Summer Projects

We're really coming to the academic doldrums now, with a goodly proportion of the scholarly community away from their desks for the summer break. I, however, am acutely conscious that I have quite a bit of stuff to consolidate before my change from part-time to full-time doctoral study in October. One project that I must concentrate on over the 'holidays' is the acquisition of some skill in (reading) German, in order to cope with the vast quantities of Pauline scholarship in that language. I seem to remember that this was a thought floating vaguely around my head last summer, which conveniently got forgotten by more pressing business. Now it has become pressing in its own right and I have been looking into taking some sort of crammer course in the autumn. Fortunately the university just over the hill from me (literally: I can walk there in 15 minutes - pity it takes me three hours plus to reach the one where I'm registered!) has an excellent language centre running a course that fits the bill perfectly. My lack of German is a particular source of chagrin as my granny was from Cologne (via Antwerp)....although she died when I was seven, and I don't actually recall her ever speaking her native tongue in my presence. I did do about 2 years of it at school, but didn't enjoy it much and dropped it in favour of physics for o-level. So I must pick up where I left off a LONG time ago! There's a few helpful sites online that I could look at too, but I could really do with an audio course to put on my MP3 player that does not concentrate on ordering food or asking directions. I also intend to re-read the Pauline epistles in their entirety (in Greek) again, just to get them more firmly fixed in my memory, and refresh my rather pathetic Hebrew (i.e. remind myself what the letters sound like). I'd like to think that I could continue with the Aramaic, but I think that I'll have enough on my plate as it is - especially as the children break up in ten days time.