Sound Familiar?

The old men dance, the young men sing, the woman and girls are merry and rejoice; women are married and provided with earrings; boys and girls are brought forth, the births thrive.

The king, my lord, has revived the one who was guilty and condemned to death; you have released the one who was imprisoned for many years.  Those who were sick for many days have got well, the hungry have been sated, the parched have been anointed with oil, the needy have been covered with garments.

My eyes are fixed on the king, my lord.

My the king, my lord, have mercy on his servant; may I not die (of shame) amidst all the people!  May those who wish me ill not attain their heart’s desire with regard to me!

Letter from Urad-Gula, an “exorcist” (a kind of conjureror or magician, for want  of a better term) employed in the Assyrian palace, to Esarhaddon, king of Assyria.  State Archives of Assyria 10 226: obv. 16-rev. 3; rev. 13; rev. 19-23

“This language, its words are perfect.”

(To paraphrase Psalm 18: 30.)  I repent of ever looking on German as English’s poor, clunky, backward second cousin.  I only thought that because I had zero feel for the language.  Here are some of my favorite words:

- doch – your all purpose word to signal contradiction or resistance or concession or surprise of some kind, that I’m only just learning to use actively.  You can just say “doch!” (~ “au contraire”) by itself if you disagree, or “das ist doch völlig klar!” (but that is completely clear!) if someone asks a stupid question, or “komm doch!” (come doch!) if someone says that they might not come, or “leck mich doch am Arsch!” (kiss my ass!) if someone makes you mad or if you can’t find your keys.
- scheinheilig – hypocrytical, lit. “holy-seeming”
- mangelhaft – deficient, lacking
- zauberhaft – enchanting
- bedauerlicherweise – regrettably
- dummerweise – unfortunately, annoyingly – lit. “dumbily”  This is a completely standard, non-colloquial word.
- beziehungsweise – respectively, and/or
- Fürst – prince
- zwiegespalten – conflicted, lit. “divided in two”
- verzweifelt – desperate
- wahrhaftig – truly – e.g. “Er ist wahrhaftig auferstanden.” = “He is risen indeed.”
- beseitigen – eliminate (lit. I think “put aside”)
- tragfähig – sustainable.
- besänftigen – to conciliate, placate – e.g., an angry goddess.
- Hinterlist – cunning
- heilsam – salvific
- wachsam – vigilant
- pretty much any word that ends in -weise, -haft or -sam

Thoughts on the Trinity

It’s funny how the longer I spend in academia / older I get / further experience I have of depression (not sure which is the decisive factor), the more I start to wonder if Christianity is true.  Not that I am having serious doubts that anyone should worry about – it’s just that as my “structures of plausibility” change, the more I start to be able to appreciate that Christianity isn’t the only way to see the world.

Still, the idea of the Trinity — and specifically of Father, Son and Holy Spirit loving each other and living in relationship from all eternity — makes total sense to me now, in a way that it didn’t when it was first introduced to me.  If God were just the static presence that I used to imagine hovering over the void before he said “let there be light,” I would be bothered by the question, “Why on earth did he feel the need to create man?”  I don’t like to imagine God sitting around doing nothing, just enjoying his bad self before he created us.  But the thought of three perfect persons having always existed and loved each other, and then at some point creating people as a reflection of that, makes sense to me.

By the way, the poster that I ripped down did come up tonight in house meeting. At the time I sat there silent and cool as a cucumber, certain that no one would ever suspect little old me of the crime.  But later on as I came face to face with the owner of the poster (who had asked about it, who I don’t know well but like), I was overcome with remorse and confessed to her what I had done and why.  She took it amazingly – she totally seemed to sympathize my reasons and wasn’t mad at all.  She didn’t particularly like the poster, she just put it up because she can’t stand how white and impersonal the walls are.  I vastly prefer to white and impersonal to infantile crap, but it’s funny how knowing who had put the poster up and why made me resent it a bit less.  We totally laughed and bonded over it.  I call that dialogue.  Or maybe just grace.

(I lack) Cultural Fluency

Update 11/6/09 – In a fit of empowerment I unilaterally ripped the the poster off the wall and threw it into my trashcan.  I wonder if this will come up in House Meeting.

I’m thinking about coming back  here after exams to work on my dissertation, so maybe I’ll have another crack at attaining proficiency, if not fluency.

———

I wish people wouldn’t ask me if I like Germany or if I feel comfortable here when Germans are part of the conversation.  Early in my time here I was able to say yes (albeit with serious mental qualifications), but these days I can’t even convincingly evade the question.  I met an American just now who’s planning to go to med school here in Germany (seems kind of dumb considering that he hasn’t decided for sure that he wants to live here long term), who put this question to me, in front of his German friend.  When he asked me what I miss about America, I said “Friends.  English.  Convenience.  Knowing what’s going on.”

