - woooooooooh! My faith is important to me - run for your lives!

Heh. People are funny.

House

This week is half term for Emma, so I've not been doing too much serious job hunting yet, and had Monday and Tuesday off as a little holiday. I was working over most of the summer so didn't see that much of Emma.
On Tuesday we went to Alton Towers for the day. We'd literally just stepped off the monorail at the park entrance when I got a phone call from Mum. The house sale has fallen through due to the sellers deciding not to sell. This puts us back to square one, while we'd been within a couple of weeks of completing the process.
Financially it's not too bad, but we've missed out on a lovely house and have to start looking again. Obviously we were very upset initially, but these things happen - hopefully for a reason.

My friend has given birth to a lovely baby boy today! Just half an hour ago! His name is Tommaso. I'm so happy! I'm looking forward to meeting him and to covering him in kisses!!!

Oh and my sister promised me today that she is going to have a baby girl when she will be pregnant.

I went running this morning and I run for 25 minutes. Maybe. Anyway, I stopped only three times for just a minute to stretch my legs. It's been really good. The air was fresh and I ran not very fast trying to maintain a rhythm. I'll try to run for 3 times every week, only for half an hour, to give air to my small brain!

My parents phoned me and my dad said that his association, the volunteer firemen association, it's organizing a trip to Trento, North of Italy in the mountains, to visit the Christmas` markets. I don't know how to translate this, it's a lot of stalls selling Christmas' decorations and Nativity Scene and all those sort of things. But in the mountains all these things are handmade so they are really good. So we are going, my parents and I on the 16th of December. I'm really looking forward to it! I love Christmas' market and I can spend some time with my family. I'm really happy! I hope my sister can come, so it will be all the family. It would be so nice!

On Friday I managed ( is that correct in this case Mark?) to complete the form for the tuition grant! I couldn't belief it! The Director of the Modular Degree was really nice and filled the part reserved to the University without saying a word. He also certified the copy of my passport. Mark posted the form for me on Saturday, now it's just a question of waiting, but it's a relief!

I enjoy correcting my translations with Mark, I learn so many things. He speaks and writes English so well!!!! He's so patient with me. I'm so lucky, can you imagine if I had a German boyfriend? Useless, completely useless.

I've got a cake in the oven, it better rise this time. Now back to Spanish grammar and a bit of Italian Fascism.

This is a photo of me as Dr. Who for Kate's party yesterday.

I'm such a dude.

Sturrock Sacked

Less than a month after signing a three year extension to his contract at Hillsborough, Paul Sturrock has been sacked as Sheffield Wednesday manager having been in charge for just over two years.
In his first season he got the team promoted, winning the playoffs at Cardiff, and surpassed the expectations of what the team he inherited should have achieved that season.
In his second season, he kept the team punching above their weight, surviving what was always going to be a tough year back in the Championship.
This season has seen a poor start. The first few games saw reasonable performance fail to merit a decent return of points, but the last couple of games saw pretty dire standards from the Owls, and the 4-0 drubbing by Colchester looks to have been the last straw.

Two reasons why I'm pissed off about this:
I really think that given time, Sturrock would have sorted the situation out. He's got a decent track record as a manager, with (effectively) back to back promotions at Plymouth, and an impressive record in Scotland before then. Yet again the manager at Hillsborough has not been given chance to do his job.
Sturrock always struck me as honest and hardworking. It was refreshing to have a manager who'd say that the team were rubbish. I particularly enjoyed "we can't defend like that and expect to win football matches".

Bizarrely, this makes Sturrock the longest serving Wednesday manager this millennium. That's six managers in six years. I can't see the club going forwards long term unless the board have the guts to stick with a manager through a poor spell.


Links

A sensible article from the BBC about the decision
Interviews with the chairman, ex-manager, and others

Burnley have rejected an official approach to speak to their manager Steve Cotterill, and Nigel Worthington has ruled himself out of the running.

Thesis Submission

I've submitted. It's all in. Huzzah!
I'll have a viva in about a month's time which will determine the result (Pass, Pass with minor corrections, Pass with major corrections, or Fail).
I'm off to the pub now.

Oh, and I'm changing my email address, as my university one expires soon. If I haven't mailed you, please let me know so I can give you the new one.

Something Craig of Gooseania, conscientious atheist, mentioned earlier and also came to me in my Co-op newsletter. Do it:

If you care about climate change and want something done about it, one thing you must do today is get your MP to support The Big Ask - a campaign asking all 646 MPs to back a law making the Government cut carbon dioxide emissions every year. No excuses.

