Tag: Employment

Morning Links

And the search for employment comes to a close. At least for now. On Monday I will start work as a processing manager for KARM Thrift Stores, where every $2.00 of profit buys a meal at the Rescue Mission. Be sure and stop by – you can see me if you are making a donation. 🙂 I will leave to the patient mind the thoughts of how it is I have been confined to the non-profit sector.

And now, links:

  1. I don’t think this is really what Seth Godin was talking about.
  2. Objective vs. Subjective
  3. Frankly, I’m all for a global currency. But I think it won’t happen until currency can be measured on a peer-to-peer sort of basis. Just get Visa, Master Card, and AmEx to use “grams of gold” as their account measurement.
  4. On the divine attributes of Dr. Pepper.
  5. An excellent song choice, considering the medium.
  6. Cool hotel? A little too cool for me, I think.
  7. Flash fiction: excellent choice to name him Robbie.
  8. Not necessarily supporting this view of baptism, but my what a different perspective.
  9. I’ve had similar thoughts
  10. Can’t… do… plaid!
  11. More of the flash fiction. Excellent.
  12. If you’re going to include the culture in your bible study (and you should), be careful! This is really in the vein of my biggest beef with every amateur theologian (including me).
  13. Outraged over AIG bonuses. In the opposite direction.
  14. I’ve been really itching to read this book for a while, but unwilling to pay for it. Now the audiobook is available for free.
  15. Duh!
  16. Give to the uncharity! Or rather, don’t because it’s not really a gift…
  17. I would have written something like this, except I was never brave enough to go there.
  18. Dan Phillips does his link farming on a weekly basis, and the photos are way better.

A Pleasure

One of the most powerful college experiences I ever had happened while I was alone in my room, doing homework. I had just come out of a class on poetry in which the basic rules for the sonnet were introduced, and we were told to try our hands at it. As I was packing up my things, I wrote down a single line of pentameter:

She stood and broke her alabaster box

I had some thought of rhyming “box” with “fox,” and I went back to my room to play around with it. Five hours later, I had finished Memorandum.

I’ve always been pleased with that poem, but the effect on me of writing was profound far beyond the pleasure of a nice bit of verse. The sensation of executing something flawlessly after hours of profound mental exertion was cataclysmic on my psyche. (Rather unlike the previous sentence.) I really don’t know how to explain the rush I got.

The only other times I have experienced a similar sensation have been times of intense prayer, when the very heavens have been opened, or during powerful worship services where God clearly and profoundly made his glory known. And here I had gotten nearly the same sensation from writing a poem. It made me think this was exactly the sort of thing that the character Eric Liddell talked about in Chariots of Fire. “When I run I feel His pleasure.” It is the certain pleasure that comes from functioning in accordance with the nature God has given you.

Judge then, my increasing dismay, as over the next two years I slowly realized how infinitesimal were my chances of successfully embarking on a career as poet. Judge my consternation as I have come to terms with how difficult it is to establish a career as a writer of anything. Judge my surprise at my experiences of the last few weeks: Continue reading “A Pleasure”

In which I tell you everything

Latina mortua lingua est,
Ut mortua potest esse:
Necavit omnes Romanos,
Atque necat me!		 (Latin is a dead language,
Dead as it can be:
It killed off all the Romans,
And now it’s killing me!)

The rumors of my death, unfortunately, have not been so greatly exaggerated as one could have wished. As you may recall, I was offered a job about a year ago to teach Latin at a classical school in Concord, North Carolina. This was very odd because, well, several reasons:

  • Though I love teaching, I had never taught in a classroom setting, nor had I been trained in any way to do so.
  • Though I had decided I wanted to try teaching, Latin was the furthest thing from my mind. I had applied to teach English.
  • Of all the positions to offer me, Latin was the least likely. I like languages, but I had never studied any with the diligence that produces proficiency. In other words, I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Nevertheless, the school and I endeavored upon a noble experiment, based in necessity: I needed a job, and I was interested in teaching. They needed a Latin teacher, and they were willing to try me, apparently because I sounded pretty good on paper.

About a month ago, I learned with the finality that the experiment was to be considered a failure. Contracts at our school are offered on an annual basis with no guarantee as to future years. I was not to be offered a new one. Continue reading “In which I tell you everything”