andave's place

how some people can just get lost in numbers! Sit around muttering quiddities about theorems and formulas and why this is this because of that and the other thing.

I just finished my first full day at my uncle and aunt's place for math tutoring. My uncle and I spent close to 5 hours today mired in the intricacies of proportional geometry and SAT techniques. It wasn't exactly intense, per se, because after he explained a problem to me it made perfect sense. What was it Watson said? "When you first say it, Holmes, I cannot fathom how you do it, but once you explain it to me it seems so easy a child could do it." Or something like that.
Then of course Holmes talks about observation. I do need to work on that. Ah, the cruel voice of reason! Goodness, today was really embarrassing. Not much more that is more humiliating than being shown up as someone who pretends to more than she knows. I had no idea I am that bad at math. Of course my uncle was nice and schoolteacherish about it (he's a math teacher at a high school) but when my mind froze at adding fractions I wanted to scream.

At any rate I got through a good dose of reading today. I read the first 100 pages of War and Peace. Big huge book but really interesting.

I am really glad I'm proficient in English, just to compensate for my awkwardness in math. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not entirely without a brain -- just as I would kill for proficiency in math, so would people kill (ok, maybe not kill, but I'm desperate) for my proficiency in English.

I guess the thing that really stings is that I have been working really hard on my math, trying to improve it in any way I can. My uncle has been a tremendous blessing --one day and I can tell you that! -- but when I graduate I'm going to tear all math- and SAT-related books page by page into thousands of tiny bits and burn them up in a triumphant conflagration that will bring the police to my door.

Wild bit of vindictiveness for Andave, what?

Ah well. My uncle may be able to chunner about math and numbers but I get whole worlds to mutter about...Logic gets you from A to B but imagination takes you everywhere...What is the end of learning anyway? To what point? Survival? Pshaw...I don't need Boromir for that...Imagination takes you everywhere...

It does, too. That's one of the things I always say about math vs. books -- In math everything is strict, ordered. There's one and only one answer to any convoluted problem. But in literature there are two and three and four and five answers -- all right.

Hm.

We watched the first half of FOTR today, my uncle, aunt, and I. My uncle looked interested but didn't crack a smile at any of the funny parts while my aunt laughed at all the unfunny parts. Don't think we'll watch part two tomorrow, if I can get away with it. My aunt said it's worse than Harry Potter! Hmph, she gives far too much credit to HP! Call him a "conjurer of cheap tricks!" Urk, LOTR does NOT do black magic!

But my uncle and aunt aren't into fantasy, so I guess they're forgiven. I couldn't sink into the movie like usual today; when it ended I hadn't felt like it had quite started. Too different surroundings, I guess; African mementoes on the wall. 70s style house, all brown except where it is light brown. Shag carpets, too, no less.

It's probably around 10 p.m. Uncle and Aunt are asleep and I'm in my room. It's a small, secure room, with an old pump organ and easy chair opposite the bed. Last night before I fell asleep I thought that it's a nice sort of room. More of a storage room, really, with the empty luggage and clothes rack cluttering the perimeter. But have you ever realized how much character books add to a room? There are no books in this room but for my own stack by the chair. It's eerie how books change a room. My room at home is a bit bigger than this one but it feels boundless and comfortable, because of my books. I've got so many worlds compacted into paper and pen. So many beloved friends always ready to visit. So many lands to explore, so many new people to meet....

Next column to be published:

The Real Origins of Easter

The stores have taken down their pastel streamers and big floppy stuffed animals, and the only things left on the 75% off shelves are a few broken down, tacky looking wire bunnies lying forlornly on their sides, somewhat cushioned with scraps of plastic grass. The marshmallow eggs are long gone, the ham sandwiches are finally finished, and all the school kids finally stopped wishing that spring break wasn’t over.

But what is Easter all about? Where did it come from? When did it start? What’s with the eggs, the bunnies, the ham, the candy?

Most of us know that it is a Christian holiday associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What I didn’t know until about two days ago was that Easter is a holiday that is essentially pagan, with roots reaching into Babylon long before Jesus’ time. Easter is most often associated with Eastre, a minor Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. However, Eastre is only a later version of the tale of Nimrod and Semiramis. Nimrod, King of Babylon and builder of the Tower of Babel, married his mother Semiramis. Shortly after, Nimrod died, though the legends vary as to how. Semiramis reassured the people by telling them that Nimrod had become the sun-god, Baal. Taking advantage of his death, she proclaimed that she was a goddess, descended from the moon in a moon egg that dropped into the Euphrates on the first full moon after the spring equinox. Semiramis became known as Ishtar, pronounced Easter, and her moon egg became Ishtar’s Egg. Some time later, Ishtar became pregnant, supposedly by the rays of Baal. Unfortunately the son she had bore, Tammuz was killed by a wild boar as he was hunting. Semiramis proclaimed that Tammuz was now ascended to Baal as well. In mourning for Tammuz, the people were to eat no meat for forty days. Upon the culmination of that time, the people were to celebrate Tammuz by killing and eating a pig and having rabbits and eggs.

There then is the explanation for the ham, rabbits, and eggs. I was really surprised to find that the traditions I enjoyed are actually pagan instead of Christian as I originally thought.
As a Christian, I celebrate Resurrection Day because of this verse: “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:4.
Around 2041 years ago, angels appeared to shepherds in Israel, telling them this: ”For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11.
Prophecies made beforehand in the book of Isaiah foretold that this Savior would not come as some all-conquering hero-king but rather would be persecuted and despised for the message He taught, the message we know as Christianity. As the prophet Isaiah had said, Jesus was persecuted, to the point that He eventually was captured and crucified. Here in particular is where the angel’s words came to pass. When Jesus died, He took on all of humanity’s sins, past, present, and future, and annihilated them. He gave us this Gift because He loves us; however, like all gifts, you have to accept it in order to get it handed to you.

Skeptics say that’s just a romantic melodrama since there’s no way to substantiate it. It would be but for the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.
Forget “ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night.”
My Savior came back as breathing, living, flesh and blood. He showed Himself to many people. He had His sacrifice notarized, signed, and sealed with His blood.
Beat that, Semiramis!