Admiration, Tutorials, Fun, God, Lecture...

I admire the men who developed the Program at St. John’s. I’m having so much fun. I went to two of my tutorials today. I was expecting a more traditional teacher-student classroom relationship, something similar to an intimate high school course. I’m happy to announce that said expectation has been greatly exceeded.
My Greek tutorial, which must more accurately be called a “language tutorial,” was fascinating. The focus is not so much mastery of ancient Greek as it is to provide an alternative means to investigate language, the thought involved in language, and the thought/language of the works we study in the Program. And as fascinating as the class was, the mathematics tutorial was far more interesting for me, contrary to my presumption.
We read Book I of Euclid’s Elements as our assignment, and we were put in a seminar situation to discuss what we had read. While not completely like seminar, as the tutor was more active in the conversation, it was yet a conversation. (Though the lack of clocks on this campus makes it hard to tell,) I’d guess my class spent about twenty minutes on Euclid’s first definition, questioning the validity of his assumptions and exploring the possibility of substantial and “non-substantial” modes of being. It was fascinating. We moved on to other things, but I felt very satisfied with the overall outcome of our class.
I need to take time to thank God, again, for bringing me here. Not only am I having fun in my academic pursuits, but I’ve also found about twenty Christians, some of whom are upperclassmen already involved in local churches.
More reports soon. I listened to the Dean’s Lecture this evening, and now I’m a bit tired. I think I’ll sleep. I wonder, at what hour will my roommate return on this lovely, warm, humid Friday evening? At what hour will I decide that I’d rather be outside? Questions to ponder, but not for too long. Goodnight.