Psalms Challenge: Conquered!

After we all had to go home for the "coronavirus hiatus," I announced my Psalms Challenge: inviting any of my students to join me in reading through the Psalms, four per day, two each morning and two each evening.

Despite a couple of stumbles, when I missed a day or lost track of where I was, I managed to keep on schedule, and yesterday morning I finished off the last two psalms. Ironically, on the very last day of classes! I wish I could say I had planned it that way. I know of at least fifteen or so students who were reading along with me, and perhaps there were also others who joined in on their own.

If anyone is interested, I started in on the book of Hebrews yesterday evening for a follow-up--one chapter last night, another this morning, and so on, one chapter every morning and evening. Something from the New Testament this time, and exactly the right number of chapters to wrap up next Tuesday morning, when we finish final exams.

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Chinese Painting

The Wall Street Journal has been running some interesting articles under the heading of "The Staying Inside Guide," offering suggestions for artistic or cultural resources to view online during the pandemic. Yesterday I came across an interesting one entitled "Immersive Painted Worlds," on Chinese painting, about which I know virtually nothing. (The article may be behind a subscription firewall.) The article has an impressive number of links to various things online, and I watched the first couple, a pair of 15-minute videos from a former BBC program called "The Culture Show," which together form an episode on "The Art of Chinese Painting." I thought they were quite interesting. The first episode introduced me to the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang , which I had never heard of before. Located in the Gobi Desert, they contain a wealth of wall paintings and statues that are well over 1000 years old and were unknown to the outside world for cen...

Paris Cafes Open Again

Now this is good news: I just read in the Times that cafés in Paris are once again able to open for outdoor service . I've never even been to Paris, but that is still a welcome sign. I have written before--it probably deserves another reflection sometime--that this lockdown has not been a big deal for me. I worry about the college, and naturally I'm not thrilled about a salary cut forced by the college's losses. But in terms of my day-to-day life, the lockdown is more or less irrelevant. It makes grocery shopping more of a pain, and it keeps me away from my office, but otherwise interferes with little that I want to do. But the thing that I do miss is the opportunity to get to Europe once in a while. I had to cancel a planned trip to Germany with students over Easter. And this very morning, as it happens, I was supposed to arrive in Poland for a conference of the Austrian Studies Association. Alas, those trips were not to be. And ...

Dursli

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Plague Time

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