For an example of how I still don’t understand what’s going on here, in the sense of not knowing how people think or what makes them tick, see the poster below of cartoon bears having breakfast, which is posted in the hall outside my room.  This is in a dorm where the majority study theology (a serious subject here – they have to study Latin and philosophy as well as the stuff I studied in seminary) and the average age is probably 23 or 24.  And this is what they choose to decorate public spaces with.

Stone-Cold German

I am not resenting Germans these days nearly as much as I was in April, I think because my mood is generally so much better. In fact I’m kind of sad that I have to leave here in just a little over a month. But a tiny little interaction just happened that illustrates the suspicious, stone-faced unfriendliness that was so aptly described on another ex-pat’s blog that I happened across yesterday:

German privacy law forbids the dissemination of photos of people or their property without their consent. It probably also forbids disseminating descriptions of them, too, or mentioning their name out loud or talking about them when they are not there or even to them when they are (not that you would want to, this is all hypothetical) because they might think that you want something from them or that you’re out to get them or something and then that vicious spiral of distrust, fear, loathing and paranoia starts spinning all over and over again and again. And we don’t want that.

I crossed paths just now in the old city with a (quite young) professor in my department and his girlfriend (who is about my age). I’ve never been introduced to her but have seen her often around the department, which is quite small, and recently exchanged a couple words with her about the copy machine. He and I had a little “get to know you” talk when I first got here, have spoken several times in the past couple months about whether or not I was going to take his course; and he’s aware enough of me to have recently reported to my advisor that I didn’t actually take any of his courses this year. So naturally, I said “Hallo” to them as I passed. They both look at me for a second awkwardly as though something slightly untoward has happened and move on without otherwise reacting.

Speaking of this professor, here’s a record (translated into English) of our last conversation, three days ago:

- Professor out of the blue as he passes me in the library: “Frau [Last Name], you should contact John Doe at the University of —–.”

- Me, after thinking a second and looking at him questioningly: “What about?”

- Professor: “He recently published [Title] on [something about grammar].”

- Me, after hemming and hawing a second, with a confused smile: “What are you talking about?” (My German’s not good enough to say things “durch die Blumen” most of the time.)

- Professor: “You emailed me the other day and asked me about ——-.”

- Me: “I haven’t emailed you in a long time.”

- Professor, unmoved and stone-faced: “You emailed me and asked about —— because you recently finished your dissertation.”

- Me: “I haven’t finished my dissertation, and I didn’t email you.”

- Professor, without cracking a smile or otherwise betraying signs of sheepishness, humor or humanity, says: “Then it was another American” and turns around and leaves the room.

The Cow of Sîn

Can I just say that I still can’t wrap my mind around the idea of childbirth?  Maybe because my mom only had c-sections, every time I think about the normal way, I can’t effing believe that people have to go through this, that they’ve always had to go through this, and that animals do, too!  It’s on my mind lately because in my Akkadian class we’re reading a compendium of ways to treat (both magically and medically, in our terms) difficult deliveries.

The most famous part of the tablet is a mythological-style narrative about a beautiful cow that the moon god Sîn saw from the heavens, fell in love and so mounted and impregnated.  Appealing, no? But leaving aside my disgust at the idea of gods having sex with animals (and at the word “mount”), I’m liking this tablet for the concern it shows for suffering, and specifically women’s suffering.  And I especially like the incantation where the cow of Sîn speaks for herself:

I am the cow of (the god) Sîn, I belong to Sîn.

I am heavily pregnant, and thus especially likely to gore.

With my horn I beat the ground,

with my tail I sweep up dust.

Though I’m not sure if these lines are a celebration of pregnant womanhood and of cowness, expressing self-confidence and strength and an affection for laboring women and cows on the part of the (likely male) author — as I first thought — or if the goring, stamping cow symbolizes of the suffering of the woman in labor, i.e, of an unwished for situation.  Since the rest of the incantation, part of which is broken, goes on to describe a boat caught at the quay of death and travail, maybe the latter.

Depeche Mode

They’re aging really well, in my opinion.  They’re so awesome.

Overheard in German(y)

pushen, as in “Man muß durch das Studium pushen.”

Assyriology is a jealous mistress

who does not respond well to neglect.

I haven’t really looked at  cuneiform in about 3 months, and am now suffering the consequences.

Since I’m female and straight, maybe I should say it’s a cruel master … but these days I think of it more as a high-maintenance b***h.

Appropos of nothing, just to cancel out some of the nastiness of the picture in the post below, I’m going to post the awesome head of a dragon getting slain that I snapped over Easter in Berlin.  Would it say too much about my current state of mind if I made it my profile picture on Facebook?