We believe that there are solutions to climate change. Which is why we're campaigning with Friends of the Earth and supporting The Big Ask. And why we seek to invest in renewable energy and refuse to invest in businesses that extract or produce fossil fuels. But our MPs need to help too.

Climate change is no laughing matter. But with your help something can be done about it. Please support The Big Ask by emailing your MP. It only takes a few moments to do your bit...and to make sure your MP does theirs.

Simply visit our website, enter your postcode and click go!

A very busy-seeming day for me.
I went to a once-weekly, limited duration careers advice service in the library this morning, using an interest and work environment guided program, unfortunately the session was cut short-er by the time limit, so I'll pop back next week to finish off. Some interesting ideas so far, Marine Biologist, Agricultural/Horticultural Scientist, although I'm not too keen on Acupuncturist as a career idea.

Went to the job centre with my support worker to have them check over the paperwork for by benefit claim, always a stressful time for me. I always worry about sending important documents by post, especially ones I had to wait for!

Housegroup was very nice this evening, I was assisting with the talk on the Good Samaritan, I'd done some research about the Samartians history and read a version of the story from John Pollock's 'The Master". A very helpful book that explains some of the context of the Gospel according to John.

Well, I 've been a good girl today. I went running a bit. I said to my dad on the phone "dad, guess what I've done today, I went running!" He said the world is coming to an end because he can't remember me running. He asked me " How long? 1 hour?" "Well... dad just 10-15 minutes..." He started laughing and he still is.

I tried to run in the past with my friends, but is not easy in my village. Either you run in the street hoping that nobody will run over you or you go in the countryside where there is no straight road and everything is up hill.
Once Margherita and I joined the village football team during their preparation. The coach, who knows us since we were children, wouldn't stop laughing at us! But we went, we managed to follow them for the first 5 minutes and then they disappeared.

Anyway, I would like to try this time. I am quite stressed these days and I need to release the tension otherwise I will go mad. So tonight after coming back from Uni, I went running. Just 10-15 minutes, but it's a start. I immediately felt better. I like the fresh air and the wind in my face. It was really refreshing and relaxing and now I can feel a lot of oxygen in my body!!!

But I need help because I don't know how to run. My dad suggested stretching first for a bit, start running, stop running walking fast for 2 minutes and stretch a bit, start running again for 2 minutes and then stop start again for 3 minutes and so on. So that I will manage to run for more than 10 minutes. I don't know. What is recommended to do? I don't know.And what about food? One should eat before or after? My dad recommend me to bring with me water with lemon, which is enough for my 10 minutes running, I think. And how often? I was thinking twice maybe three time per week.

I do feel a lot better after only 10 minutes, it sounds ridiculous I know, but there you are. I am easily pleased. Once back from running I did a bit of stretching in my bedroom and some exercises I remembered from my dance classes.

Tomorrow I'm meeting the Director of Modular Degree for the SML so that she can complete the form for my tuition grant, and then hopefully it will be just a matter of sending the form and the documents. Oh and there is the part-time job faire tomorrow, I hope it will be helpful.

Corking. I was flicking through my phonebook before Italian and phoning and texting people that I hadn't for a while. Amongst them was Nina, a friend from university who now works at the museum. It occurred to me that she plays badminton, so with any luck, I'll be able to organise mixed doubles with Ben and Hannah as well, and maybe even get some decent regular exercise rather than go lane swimming, which I understand is very dull, even if it is good for you.

Aaaaand - I complain well, because Exeter College apologised and said I could have the refund of the first Italian lesson that I asked for.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand - I'm getting independent financial advice next week, so I can get my pension arrangements back on track again.

Huzzah!

Mass on Thursday in Stretham Court has always been good for me. It's like an oasis in the middle of the chaos which is the campus. I remembered arriving at mass exhausted after a day in campus and really hungry! But then when the door closed and mass started the world was shut outside. I always left full of hope and peace, as it should be every time I go to mass I think. Tonight the gospel was Luke I think, (I apologize but I'm not really good at Bible references, actually I'm afraid I'm not really good at reading the Bible in general) it was the bit that says ask and you will receive, search and you will find, knock and the door will open... ( something like that, oh dear I do sound really profane.)Paul said that often we ask and we receive something we didn't ask or we search and we find something different from what we were looking for. Then he said that it's not only about me, this with God is a relationship and I should allow the Holy Spirit to work in me. How I allowed my beliefs to affect my life? This is what he asked and made me think about what, I don't know, I'm still thinking. Anyway, it was good tonight as it always been, it's a moment in the week when I stopped and His words calm me down, they comfort me and give me peace. It usually last for a day, but it's a start. I have been a good girl for the last couple of weeks, I re-started saying morning prayer. I think I'll alternate a week of morning prayer and a week of evening prayer. Psalms are really good.

