Bearshorty's musings

( Dollhouse S2E4 )

Numbers WTF moment of the day: today I finished the last six chapters of Numbers. Numbers 31 was probably the most disturbing passage I’ve read so far. Definitely elicited a WTF reaction. So God tells Moses to take vengeance on Midianites and then he can die. How sweet, a departing present! Nice of Israelite army to kill all Midian men. Well, they did capture the women, the children and the animals and burned all towns and camps. However, Moses was angry at the army for allowing women to live. He told them to kill all the boys and non-virgin women and only to live virgin girls alive. He is blaming the women for corrupting Israelite men previously. There is so much wrong with this Biblical passage. Later there is a recap of the stages of the journey from Egypt. It is a very long list. I do like that God commanded Moses to keep a record. Six towns also serve as refuge to accidental killers where they can hide until their trial or live in general. God is then very specific in his description of what makes a murderer versus accidental killer. It is all about a weapon of choice and intent. That is it for Numbers. The Israelites are at the borders of Canaan, ready to get the land that God promised them from the inhabitants there and already preparing how to partition it. One more book of Torah to go! I’m skipping tomorrow because I’m going to an opera and will probably start the last book on Monday.

I just realized something as I was reading the Bible; I’m more comfortable reading the bible in English (New International Version) from the computer screen than when I read the actual book in Russian. Partly it is a convenience of reading it and writing about it at the same time. Partly it is because some Russian Bible words are Old Russian and harder to understand. But I thought back to my student who finds it easier to read articles online than on the printed page and I realized with a slight shock that I’m more comfortable with reading online than I thought I was.

Happy b-day, Lenya and Lika!

I called Sveta today to wish Lika a happy b-day, and that made me happy. It was good to hear her voice. I haven’t talked to her in a while and I wish I could talk to her more. But the phone rates to birth country are a bit high and the lives are too hectic to coordinate Skype with the time difference. She is my oldest friend, since we met when our mothers were pregnant with us, and no matter how much time passes since we talked last we can just fall right back in. I do miss her.

Late last night I came upon an article about Moses in USAToday. It is about how Moses is the most influential religious figure in America. It was a fun read.

TPTB finally picked the Top 20 dancers on SYTYCD. We will actually get to real dancing now, finally.

Numbers WTF moment of the day: chapters 21 to 25 are about interacting with other nations en route to the promised land. Mostly Israelites promise to pass on the king’s highway and not touch anything and other nations don’t want them coming through and send an army. This did not always work out for the other people. Israelites are actually fighting a lot of battles and taking over land after land. King of Moab tried getting a guy to put a curse on the Israelite army but the guy was talking to God and wouldn’t do it. Although God did tell him at one point to go to the King of Moab. There is the whole story with the donkey that sees the angel of God with the sword drawn and all kinds of fun shenanigans but the whole episode seems silly since God did tell the guy to go and when the guy went, God got angry for some reason and tried to kill him. Anyhow, the guy, Balaam, arrives at Moab and gives oracles. The dialogue before some oracles is amusing. Balaam tells the King that he has to step out to the side to consult with God. He is like, “Just wait here a bit. I’ll be right back with God’s message.” There are three main oracles and at each seven bulls and rams have to be killed. Poor animals. The last part is Moab women seducing Israelites. For that Israelites lost another 24,000 to plague as punishment for not only all kinds of vice but also for worshiping the god Baal of these women. Not the most exciting part of the Bible, although the talking donkey was a little fun.

Freedom! I don’t have to grade for two weeks! Well, I have a couple of midterms to finish but those are fast and short. No papers, though. Yeah. Today I was like a walking zombie. I did not get much sleep again; I can never sleep properly right before a deadline. And I had to get up at 6:30. Before I started teaching at 10:20 I thought I might fall asleep in class. But I didn’t. I was just winging it; it is not that hard after teaching this class before. The folder review itself was easy. I just meet with the assistant director and she checks to see if my grading is on the level with the department and also who my trouble students are. I never stress about the meeting itself, just getting all the grading done for it. Ok, for the next two weeks I’ll just work on my own stuff. After three full days of grading I’m really for history.

