My blogging always seems to get the short end of the stick at the end of each quarter. There is just too much to do and when I’m not doing it, my brain is too fried to post anything intelligent. Yes, I know I am setting my self up for easy shots on my blogging habits there (“Unintelligent? Never stopped you before!”). Okay, so let us say, my brain has been too fried to post anything at all at the end of each quarter.
The end of this past quarter is particularly meaningful as it marks the end of my first year as a Ph.D. student and my first summer “off” in four years. After three years of year-round, full-time Fuller Seminary, I was exhausted. But I went straight into UCLA and . . . fatherhood. I’m ready for a break! Not that I’ll just be sitting around on the couch all summer long eating Bon Bons (do they still make those?). I will be working with Ra’anan Boustan on two projects: (1) a summer research mentorship grant to look into apocalyptic thought and (2) as his research assistant, indexing for a forthcoming book on religion and violence. And I’ll also be taking care of my six month-old son. But it’s nice not to be enrolled in any classes.
But as this is the end of a challenging year, I thought I’d share some of the highlights:
- Regular lunches in the spring quarter with my UCLA colleagues Kevin and James.
- Meetings with my advisor, S. Scott Bartchy, sometimes debating the nature of apocalyptic thought and sometimes chatting about less academic things.
- Having a paper accepted for SBL this fall.
- Diving headlong into social history. I am so appreciative of my theologically oriented education at Fuller Seminary, but social history really is where I can feel my brain juices flowing. Did you know that UCLA’s history department is in the social sciences and not the humanities?
- Tackling the “son of man” problem in Bartchy’s Historical Jesus course. I am convinced that questing for the “historical Jesus” is a vast black hole, but I’m glad I gave it a whirl.
- Latin. Elementary language classes can be a pain, particularly when you have so many other research responsibilities. On the one hand, those classes can be too slow. On the other hand, they can demand too much work (particularly at UCLA)–a distraction for busy grad students. Latin is not the most important language for me, but it’s fun to work with it–Ovid and Livy have been interesting.
- Hebrew seminar in the NELC department. I was a little intimidated to take a Hebrew class with the folks who live and breathe Semitic languages non-stop, but it gave me new insights and helped improve my Hebrew skills. This seminar helped me wrestle through some exceptionally difficult concepts. I think my brain actually grew a little bit bigger.
- Sitting in on Kevin‘s undergrad seminar on Paul and ancient letter writing. Good job, Kevin!
Next year will be my last year of classes. In the course of the year, I will be enrolling in Bartchy’s class on the religious environment of early Christianity, a seminar on Eusebius with Claudia Rapp, probably something on Roman history with Ronald Mellor, finish up with Latin in the Winter, and a few other things. I’ll be taking the German and French exams. I hope to be a TA–but our budgets are being slashed, so I’m not sure I’ll get a spot (at UCLA, TA’s get their own sections to teach and its very competitive). If not, I’ll probably be grading. The third year will be teaching and preparing for my comprehensive exams. Then, it’s just dissertation or bust.