I paid my fees today, the first installment. I am really poor now!( No it's not true I should be just a bit careful until I find a job.) So I bought a frame for Mark's picture(49 pence in Age Concern.)Charity shops are great, there was also a double duvet cover for 2.99 but it was a bit boring. Mine has nice pink and blue flowers I'd like something like that.
So now Mark, you've got a nice frame around your beautiful face!

I watched Central Station yesterday. Nick you are right. It's a very good film nearly cried at the end, but I restrained myself, I can't cry in the library!!Tomorrow I'm going to watch Amores perros and then I'll choose.

I had a really good lecture for Oral Spanish. We were just 4 people and we had the chance to talk a lot. The atmosphere was friendly and relaxed and this is quite important when you have to speak in front of other people in a language you don't know. I'm not good at speaking in general I'm too shy, I thought I was going to improve with the age but I think I'll die shy. At my University in Italy people were so competitive it was ridiculous. I was scared to talk, which is not so good if you are studying languages.

Oh Mark, Fabio has just emailed me. He said "congratulations or best whishes for learning Italian, but if you think you will then be able to understand Monica better, well you are wasting your time! It's not a problem of language it's her brain that cannot be interpreted! However, 5000 years ago, nobody would have thought of decoding the DNA, so maybe there is still hope for her little brain." And this is one of my friend.(I hope my translation makes sense)

I bought the flight back to Italy on the 12th of December. My sister is really happy, we will have time to go to town, see the lights and do a bit, just a bit of shopping. Then I can decorate the Christmas tree, make the nativity scene and sit near the fireplace with a good book and lots of biscuits! Not chocolate biscuits though, it's so unfair!

It's late, it's late, I should study a bit. Buonanotte e sogni d'oro a tutti.

Well, I had my first Italian lesson yesterday, so I'll blog about it rather than read Love and Responsibility (Monica and I have been reading books on relationships, including Christian Courtship in an Oversexed World - overly extreme, but lots of food for thought - and Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - helpful, despite a barrage of criticism from academics and a wishy-washy style)

I had to experiment with the buses a bit to get there. Checked out traveline (a brilliant concept for a web-site, what the web was meant to be like I think) and headed over the road after work to get a D bus. I got on it at the wrong point, and was treated to a bizarrely insular route around a small housing estate near Tescos - I'm pretty sure we doubled back on ourselves. No matter though, as I had plenty of time to kill. That took me half way, and I thought it was probably simpler to just keep walking than walk along a perpendicular line to the recommended next bus stop. Saw lots of Exeter tonight that I'd never seen before.

My classes are at the new St. Lukes High School, which is, I believe, a sports and something else college. Anyway, it looks like a fortress. Not an unfriendly one - if they were ever under siege, I think what they'd probably do is continually pour little cardboard cups of cappucino on the invader whilst wondering what heading the situation fell under in their vision statement.

I had a feeling, justified as it turns out, that Exeter College (who are running the course) screwed me over by telling me that it wasn't on last week, and not telling me when they found out it could be. So I shall complain.

Anyway, it was fun. I've got a definite headstart, though I shouldn't have thought it's much of one, as I don't have much practise at conversation. There's something nice about being in a room full of adults cheerily trying to learn something new whilst trying to avoid making complete fools of themselves. It was all stuff I knew already really, but it's good to be in it with some other people, and I'm not properly au fait with it anyway - ordering drinks and food, asking and giving names and where people are from, counting to 10, hello, goodbye - all that jazz. Fun. Also, someone I knew was there, Tom who was doing RCIA at the same time as Ben.

I stood at the wrong bus stop for a while, but using stagecoach's clever, though expensive, SMS system I found that this was no way to get home, so I walked on a little longer and caught the K home, had a beer and a shower to fix my rancid hair and went to bed in a good mood.

I'm getting a bit sick of these learner bus drivers. I appreciate the following:

• They need to experience the traffic so they have to train them at inconvenient times
• Driving a bus in public is probably pretty unnerving re. turning, hazards and suchlike
• The presence of a friendly face in a supervisory capacity is surely very neccessary

...but for pity's sake, if there's an empty road ahead of you, you're quarter of an hour behind schedule and practically everyone on the bus is relying on you to get them to work put your bloody foot down rather than gassing with the guy next to you and slowing down to appreciate the scenery.

I needed an extra cup of tea today.

Ehy Calibre just phoned me! I might have an interview for a job in Exmouth. They are looking for an Italian native speaker. The hourly rate is quite good. Let's hope I will have this interview. At least the interview, just to cheer me up a bit. It is frustrating when nothing happens.

