Hebrew and Busyness (and HP)

After three weeks of a six-week beginner's class, I wrote my first two sentences in Biblical Hebrew today. Here is the second:

It says: "Rachael and I said words about Harry Potter."

No, seriously, it does. My teacher, Rachael, loves the books as much as I do. She laughed out loud when I wrote that up on the board. And that was as close as I could get to saying that we "talked about ...". I don't know whether that is how one would say "talked" in Hebrew or not; mostly, I just wanted to get all the vowels in the right places and not make too many mistakes on the words. Which I did, actually--one of those words is out of order, now that I think about it, and Rachael already corrected the ending on it. All part of learning, I guess!

Rachael has us reading Genesis 37 for practice at recognizing the letters; the story of Joseph's dream. Learning to pick out words--pronouns, roots, noun gender and conjunctions--fascinates me, as does working with its alphabet. And to begin to "read" the Bible in its original language ... Too bad the class is only six weeks :-)

Current place in TGCHPRR:

"Back in the kitchen, Moody had replaced his eye, which was spinning so fast after its cleaning it made Harry feel sick. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Sturgis Podmore were examining the microwave and Hestia Jones was laughing at a potato peeler she had come across while rummaging in the drawers. Lupin was sealing a letter addressed to the Dursleys."

Mid-June Miscellany

The sun has come back, after hiding behind some very wet, cold clouds this past week or more. Its return makes me think that my sleepiness for the past several days has had less to do with lack of sleep and more to do with lack of light and color. I do love summer.

We can all agree that there should be less of certain types of physical contact happening around our school systems, but this goes beyond absurd to literally unhealthy. It goes to show that the more society loosens its morals, the more rules (especially stupid ones :-P) it is forced to put in place to protect its citizens. Still ... who thought that was a good idea?

Well worth reading: this post by the Saint; which controverts, for instance, the fuss of "experts" that "we are shaped by our environment", like that's intrinsically a bad thing.

Current place in TGCHPRR:

"Lupin's office door was open. He had already packed most of his things. The grindylow's empty tank stood next to his battered old suitcase, which was open and nearly full. Lupin was bending over something on his desk and looked up only when Harry knocked on the door.

'I saw you coming', said Lupin, smiling. He pointed to the parchment he had been poring over. It was the Marauder's Map."

Books and Papers

Perhaps, in my last post, I should have defined the word soon.

About a week ago, though, a new post of mine went up on Silhouette. Feel free to check it out :-) ...In other Silhouette news, Justin made Relevant Magazine with his excellent post "Mourning Eve", Naomi has intriguingly delineated personality types at the bowling alley and worked Anne of Green Gables into the mix, and Jessi has asked us all what is on our must-read list this summer (girl after my own heart! When I have a little spare time to leave a comment, I'll tell her about Harry Potter and the Confessions of St. Augustine.) There's more good reading there too.

Current position in The Great Chronological HP Re-Read:

"Harry was watching the painting. A fat, dapple-gray pony had just ambled onto the grass and was grazing nonchalantly. Harry was used to the subjects of Hogwarts paintings moving around and leaving their frames to visit one another, but he always enjoyed watching it. A moment later, a short, squat knight in a suit of armor clanked into the picture after his pony. By the look of the grass stains on his metal knees, he had just fallen off."