Today is Eric’s birthday. He would have been 53. Anya celebrated the day by wearing one of his sweatshirts. The University of Wisconsin’s Bucky Badger was at Katedralskolan today.
On Saturday, Anya had some dim sum (Cantonese Chinese food) in Stockholm with friends after the SAT exam in the morning. Eric and I would often celebrate birthdays with eating dim sum at the Noble Court restaurant in Bellevue. Yes, sometimes I’m a little lonely, but I figure it gives me more time for grading papers.
This past weekend, I spent most of it on grading papers and preparing for class. I won’t bore you with the all the details, but I’m initiating a new process here to equip students with the exegetical methods (inductive study skills, a.k.a., “Keys”) that I did at Trinity, and I want it to go well. Serving both campus and distance students in the same course (not by my choice) means figuring out ways to communicate and respond to distance students meaningfully. I’m also preparing my summary handbook to be bi-lingual. So, I have to prepare the translation (starting with a Google Translate draft—which is quite rough) and ask for help from a native Swedish speaker for checking the translation.
Today, I arrived at school to teach and was confronted with an overwhelming sewer smell. With all the rain, the storm sewer backed up, and spilled sewage water about a foot deep throughout the basement of the building. There were 2 septic suction trucks working most of the day, making many trips with full tanks.
Because the clogged sewer was not on our property but in an area the is controlled by the city, the city had to be involved. The good news is that Johannelund will not be the responsible party, but will have to deal with the clean up crisis. Fortunately, the smell wasn’t in the classrooms and there were bathrooms available in the church, which is connected to Johannelund.
Last week, the big event was the Exegetical Day. The Old and New Testament teachers and researchers from all over Sweden gathered for a day of seminars and an evening dinner. Two of the seminars were in Swedish, so I opted to work at home during those and attend the two seminars in English. There was a Dutch expert on the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) who talked about some interesting translation issues. I don’t know too much about the Septuagint, so it was quite interesting and helped to fill in a gap in my knowledge. The information helped in a discussion time today in class. There was a whole bunch of thoughtful question on the different canons.
In the evening, there was a dinner. James, my New Testament colleague at Johannelund, also attended, as he has done every year for the past 15 years. However, this dinner was different. We met at one of the “nation” houses, which would be a bit like a fraternity house. During the evening, there was entertainment as well as everybody joining in classic Swedish university student songs (think drinking songs). So, I had a taste of the university life, though without the drunkenness that is infamous at Swedish university student gatherings.
Yes, life is busy, but there are some meaningful moments with students and friends that give me some hints that I’m being a blessing.
With blessings,
Beth
What a great choice for Anya to wear one of her dad’s sweatshirts. We still miss that boy! Keeping you and Anya in our prayers. You are a blessing to so many people Beth. Thank you for continuing to blog and keep us all up to date.
Whether you are aware or not, you ARE being a blessing! FYI the Noble Court no longer is that title. Different title but not sure if the menu has changed also; will check it out. Ah, changes! Encouragement on the ‘keys’ methodology!!! We did a little more in our teaching Philippians this fall at church. We also remembered Eric in our thanks and praise and prayers for you all!