Top tens are common fare for blog posts, but I’ve never written one. The following is a top ten list of the textbooks that I’ve read in twelve semesters at BJU. [Read more »]

by Ben Jonson

If, my religion safe, I durst embrace
That stranger doctrine of Pythagoras,
I should believe, the soul of Tacitus
In thee, most weighty Savile lived to us:
So hast thou render’d him in all his bounds,
And all his numbers, both of sense and sounds.

[Read more »]

Kellen Funk and I are starting a podcast, to be titled Philosophy Is the Poor Man’s Supper. You can learn about the podcast on its website. Until Friday, you can even enter a contest to pick our theme music. The contest ends Friday, and several people have already commented, so enter your suggestion soon.

We hope to release our first episode early next week.

For the class Philosophy of History, I can choose what to do for my graduate project. I’ve narrowed my choices to two: an annotated bibliography of readings in the philosophy of history or a paper on causation. [Read more »]

On Wednesday night, it snowed here. In fact, it snowed so much that you couldn’t see the ground at all (which is saying something). Stephanie (my officemate) and I were in our office planning our lesson for the next day, and it was very tedious. I suggested that, no matter what point we were at, we should go out and build a snowman at 11:00 p.m. [Read more »]

In high school, at my father’s suggestion, I wrote down and looked up every word and phrase that I came across and didn’t know the meaning of. That exercise helped to increase my vocabulary considerably. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen out of that habit for several years, but now I have begun again. In just a few weeks, I’ve encountered the following unfamiliar words. Though most of them aren’t a part of my vocabulary yet, I’m working on them. [Read more »]

This semester, I’ll be taking three classes:

• Hi 660: American Social History Since 1865
• Hi 614: Philosophy of History
• En 522: Seventeenth Century Literature

Each of these courses seems to be a good fit for my last semester. I’m weak in both social history and in more recent American history, so American Social History Since 1865 should help remedy that weakness. I haven’t taken much literature–probably much less than I should have–but Seventeenth Century Literature should be a step in the right direction. I choose it over other literature classes because it should provide background for studying seventeenth-century religion and because the Donne and Herbert are my favorite poets. Philosophy of history will, I hope, let me deepen and summarize my understanding of history as I complete one graduate program and prepare to begin another.

There are new cards posted in the scrapbook section of our blog.

And, although I don’t have a cool poster, I also am teaching TOP classes this semester. Please join me for:

Scrapbooking 101, February 3 or 16, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.: We’ll be learning the basics of scrapbooking, culminating in making some 8×8 or 12×12 scrapbook pages. Cost: $34, supply fee: $6.

Cardmaking 101, February 23, 9-11 a.m.: I’ll be teaching simple techniques of composition and embellishing for creating greeting cards that don’t have dumb poems in them unless you want them to have dumb poems. Cost: $20, supply fee: $5.

You can sign up for these classes through the Office of Extended Education at BJU. You can also sign up by calling (864) 242-5100, ext. 2045.