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.