Stupid Baseball! And Stupid Fox! Preempting “House” tonight. And I was looking forward to it all day. And since it is on schedule tonight and will probably show in other parts of the country, Fox will probably not rerun it and I will have to wait eight days for it to show up online: after the next episode airs. Argh. Instead I watched “How I Met Your Mother” live, which was good, but I actually prefer watching that online the next day. I also remembered that Wil Wheaton is guest starring on “Big Bang Theory” tonight, a show I never watch but will probably check out for just this episode. Stupid Baseball! (But, Go, Yankees!)

Ok, I looked at Fox website and they promised to run “House” right after baseball. Which they did around 9 pm. I missed the teaser but caught the rest of the episode, yay. ( House S6E6 )

Numbers WTF moment of the day: chapters 11 to 15 are about fire and quail from the lord (I’m trying hard not to make too many Cheney jokes as I read); Miriam, Aaron and Moses having a bit of family feud; exploring Canaan; rebellion; more offerings; stoning a guy just for gathering wood on Sabbath and tassels on garments. Now the fire for God was not a friendly fire, God was pissed that people were bitching about how hard it was to live in the desert. Moses had to calm him down again. And I was right to wonder before if people would get sick of manna after a while; people started craving meat and recalling other vegetables they ate in Egypt. It is fun to see what people expect to eat. Moses got whiny himself that he had to be responsible for all these people and feed them and listen to them complain. So God created a committee of seventy elders to share Moses’ burden. Putting responsibility on underlings is the key to any management. God also decided to give people so much meat that they would get sick of it too and stop bitching comparing everything with Egypt, “until [meat] comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it.” (11:20) But when the quail got there and people were happy and gathered it and started eating it, God just send plague on the people for craving other food than manna. That was not a fair move on God’s part, teasing people like that and then killing them. But they learned a moral lesson there, I guess. Moses is also a good negotiator and can quell God’s anger like no other person. When the people thought getting the promised land was too hard and rebelled a bit, Moses again prevented God from killing them all by appealing to God’s reputation and how other nations would see God. God does forgive but promises that all those who rebel will never enter the land, only those who want to go there and the children when they grow up. It is one reason why it takes so long (forty years) to get to Canaan as a group. When some tried to get to Canaan without God’s blessing, they were killed by locals.

I’m going twenty eight days without fanfic now. I thought it would at least get a little easier, but it isn’t, really. I’m still craving that escape. But I just need to think positively and keep at it. And never ever even go to my favorite author’s sites to see if they updated. I have been really good last four weeks. Can’t stop now. I think I need to replace that obsession with something positive. Like work. Maybe if I start thinking of some of my litigants as actors in a fanfic, that might help. :) I’m going to up my goals for the year. I won’t go to Internet for frivolous purposes except from 6pm to midnight. During the regular day I will use Internet only for good, not for evil: work related things only and work email. There I put it to the universe.

I registered for the January conference in California. Their hotel rates are way too expensive so I’ll book some cheaper hotel later. My parents and I will treat this conference as an opportunity to go to California for a bit of a vacation, so there will be car transportation. I can be flexible on hotel this time.

Mama should give me some of the money she makes at babysitting our neighbors. She had to take Alexis swimming today but, until they left, both Alexis and her little brother Andrew hung out with me. They have way too much energy. Where did my energy go? When I was that little I was crazy with energy but not anymore.

The funniest and geekiest thing I saw tonight that I just have to share is this Klingon rapper . It's Eminem song in Klingon.

Numbers WTF moment of the day: first four chapters live up to the book’s name, since it is all census and naming of tribes and people. The census only counts men over twenty, so to get the full number one must multiply. Of course, the numbers are very rounded. It is not like someone made them up or anything! Judah had the most descendants. Levites actually had the least and they counted all males over a month old. Only the fifth chapter offers some entertainment in a form of a test for unfaithful wife. If a guy thinks his wife cheated on him, be it true or not, he needs to take her to a priest (with an offering, of course). The priest then makes the woman stand in the tabernacle with loose hair while he gets a jar of water that he puts some floor dirt in. If the woman drinks the water and nothing happens, she is innocent, but if she gets sick from the water with distended stomach and wasted thigh she is guilty. Sounds like ordeal to me. The water comes with a curse attached that would only affect the guilty. That curse is actually written down, not just spoken, and washed in that water she has to drink. There is power in written word. The husband remains innocent no matter what the result is, even if she is proven not guilty. I’m sure she would give him hell after, though, for making her go through all that.