No lectures on Monday so I went to the library at 9am to watch City of God. Next time I'll check the review of the film before I watch it. City of God is not a 9am film. Not for me. It's not even a 9 pm film. I wouldn't have been able to sleep if I had watched in the evening. It's violent and really sad because it's all based on a real story. It's not that I didn't liked it, it just too much for me but I think it's a good film. I liked the way it was directed. It reminded me of Saving Private Ryan, great film, happy to have watched it, but once is enough for me.
I don't think I'm going to write an essay on this film, I can't think of watching it again. I'm not going to write it on Buena Vista Social Club either. That was a good film too, great music. But I really don't know what to write about it.

I hope that Central Station and Amore y perros will inspire me a bit more and that they won't be so violent like City of God.

I found out the amount of my fees, the fee-lady told me I can pay by installment. I think I'll do it.

I made a cake. Rubbish! I know what's wrong. I am not used to make cake with margarine, I usually make them with olive oil. But I think I shouldn't cook when I am a bit grumpy.

I emailed job agencies and filled 3 applications form. I tried to use the royal mail online postage. Well, my A4 envelope doesn't fit in my printer so I couldn't print it out. It's a bit of a pain to go the post office.

I should study a bit of Spanish grammar but...... mmmm

I am reading The Chronicles of Narnia. I love these books. I am on Prince Caspian at the moment.
I better go and eat something.

I had my performance review this week. The meeting with the head of Maths where they set your targets for the year. All teachers have to do it to get pay rises.

My target for the grades my year 11 should get is fine. Should be able to meet that one. Unfortunately I also have targets to do with the department and the school. I wanted the one that said "to work more efficiently and have a much better work life balance". Louize did not like that one. So I ended up with two. One which says I have to lead on more or less creating the Maths part of the school website. I knew I would get lumbered with that having gone to training with Louize about how to do it. And the other one is to go to all the STEM meetings. Something to do with cross curricular projects between science, tech, engineering and maths. Sounds interesting both targets but also alot of work. And I thought it would be easier this year. Ho hum.

So if anyone knows anything about Engineering can you let me know. The school is trying to go for engineering statis so it is quite important and eventually maths will have to be taught with an engineering slant to everything. That will be interesting since no one in the department knows anything about engineering.

Also who set up this blog. As we are going to have a department blog. Don't ask. And I need to know how to set one up with multiple people blogging on it. I think it is going to be used as a sort of bulletin board so students can talk to each other and stuff about homework that they are stuck on. Could do with talking to whomever set this up though - I can't remember who it was.

Apparently it's been done before, and I know it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness and all that, but -

Does no-one else find the idea of the Archbishop of Canterbury seeking to forge relations with the state-sanctioned protestant church of China rather disquieting, in the light of the Chinese government's unremitting persecution of unofficial churches?

Thesis Update

It was my intention to submit my thesis today (or at least give my supervisor a copy to read over the weekend, then submit on Monday). This was scuppered somewhat by coming down with a vile cold this week (Monday and Tuesday were spent feeling rubbish, Wednesday and Thursday mostly spent in bed, having given up further attempts at work as unlikely to produce noticeable results).

The good news: My supervisor wisely suggested a week's extension a couple of weeks back, so I still have until a week today to submit.

The bad news: I'm pissed off. I was really looking forward to having finished. This is exacerbated by still being ill (today was not exactly productive), the promise of a week of hard graft (starting Sunday), and four years of accumulated stress.
I've a (good) week's work to do, leaving little time for any feedback from my supervisor. He's suggested phoning the submissions office, coughing at them, and asking for a couple more days. I'm loathe to do this as it's dragged on long enough, but I think he's right.

Stan Collymore's Return

One of the more amusing articles to appear last week was Stan Collymore (35) announcing his intention to return to football (after retiring five years ago). Evidently a reader of this blog - his intentions were announced not long after I mentioned him scoring for Villa, Collymore left football amidst some rather colourful circumstances. The Guardian kindly published a list of quotations which are well worth a read.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary and Jesus' "brothers"

Image via Wikipedia

I only provided the link regarding the explanation of both a tradition of perpetual virginity and references to Jesus' brothers in scripture, but as you mention it Adrian:

The following I find highly unconvincing (specifically that the question only makes sense given a vow of virginity)

"When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would conceive a son, she asked, "How can this be since I have no relations with a man?" (Luke 1:34). From the Church’s earliest days, as the Fathers interpreted this Bible passage, Mary’s question was taken to mean that she had made a vow of lifelong virginity, even in marriage. (This was not common, but neither was it unheard of.) If she had not taken such a vow, the question would make no sense."

