A Wise Thief?

From what I know of Tolstoy and from the very little I know of Hugo, I should think they would have appreciated this story.

Aristotle's definition of truth

In Advanced Christian Worldview yesterday, Dr. Boling brought up Aristotle's definition of truth: "To say that what is, is not, or that what is not, is, is false; but to say that what is, is, and that what is not, is not, is true." That prompted me to check Ross's text of the Metaphysics for the original Greek: το μεν γαρ λεγειν το ὀν μη εἰναι ἠ το μη ὀν εἰναι ψευδος, το δε το ὀν εἰναι και το μη ὀν μη εἰναι ἀληθες (Met. 1011b 26ff). It's a difficult sentence for a beginning Greek student like me, but once understood, its elegance reminds me why I wanted to learn Greek in the first place: to read thoughts like these in their original language. After less than a semester of Attic Greek, we can already understand the structure of a basic sentence from Aristotle (not just stuff from Chase and Phillips, the Greek textbook we use, like "Therefore the Greeks stood here," or "When they saw each other, the Greeks were throwing stones"). That's encouraging.

Courses for Spring 2008

Well, my schedule for the spring semester is set:

MWF 09.00 COMM111 Introduction to Communication
MWF 10.00 GRK112 Elementary Greek II
MWF 12.00 ENG327 Advanced Grammar
MWF 16.00 ENG 346 Intro to the Novel
TR 08.00 BIB115 Biblical Foundations
TR 15.00 SPAN324 Advanced Spanish Grammar and Composition

All of the above are three hour classes. I'm also taking a one hour CLF class (Perspectives on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood), which is a weekend retreat scheduled for January, I think, so it should be over with fairly quickly. So technically I have 19 hours, but for all practical purposes I have eighteen. And I'm keeping this semester's work schedule in the cafeteria: four hours a week in dishpit. It should be a tough semester, especially with Greek, Spanish, and English grammar classes, but it'll be a lot of fun. I'm especially looking forward to Advanced Grammar.