11 February 2008

In Celebration of Myself

Happy birthday! Happy birthday! Happy birthday to me!

My friends, I tell you the truth on this eleventh day of February, that it is a day to celebrate my being, more so than other days. I bid you all, make a festival among yourselves with song and revelry, thereby bringing joyfulness overflowing unto all the multitudes. Shame on The Man for leaving his institutions open on this day, doing injury to the revelry, which shall all the same bring joyfulness overflowing unto all the multitudes!

Yesterday I hosted my own revelry, and I was gifted with several new possessions, as per the usual practice of celebrating one's being. I tell you of these:

I. A Greek New Testament, for reading the New Testament in its original tongue. I am much enthused to put it to use in the near future. Of course, I did have the good sense to also posses a dictionary to compensate for my very much lacking Greek vocabulary.
II. God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga (1967), which I understand to be one of the most important texts in the philosophy of religion to arise in the latter half of the twentieth century.
III. The Kalam Cosmological Argument by William Lane Craig (1979), which I understand to be another of the most important texts in the philosophy of religion to arise in the latter half of the twentieth century.
IV. Harper's World of the New Testament by Edwin Yamauchi (1981), which he references often in his lectures on the same subject. On a side note, the Good Doctor Yamauchi has found his work cited in the books of William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and Lee Strobel (especially), to name a few.
V. A pocket watch, the likes of which I have long dreamed of acquiring. I shall use it when attending cultural events, along with my vest, with which I was also gifted.
VI. Stormwatch, which is a Jethro Tull album which I have been wishing to hear. I still have not heard it because it decided to remain in the mail for far too long where it remains even now.
VII. A third century Roman coin from the reign of Claudius II. The latter emperor was deified as part of the imperial cultic tradition, and I think it is neat to possess a coin with a pagan god on it.
VIII. I remind my friends of my excellent musical machine, which I love dearly.
IX. A personal five-day vacation from the Academy, from the coming Friday until the following Wednesday. Thanks to President's Day, the Academy has chosen to place my Monday classes on Tuesday of next week. I have no Monday classes, so I get Tuesday off, also. The preceding Friday I am simply choosing not to appear at my solitary Greek class, on which day there is nothing notable on the syllabus.
X. It will be snowing soon. It is nice to see that the Divinity has once again chosen to gift me in this way. My friends might recall the snow of ice of almost precisely one year ago in the area of my home.

Aside from these gains, I shall speak of yesterday's revelry itself, which consisted of feasting and socializing among my dear beloved relatives. The feast was particularly excellent, even more excellent than an ordinary feast. The socializing may have been excellent; I do not know. I do not understand about conversational matters, hard though I try. The revelry brought happiness to me at least; therefore, it must have been successful. For this reason I encourage revelry among my noble friends, that the same happiness might be attained in celebration of me.

May all your festivals be groovy. You have my blessing.

3 comments:

maria said...

Happy Birthday! I would sing a variety of birthday songs in a variety of voices and octaves, but you wouldn't be able to hear it. Plus, my sister would yell at me for disturbing her as she watches Flicka, a movie about horses and girls.

Thorvald Erikson said...

How about a variety of languages, hypothetically speaking?

I understand about the film, though. I would hate for her to miss some critical plot point between the horses and the girls.

maria said...

I can indeed sing the songs in a variety of languages. I can sing one of them in three languages, and I could probably perform the other in two, but the syllables would be really off since it would require me to use compound tenses in French rather than not-compound tenses in English.