Biddy Biddy Bum

Door-de.  I was asking Hannuka for bread.  Remember that word next time because I don’t do good pantomiming for Pashto bread. 

I asked Fezel how to say ‘how much’ in the market and I repeated it twice three times and then it’s gone, I’ve completely forgotten it.  We walk down Main St the street lights are on thanks to a private benefactor and with every vegetable I ask for the local word; cucumber, onion, eggplant (banjan?) and tomato, (ro-me-ah)  or something like that.  and You ok?  Sen-gay and I’m ok, shaym or khaym depending what kind of Pashto you’re talking to. 

I get the impression sometimes that they expect me to learn Pashto.  They are under no obligation to learn English because a native speaker lives and works here.  Am I really obligated to make an effort?  Of course.  Learn a word a day.  Remember a word a day is more like it.

The end of the month approaches and it’s three weeks to a holiday.  I expect to learn in a day or two that my first salary has been deposited.  Then we’ll learn, shall we, how to send money.  For lunch warm bread, cut up vegetables, fresh, and two kinds of baked dal.  And a large glass of the yogurt drink.  How about a cup of coffee before you go to the barber in a few hours?

What are you doing when you Biddy Biddy Bum all day?

My afternoon class watched and listened to Tevya lament the joy of conditionals.  I told them to listen once and then I gave them a gap fill and no one completed it fast enough for me so I played it again and they wrote down the words they heard as they read along.

No, one of the words wasn’t synagogue. 

And rabbi?  problems that would cross a rabbi’s eyes? 

oh Solomon among the wise. 

I think Paul has been misinterpreted and misunderstood more than any other man in the Bible.  How would the Bible read if Paul’s 13 letters were found after Revelation?  No one will deny the Book of Revelation is the final book of the book indeed, so a new title, and a new introduction to "the commentaries and _______________of St. Paul, the thirteenth apostle and smartest guy on the block".  or something like that.    

How would it feel?  I don’t know but one could read the Book a little differently and with a lot less theology.

We’re gonna start our own denomination because it’s our inalienable right to do so.  Nothing so much theological, just the way we manage and interpret the gray areas that give us room to think the way God and Paul would find acceptable. 

 It is the big leap; the last chapter of the Book of Acts and then bam!! You’re at the end of the story on the Island of Patmos.  The Acts book is the bridge, which way does it need to go?  It needs to stay on the left, after John and before John, protected because it is the transition point from the beginning of the church to the end of the church.

“Every theologian, inspired by Augustine, should pray for the grace of a burning intellect that flames out of, and in service to, the mystery of divine love.”

There were two hours of city electricity this morning.  Two hours is better than no hours.  The problems with energy and who manages it are managed in the managerial department of whoever is in charge.  law enforcement is here but politicians, how does that work, I don’t need to know right now.  What do I know, it’s time for a cigarette. 

11.29.15

How much do I really need a university for to get this accomplished by October of ’17?  A serious expensive commitment would keep me on task.  I write all these crazy schematics and what happens to them after a while I go on to something else.  Studying from a computer is not what I want or need.

C’mon, you’re getting itchy.  I have to learn Greek or Hebrew or something else if I returned to university.  How the hell am I gonna learn another language when I am still working on my own.

And surely every important history I want to look at surely has been translated well enough to be trustworthy in English?  

In this evening’s toefl class the men went for their prayer break and I ran up to the roof to see the new moon.  I told an afternoon class it was called a super moon and explained why and I predicted it would rise around 6:38.  I missed it by 12 minutes.  I should have given them a writing assignment on describing the moon. 

I have some sharp students in the afternoon class, three in fact are not afraid to call me on grammar shit or worse they ask questions and I think they’re goading me on for some strange elliptical reason. 

There are six conditionals, sir what are they?

Six?  There aren’t six conditionals, there are…four, three…shit

a quick reference check thank god for an in class internet connection sometimes.  There are four, thank you from the front row for keeping me sharp. 

I think the sons of  former mujaheddin are getting more Fiddler songs this week.