10.19.2005 

Now *THIS* is Interesting

I've been poking around, looking at graduate school options at various Canadian universities. I went to a talk on Tuesday discussing grad school at the U of C, and apparently, an area of research (small, but there) is what the speaker referred to as "electronic publishing" -- or, how-to-use-computers-in-the-humanities. Now *that* peaked my interest... computer science-ish-ness melded with religious studies? I could maybe go for that... But it's not really formal at the U of C, and there's not really anyone in the religious studies department who is involved in that area. However! This is something I DID find.

The University of Alberta (yes, that's Edmonton, for those of you who are keeping score... if I were to pursue this program, I'd have hit most of the province's population centres) has a program called the MA in Humanities Computing.

From their website:

The interdisciplinary program in Humanities Computing offers a balanced examination of both the theoretical and practical issues that define Humanities Computing by focusing on two dimensions of study. The first is critical thinking about how computing is enabling and transforming humanities research and teaching methodologies. The second is the acquisition of technical knowledge through hands-on experience with methods, technologies, and principles underlying the creation, delivery, and analysis of both complex electronic text documents and non-textual data and images.

The Master of Arts in Humanities Computing is offered in conjunction with existing graduate programs in Arts. Students admitted into the program will have areas of specialization in existing graduate programs.


One of which programs is Religious Studies. That's right. A master's degree that is about using computers to study religion. Now, it *is* only a Master's program. However (I quote again from the U of A site)

Through its emphasis on graduate-level study in one of the participating humanities departments, the program also prepares students for the option of continuing graduate work at the Ph.D. level in their field of specialization.


At the very least, it's worth looking into.

On another note, did you know that hiccups are diaphragmatic malfunctions? And that probably the best way to deal with them is to hold your breath?

20:50 | |

 

Exam Sched: Yuck!

I got my final exam schedule... the first two exams are fine, but the last one ... Well, here's my schedule:

  • Dec 12: Archaeology Exam
  • Dec 13: Latin Final
  • Dec 20: Greek Final
I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing... the exam on the 20th is at 8am. It means I have to get up early -- way too early -- but it means that we can come down for Christmas that same day, possibly. It would have been nicer to be done sooner, though!

11:29 | |

10.14.2005 

Who Woulda Thought?

Now this is something I would not have anticipated... CTV.ca is reporting a story with the headline "Old ideas up in smoke, pot might help the brain" The story says that the researchers believe marijuana may help with anxiety and depression, by helping the brain to grow.

Just wait until this argument is brought up to various law-makers... "We know we've been telling you that you need to spend more money on education, but we'd actually be happy if you'd legalize pot ... at least for medicinal and educational purposes!"

Yeah. That'll be the day.

15:12 | |

 

Got Bit by the PBk Power Bug

I got bit by the PowerBook power adapter failure bug. I tried to plug in my laptop to charge the battery, and ...

nothing. No power, no connection, no charging. Apparently the adapters are prone to failure... a short search online shows many people's adapters shorting out, sparking, catching on fire... Fortunately, mine "just" stopped. But I did have to buy a replacement one, at a price tag of $120. I didn't get an official Apple branded one (the MicroStore didn't have any of those in stock), but an approved 3rd party one, which includes an airplane jack, and a car (cigarette lighter) jack. But oy. I didn't need to spend that kind of money.

10:08 | |

10.03.2005 

Hodge-Podge

I can't win.

This work situation is... well, I don't know what it is.

It's a contract to do what really, honestly amounts to menial grunt work. And it's a fixed rate per hour ($15, which is at the very bottom of market value, if not below), and probably won't take all that long. So it really doesn't look like it will be helping my financial situation.

The only thing I can hope is that maybe they're using this to test me out, and if I do a decent job, relatively quickly (not like it's hard!), maybe they'll have more work for me? I just don't know what to try anymore. Do I need to start looking for a *4th* job? This is getting rediculous.

In other news, I seem to be doing well so far in all my classes this semester. And yes, I was concerned. Latin reading is getting better... once you figure out *how* Caesar writes, it actually makes sense. 100% on my translation quiz this past week. Greek is not getting any harder, but the volume of stuff is really starting to accumulate. Fortunately, it's still all review for me -- I don't know how those people who are doing this as their first exposure to Greek could possibly keep up. I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with the vocabulary. Arky (Ancient Civ) is hard to tell, since we haven't *done* anything yet, as is the case with my Daoism class. I have a meeting with the instructor tomorrow to discuss paper topics for said Daoism class, so hopefully that will give me a bit of an idea of what's going on. And finally, the Gospel of Mark quiz, in which I have, on occasion, been feeling slightly out of my league. She really is teaching it significantly like a grad course, and considering this is my ... what ...7th? 8th? course in religious studies, it's a bit intimidating. But I *did* get 37/40 on my quiz that we just had, which means I'm holding my own. I also managed to figure out (what I think will be) a really cool topic for my term paper ... one I'm actually excited enough about to start looking into researching it now. We'll see how long that lasts.

Let's see... 1..2..3..4..5. Yup, that's all my classes. And I've already discussed work, so that pretty much sums up my life at the moment. Oh, well, and sword-swinging. But there's not much to report there. So I guess I should go learn some Greek words. And try to *not* think about work.

20:45 | |

 

I saw "it" this morning

You know, "it". That white stuff that floats around in the air before settling on the ground and either disappearing, or covering the ground. I would call "it" by name, except that "it" might take that as an invitation. And we certainly don't want to invite "it", not this early. Nevertheless, "it" is here. Welcome to October.

More later, once I have a bit more time. The next update should have a work-situation update, as well.

10:17 | |


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