2008-12-16 - 7:06 p.m.
Oh, it is good to be home! Yes, I've made it back to the land of shining mountains, and am comfortably ensconced in my parents house, happily eating their food, using their electricity, and watching their tv. The only thing better than being home for the holidays, is being home early for the holidays, and staying late from the holidays. I'm here till nearly the middle of January, when I make my leisurely way back to school, via Edmonton and Victoria.
The trip here was good. My last exam was a New Testament (Synoptic Gospels) passage identification/Greek alphabet quiz. "Wait" I hear you saying "Wait, dear author - why are you writing an exam in a subject you had a major essay in?" Well, I don't know, but it was a pretty straightforward exam. The passage identification was simple - in Mark the disciples can't figure anything out, so Jesus keeps getting mad at them, most notably after his resurrection, and in Matthew, it's all about wisdom, knowledge, and the readers are the scribes who can figure it all out (not for nothing do the Three Wise Men appear only in this gospel) and finally good old Luke is a gospel full of eating and drinking and seeing. You might not think those go together that well, but they do in the gospel. Anyway, that part of the exam was good, but I had a bit more trouble with Greek. I had memorized the Greek alphabet, that was fine, but just like in English different fonts make the characters look slightly different. This is easy enough if you are familiar with the language, but it made things a bit tricky for me. I had most trouble with what looked like an inverted L. I couldn't figure it out. Turns out it was a capital Gamma, which I thought looked more like a lower case r. Small difference, to be sure, but enough to throw me. Hopefully I did well enough on the rest to not have to re take the test.
Exams over, I left first thing the next morning for three glorious days in Victoria. I stayed with Jeff and Kirsten, who were, as always, wonderful to me. I stopped by the Cathedral, and had the nostalgic pleasure of folding leaflets with Gladys, who is an incredibly faithful folder of leaflets for them. It was nice to see her- she was at the ordination in November, but we didn't have much time to chat.
Other than that, I didn't do too much. Saw people, drank beer with them, repeat. Jeff and Kirsten had a Christmas party on Friday night, which was a ton of fun. All the Christmas trappings, which for them mean chocolate fondue and a gift exchange.
I flew out Saturday afternoon, and my buddy Jesse picked me up at the airport. He's the one that I went to Europe with, and if you were following this blog then, you might be surprised to know that we didn't get lost coming in from the airport!
I stayed with my aunt that night, and mom and dad came up the next morning to pick me up, and go to a family brunch. All the various members of my family who are in Edmonton were there, notably among them were Uncle George and Auntie Kay. Uncle George was Grandpa's brother, and Kay is his wife. George and Grandpa came over from Slovakia together when they were kids, and Uncle George is one of the funniest people I know. He kept the whole family in stitches the whole morning.
Mom and Dad and I drove home, and since then, I've done as little as possible. Dad is on holidays for the end of the year, so he spends his days making lists of things to do, and I spend my days doing them with/for him. Today I made nuts and bolts and hung Christmas lights on the trees in the front yard. Tomorrow I'm picking up my big sister from Calgary while Dad picks up the little brother and sister from Edmonton. Good planning, hey? Anne is moving to Canada from Wales, so it will be very nice to see her.
