kata ta biblia

a blog exploring Christian origins, biblical studies, social/cultural history, method, education and the journey through academia

Acadadia: Busy Quarter

If you pay attention to my blog at all, you may have noticed the recent silence. Never in my life have I had such a full overflowing plate of responsibilities. I mentioned in my earlier post on my experience of acadadia that I had to put some academic responsibilities from the fall quarter on hold due to the birth of my son. So, this quarter, I had to finish up those things from last quarter (now completed), jump from a community college Latin course to the UCLA one (a big leap!), keep up with new research responsibilities, grade exams and papers for a Roman history course at UCLA, apply for a 09-10 TAship and a summer research grant, commute to UCLA every weekday, and be a good husband and father.

DeclanThus continues the great balancing act of my life. Based on my experience so far, I would like to recommend to readers not to have a child in the first year of your doctoral program! One of my peers is in the ABD phase of his doctoral program and had a baby just weeks before we did. He is still having a difficult time, but at least has some breathing room. That’s my life lesson for today. That said, I love our crazy Declan to bits and wouldn’t trade him for all the stress relief in the world.

Next quarter should be interesting. I have to dust off my Hebrew for a Hebrew seminar in the NELC department on “Knowledge, Revelation, and Authority: Wisdom and Apocalyptic in Second-Temple Judaism and Beyond” with Ra’anan Boustan (the other person I’m working closely with in my program — aside from Bartchy). Even though those intense NELC folks will leave me in their Semitic language dust, I look forward to the topic and the chance to improve my Hebrew. When Boustan told me the topic, there was pretty much no way I could not take the class. Aside from the Hebrew course, I will continue taking Latin. And I will be sitting in on Bartchy’s undergraduate course, “Jesus of Nazareth in Historical Research.” That means my classes span three separate UCLA departments next quarter: NELC, Classics, and History. I may be taking a break from grading next quarter, which will give me an opportunity to focus more on my work and being a good husband and daddy.

By the way, I just joined the bandwagon at Twitter. Follow me, if you dare!

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5 Comments by Patrick George McCullough  /  March 11, 2009  /  Posted in: acadadia, courses, ucla
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  • http://pistolpete.wordpress.com pistolpete

    There is never a good time to have a child and yet it always comes as a blessing.

    God’s blessings on you, my friend. I’m praying for you.

  • http://patmccullough.com/ Patrick George McCullough

    Thanks, Pete. I don’t know. I’m thinking that, in comparison to this year, there might be a good time to have a child . . . at least better times.

  • http://judyredman.wordpress.com/ Judy Redman

    I also think there is no good time to have a child, but there are definitely better and worse times. Having seen many doctoral candidates work their way through their candidature, I would definitely recommend that you do *not* choose the year you are due to write up and defend your dissertation as the time to have your second one. :-) Sleep deprivation does not improve your ability to think clearly and logically!

  • Andrew

    Looks like we’ll be in Boustan’s course together. Should be great! We’ll grab that coffee we talked about back in December too. Sorry I’ve been slow to get in touch. Our kids are roughly the same age (within a couple days I believe – Dec 17 for mine) so I’m sure you’re plenty sympathetic about just trying to stay afloat as a UCLA grad student!

    Have a great spring break!

  • http://patmccullough.com/ Patrick George McCullough

    Thanks, Judy, for the advice. I hadn’t thought about that, but we will definitely keep it in mind!

    Andrew: I’m glad we get to meet finally! I’ll be glad to have you in there since I’ll be out of my comfort zone. I was wondering if you might be in that class. You have a great break too! I’ll be on the east coast.