Monday Morning Winge

I feel like I took a week off. Everyone else was sick over the last two weeks, not all at once mind you but both my wife and oldest were sick for about a week with a nasty stomach virus. I spent a lot of energy trying to maintain things and not get sick myself - it was oddly draining. I need to collect my thoughts, gather my energy, and get life stuff (thesis, house, etc.) back in order. This week I have exams coming in so it will get busy after Wednesday. In the meanwhile I need to finish up Marci McDonald's super interesting Armageddon Factor - basically she is reporting on the shifting role of the religious Right in Canada. I found the chapter on Harper quite disturbing actually - I'm not a bit fan of our prime minister and McDonald did nothing but confirm my suspicions. It is the political language that is religiously charged that bothers me the most - there is no monolithic Christian worldview, nor is there a homogeneous code of ethics that Christian's somehow own. It frustrates me when such a mythical beast is asserted as if it a) exists, b) is self-evident, and c) is not simply a prop of the, often unjust, status quo. I need to finish McDonald's book so that I can prep a blurb for a panel I'm chairing at Congress this year.

Tomorrow I administer my first oral exam. Sure I've taken a few of these over the years, but in all my years teaching IT there was no oral option, and so far I've not had call for one in teaching theology. I think it will be fine. It is an evaluative unknown but my fellow profs tell me you know within a very short time if the student understands the material or not. I'm hoping it will be fairly conversational, most of the orals I've taken have been directed conversations. I once missed an oral - had my days mixed up. I showed up at school as a fluke and saw my classmates outside the prof's door. Yikes. I waited for him to come out and explained my mix up. He graciously allowed me to jump in at the end of the day. Unfortunately I had not studied for the exam - so I borrowed someone else's notes (I was not able to get mine) and began to work through the material. I think I had an hour or two. I did well on the exam - doing class work pays off - but I would not want to go through that stress again.

OK, need to get running. I still have to put together the morning blog post for ThoughtWorks. Then it is time to hit the ground running.