First Day of School

First day of classes!  The school year begins!  Woot!  I only have one class on Monday:  Sahidic Coptic.  

Coptic is the last of five stages of the ancient Egyptian language.  (Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, Late Egyptian, Demotic, Coptic)  Coptic was spoken in Egypt around the time the Greeks and Romans were hanging out there (think Cleopatra, give or take a century or two) so, it's written with Greek characters, plus seven or so characters that derive from hieroglyphs.  Since Coptic uses the Greek alphabet (which has vowels) we know the vowel system of Coptic, unlike in earlier stages of Egyptian (which don't have characters for vowels.)  Coptic stopped being spoken as a vernacular at some point but it was still used as a liturgical language within the Coptic Christian church.  Is still used by the Coptic church.  So there you go.  :-)

The class is going to be interesting.  It's Egyptian, written in Greek characters, the book is in English, but the professor teaches in Dutch....  Phew! But there are only like 8 of us in the class, and the prof said I could ask or answer questions in English if I need to, so it shouldn't be soooo bad.  Still, phew.  I'm beginning to think I have drawn the attention of the god of random combinations of languages.  I don't know if I've pleased or angered him though.  :-)

After class I went home and watched Black Adder, and listened to NPR.  Then I met up with Susanne and had a coffee and chatted for a while.  Then I went to Wushu.

There were a lot of new people this week.  I haven't done any jumping around or Kung-Fu in the past few weeks (though I did trek around in Spain a little bit) so I was a bit concerned I would wuss out, but things went well.  Better than well, actually: we learned some sword forms!!!  We just did the first, basic, level zero forms, but I felt so powerful.  Feel so powerful.  So in control.  Ahhh.

Afterwards I went to the ISN Common Room and met with Grace, the president, to get info about my new job as ISN board member.  Apparently, I'm in charge of a whole lot of stuff.  I'm the secretary, first of all.  On top of that, I'm Project Manager.  This means I'm in charge of projects.  Like signing students up for Dutch Language courses.  And making an F.A.Q. folder for the students.  And a scrapbook of news articles of interest to International students.  And making up and compiling the results of a housing questionnaire.  And the results of a questionnaire to various professors about their various policies toward international students.  There are apparently a LOT of differences between professors, and departments when it comes to international kids, and whether they're allowed extra time on Dutch exams and/or dictionaries, or if they're allowed to ask for tests in English.  We're trying to get some overarching guidelines, but for now we're just asking each study advisor what their policies are, and posting it for students to see.  And I'm in charge of that.... I'm also supposed to go to as many ISN events as possible.  Forced to go to parties, rough life!  :-)

So, phew, I've got quite a bit on my plate right now, but I think it's all going to be wonderful.  

After talking with Grace, I rode my bike home and watched Boondock Saints.  I love that movie. It's entirely too violent, but there are some really beautiful parts.  Good stuff.

 

I rode my bike home from ISN and was just filled with the beauty of the night.  It's fall now, there's no doubt.  The air isn't just cold, it has that bite to it that autumn brings.  And I just let it fill me.  The light dancing off the canal.  The faces of people, laughing and drinking wine, blurred through the wavy restaurant windows.  I wondered for a moment why I so fully embrace the chill in the air now that it's September, but resented it so completely in August.  But I let that thought slide away with the rest of them, and just felt and appreciated the air.