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Somebody remind me why I thought it was a good idea to take three language classes?
*sigh* I need to email the department chair to see about fulfilling my senior seminar requirement; there is, of course, only one senior seminar offered this semester, and it is with a professor I hate, and due to the scheduling up-fuckery that has plagued my tenure as a student at this ridiculous institution, I was unable to register for it before it closed.
But right now I'm signed up for the following:
Elementary Hebrew 1
Intermediate Arabic 2
Intermediate Persian 2
Islamic Law and Jurisprudence
Modern Persian Literature
( mumblemumble scheduling blarg )
*sigh* I need to email the department chair to see about fulfilling my senior seminar requirement; there is, of course, only one senior seminar offered this semester, and it is with a professor I hate, and due to the scheduling up-fuckery that has plagued my tenure as a student at this ridiculous institution, I was unable to register for it before it closed.
But right now I'm signed up for the following:
Elementary Hebrew 1
Intermediate Arabic 2
Intermediate Persian 2
Islamic Law and Jurisprudence
Modern Persian Literature
( mumblemumble scheduling blarg )
Tags:
"The struggle to fit the rhyme scheme returns in the next couplet, where “By God, you'll become better than the sun of heaven” becomes “you'll burn so with God even sunshine feels cold.” The latter is a weak superlative, as plenty of things are hotter than sunshine: a freshly poured cup of tea, for instance. This half-hearted image is a stark contrast to the violent and sexual imagery in first line of the couplet (“When love's hottest rays penetrate heart and soul”), particularly in light of the literal translation (“If the light of love of truth [were] to fall into your heart and soul”). In the literal, light falls, illuminates, and uplifts; in Pourafzal and Montgomery's translation, it burns, penetrates, and provides sunblock."
I'm being good. I'm only just tangentially mentioning "Riders, Where Are Thee?" Because if I devote more than a sentence to it, I will devolve into rage filled capslock shouting, and that's really not appropriate for a final paper. (SECOND PERSON. SINGULAR. PRONOUN. SUBJECT VERB. AGREEMENT. RAAAARGH SMASHY RAGE.)
I don't want to go to work tomorrow. ...today. ...in six hours. ...shit.
I'm being good. I'm only just tangentially mentioning "Riders, Where Are Thee?" Because if I devote more than a sentence to it, I will devolve into rage filled capslock shouting, and that's really not appropriate for a final paper. (SECOND PERSON. SINGULAR. PRONOUN. SUBJECT VERB. AGREEMENT. RAAAARGH SMASHY RAGE.)
I don't want to go to work tomorrow. ...today. ...in six hours. ...shit.
Hrrm. Long time no post.
The problem I'm having with the current material in my lit class is a purely personal one, but knowing this doesn't make any of it easier to read. I think I am more suited to the Buddhist idea of non-attachment than the Sufi idea of ego destroying devotion; these are my own issues, of course, but it's not difficult to imagine that someone would find the idea of unconditional, slavish love a little discomfitting. And, as I am still working through my atheism, the idea of unconditional, slavish love of God is even more discomfitting for me.
"Discomfitting" is putting it mildly, by the way. It would be more accurate to say that it fills me with skin crawling revulsion; parts of The Conference of the Birds had me in tears, and I don't know how to explain that to my professor. "I'm having difficulties with this material because it hits most of my anxiety and insecurity buttons and upsets me on a visceral level." If the whole thing were written in abstractions, it might be easier; instead, it's explained through parables (because how else can you express the inexpressable?) and reading anecdote after anecdote about slavish devotion and self abbrogation in the name of love makes me anxious and upset. I find that sort of outlook to be fundamentally poisonous, and seeing it portrayed as the ultimate path to connecting with the divine throws me for a loop.
Also, The Conference of the Birds has an inadequate translation; Dick Davis put the whole thing in heroic couplets, but his register isn't consistent and the whole thing sounds hideously hokey in places. *sigh*
The problem I'm having with the current material in my lit class is a purely personal one, but knowing this doesn't make any of it easier to read. I think I am more suited to the Buddhist idea of non-attachment than the Sufi idea of ego destroying devotion; these are my own issues, of course, but it's not difficult to imagine that someone would find the idea of unconditional, slavish love a little discomfitting. And, as I am still working through my atheism, the idea of unconditional, slavish love of God is even more discomfitting for me.
"Discomfitting" is putting it mildly, by the way. It would be more accurate to say that it fills me with skin crawling revulsion; parts of The Conference of the Birds had me in tears, and I don't know how to explain that to my professor. "I'm having difficulties with this material because it hits most of my anxiety and insecurity buttons and upsets me on a visceral level." If the whole thing were written in abstractions, it might be easier; instead, it's explained through parables (because how else can you express the inexpressable?) and reading anecdote after anecdote about slavish devotion and self abbrogation in the name of love makes me anxious and upset. I find that sort of outlook to be fundamentally poisonous, and seeing it portrayed as the ultimate path to connecting with the divine throws me for a loop.
Also, The Conference of the Birds has an inadequate translation; Dick Davis put the whole thing in heroic couplets, but his register isn't consistent and the whole thing sounds hideously hokey in places. *sigh*
Why, hello there, crippling academic doubts, it's been such a long time!
I know I am capable of analysis, I just tend to be bad at it.
( Meanderings on the Shahnahmeh, which is to say, MASSIVE BRAINVOMIT, totally unedited for sense or context )
I know I am capable of analysis, I just tend to be bad at it.
( Meanderings on the Shahnahmeh, which is to say, MASSIVE BRAINVOMIT, totally unedited for sense or context )