Intermediate Greek and Greek Exegesis Result

Today we got the result of our Intermediate Greek Subject.
The subject was taken during the inter-semestral break, and due to many reasons, all but one student took the exam straight away after the lessons. That student got an A. And that student wasn't me.

I went away for the 'holiday' and prepared for the mission trip to Kalimantan Barat. And after that trip, I got to pull myself together in order to study again. All the intermediate greek lessons were like foreign things to me. (it is foreign by the way)

I studied and braced myself for the exam. When I came out of the exam, I knew that my result was not very good. But there's no one to blame except myself right?

The lecturer, mr. Lang, mentioned few days ago in the class, that out of the about 20 people taking the subject, there are 4 students with F or failure and thus required to retake. After some deliberation, he decided to push the result of every student by 6 points up, and with that, the lowest grade will be upped to D. We are thankful for that. But apart from that, he is allowing the students to retake some of the tests or redo extra assignments, and with potential to push up the grade by 10 points up.

Today, the result is given out. The final grade that i got is an A-. As I can see in the list of results on the lecturer's paper, I was the second best in the class after the student that I mentioned got an A earlier. The lecturer said, I shouldn't need to retake the test. And I thought so. I think it is not fair for the student who has put in much effort to get an A. It is not fair that I should get an A in that easy manner.

Anyway, we are already into the end of the first half of the semester. Thank God for the Greek knowledge that I've got, so far my result for the NT Exegesis are quite good. Out of the 4 quizzes that we had so far, the first three are already marked and I got 95, 98 and 97 respectively. It is my wish to secure an A for this subject, not only because grade is important to me, but because I want to prove my ability in linguistic area.

Midterm break begins next week, I hope that I can get enough rest and also time to do the many assignments I listed before. I didn't sleep the whole night last night trying to finish one of the assignments.

Finally... Mid-Semester break is round the corner

It has been one of the most tiring moments that I have so far in SBC...
Endless Hebrew quizzes and Greek quizzes... and I really needed a break...
thank God that the mid-Semester break is coming soon...

Yes, this coming friday will be our PCG retreat and the week following is the break! yey...
and that means I can rest a bit, watch some anime or korean drama...
errr... wait a sec... what is this on my to-do list?

oops... okay, I got quite a bit of stuff to do :
1. OT Theology Paper, I need to read up about 1 Sam 24 in at least 10 books and commentaries and write the 2500 words for the theology paper. It is the biggest paper for this subject and to write a theological paper is definitely not easy. I need to pour in at least 30-40 hours on this.

2. Hebrew mid-term exam, I will need to revisits those 10 chapters of hebrew lessons and workthrough the exercises again. This is less difficult to me, so it should be fine.

3. NT Exegesis, presentation of the Greek people during the First Century.. err... this requires reading of at least 10 articles of maybe 10 pages each.

4. Tonnes of other readings for NT Theology Luke-Acts, OT Theology, etc etc...

err.. so, what is the purpose of the mid-term break anyway? what else if not to catch up with your studies and homeworks? ... hehe.. so, I may still use one day or two to catch a movie, but I don't think I can just squander away those times... or else ...

Pray for God's grace and strength to be with me...

Is Grade so important to me?

I had a 'strange' encounter yesterday.

Someone asked me, is the grade really important to me?

in my heart I was answering, of course grade is important to me. But it is important not only to me, but also to everyone else. Why? whether I can continue study in SBC or not, it all depending on the grade. whether I can have a further study later, it all depending on the grade. So, I can answer that grade is important to me.

But why did the person ask me that question?

you see, there was once in the class, that I reminded the teacher, that a vocab is not part of the lesson that we were ought to memorize. That vocab will cost us 4 mark. And I wasn't really protesting, I was saying "can you tell us this word please?" "why?" "because this is not in the vocab, and hence we do not know"

there was the other time, when one of my quiz paper was not marked accordingly. One of the question which I rightly answered was left blank. That is another 4 mark question. So I showed the paper to the teacher in the class, by bringing the quiz paper to him.

there was this recent time, when the teacher did specifically mention that we do not need to memorize some tables (8 tables of 20 words) for the quiz, but it came out. And there were 40 marks for the tables that we were asked to recognize, not memorize. Everyone in the class were very depressed because we cannot do it. even if we manage to get full mark for the rest, it will still be 60 only. So after some discussion, it was decided that I will talk to the teacher in private.

Well, I tried. I stopped him outside the class. I said we need to discuss about the quiz. He did not stop and continue to walk in to the class. And hence, my 'feedback' was carried out in the class. At the end of the day, the teacher said that he will disregard the 40 marks.

there is this other time, when our group paper was given only 74 marks, which is a fail for our standard ( we need to get at least 80!). The reason is that our paper is not the genre that we are used to write, compared to the other groups. I did not want to raise this in the class. I wanted to do it in private. But someone else bring out the issue about our group's paper, and so I have to express my feeling about the paper, or else that someone will be ridiculed.

So, is the grade really important to me? yes. but I wouldn't fight for it if it is my own fault. For all the above, the problem lies not on me, but on the teacher's carelessness in marking, in choosing the questions for the quiz. Should I not ask for a correction if something is not done properly? If I ask for correction does that mean that I am asking for too much? If I am being treated unfairly, should I just accept it?

Lastly, I just want to say that if I am a teacher, and I am picking on the smallest mistake done by the student and deduct their marks, then I'd better be serious in preparing my notes and quiz and make sure that I don't make the same mistakes done by the students. For if I want to be strict to the student, then I'd better be stricter to myself.

Yes, grade is important to me. you ask everyone else in the school. all the faculty and students. and you will probably get the same answer. GRADE is important

Home sweet home... no aircon

Last night, as usual, I went back to my home at buona vista. It was almost midnight when I reached home. I quickly took a hot shower, wash the laundry and get ready to sleep.

My room is stuffy and so I turned on the aircon, and guess what, though it cools down my already perspiring body, but it worsen my cough. I tried to ignore it and get to sleep, but after maybe 2 hours of struggle, I gave up. I decided that it is better to sleep in the new SBC way.

I switched off the aircon, opened the window, bring in the only standing fan that we have and turned it on. And there I am able to sleep rather comfortably without the aircon. The cough was almost entirely gone.

I hope that this cough will not linger any longer... cause it really does damage to my body, to my wallet and to my study. :)

Hebrew oh Hebrew...

Studying Hebrew is well... not any easier than studying Greek

Firstly, it is not cheaper, but rather more expensive!
I have to buy the Basics of Biblical Hebrew (as compared to Basics of Biblical Greek) last year
I have to buy the workbook which costs about half the price of the text book
I have to buy the Hebrew bible which costs about 40-50 dollars AFTER 50% discount from the Bible house

so, how can it be easier? at least it is making my life more difficult from the economic sense

Secondly, the Hebrew letters are unlike the Greek letters. It is in box form and squarish and have a lot of similarities, dots, strokes, which can be easily confused with one another.

But one thing I am thankful for, that is the pronunciation of the Hebrew words and the way their syllabification is form is not much different from the Indonesian language. So from there, I can get a bit of advantage.

I am still taking a long time to pronounce each character, and I hope that I can improve as the time goes by.