In saying this, you agree with my (Catholic) New Jerusalem Bible, which states that "[n]othing in the text suggests a vow of virginity", which I agree with in turn. I also agree that saying that it makes no sense without a vow is going too far. On the other hand:

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed [b] to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" [d]

And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God.[...]" - Luke 1:26-35

[b] That is, legally pledged to be married
[d] Greek since I do not know a man

It is a bit of an odd question. This girl is pledged to be married, but the question seems to indicate that she has had no introduction to the facts of life, and more specifically, that marriage to Joseph might just possibly entail making babies. Why is she surprised at the idea that she is going to have a child, given that she hasn't been told about the virgin birth at this point? I just realised that I could have posted what the article said after the bit you quoted - may as well now:

If she had anticipated having children in the normal way [...] she would hardly have to ask "how" she was to have a child, since conceiving a child in the "normal" way would be expected by a newlywed wife.

The text doesn't imply a vow, but a vow does provide an explanation for the text. It's a hypothesis which seems to fit the facts of the matter, rather than a proof, which happens to accord with a very venerable tradition. Feel free to explain it another way. I'd be quite interested; I don't think I've seen an attempt to explain it without a reference to the vow hypothesis.

On Mary's virginity and Jesus' brothers...

Nice as it is to be regarded as the local question-answerer regarding Catholicism, a quick trip to the web, where this question has surely been answered very thoroughly thousands of times, or to a library, would do equally well.

Look here. There is no need for me to paraphrase it.

The Intercession of the Saints pt. 3

Image via Wikipedia

Update: Looking back at this, I think I rushed myself a bit - it's not so coherent as I am. If I wasn't blogging during my lunch-break, I'd probably go back over it - but I am. It's a bit rambling. Ho-hum.

I think it's because of an ambiguity in the word "prayer". The obvious and primary sense of prayer is a petition to an object of worship i.e. God, in our case. A secondary sense which is by now an archaism, but which nonetheless exists, is an earnest petition to a person. So we ask them to pray for us or, to put it another way, we pray them to pray for us.

Worship is right out - as I hope you assume already, of me, if not my church. There are two words in Greek, latria and doulia, usually rendered "worship" and "veneration" respectively. Latria is worship that should be due only to God, hence "ido-latry" and "Mario-latry" are very-bad-things. However, doulia may also be rendered "worship", as the root of the word which tends to denote latria is "worth-ship" or worthiness. This is obviously a misleading use of the word, which we now apply only to God in common usage, though not in the courts, where we are expected to address certain magistrates as "your worship". I mention this only to suggest that there are complications of language involved; basically, we don't worship saints.

It's about asking them to help us in the same way we might ask any Christian to help us.

For a dogmatic church, there's a remarkable amount of room for individualism within Catholicism. It's largely a matter of personal devotion. Within corporate worship, we pray to Mary very regularly, as follows:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Though this probably gets the old alarm bells ringing theologically, as it once did for me, you can see that it's basically a prayer for her prayer. We pray to the saints and angels en masse, within our general confession as follows:

I confess to almighty God,
and to you,
my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done,
and in what I have failed to do;
and I ask blessed Mary,
ever virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you,
my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

On certain occasions we will have a litany of the saints, where we simply ask a lot of saints one after to pray for us - i.e. "St. Benedict, Pray for us." - and we have All Saints on November 1st. Individual saints are remembered (or not) at masses throughout the year, though in such a way as you might well miss it if you're not paying attention. I think that's about as much as comes from the initiative of the Church really.

As I say, it's about personal devotions really. I don't pray to the saints much, but sometimes I pray to St. Justin Martyr - my name saint, St. Polycarp, St. Augustine, St. Maria Goretti, St. Francis, and a few others. Back in the day, I believe the cultus of saints tended to develop spontaneously, especially with martyrs, but these days the Church recommends certain "righteous men" whose prayers we can therefore expect to be "powerful and effective" (James 5:16). That, in essence, is why we do.

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I ran into Dave today. It so happens that his sandwich van (of which I had no knowledge hitherto) is one of the throng that comes to Pynes Hill (a place which the agencies would appear to regard as my spiritual home). So when I went out to to indulge myself, there he was, and the chocolate brownie which I purchased from him was very satisfactory, leaving aside the cost of £1.

He said he found my blog, but he couldn't find the posts I wrote on saintly intercession, which he apparently intended to read. Here they are:

Number 1 - Number 2

Happy sandwich-selling Dave.