Subject: Re: Another Damn Reintroduction
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 03 2001 - 08:18:32 GMT
Gawd, Robbie, it's great to hear from you -- especially this way. Yes,
that was me, I enjoyed the discussion very much and you were very much
up to it, as I recall.
I loved reading your bio, esp. once I figured out who you were :) Nice
to hear some people out there are still getting a real education :)
Jim
"L. Manning Vines" wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> I am Robbie. I am nineteen years old, which I suppose is young enough to
> give it some degree of priority in introductions. I am from the East Bay of
> the San Francisco Bay area. (People in the American West and listeners of
> punk music usually recognize "East Bay" but I found last year that
> respectably-dressed people in Maryland thought that maybe I meant the
> Eastern shore.)
>
> I attend Saint John's College and am currently a sophomore. I was on the
> Annapolis campus last year and transferred for this year to the other
> campus, here in Santa Fe. I am still undecided whether I will stay or
> return (the all-mandatory non-elective program is the same on both
> campuses). We study the Great Books of Western civilization, in mostly
> chronological order -- which means I study a lot of philosophy (including,
> but by no means exclusive to, the theological and political sorts), a lot of
> literature, a good deal of histories, and much science and mathematics. I
> study the language of the ancient Greeks. Last year I translated much of
> Plato's Meno and am currently engaged in translating Sophocles' Oedipus the
> Tyrant (or Oedipus the King or Oedipus Rex as it is often called -- the
> Greek transliterated is Oidipous Turannos). Much of my time is dedicated to
> this. I studied the math of Euclid last year, and am currently studying
> Ptolemy's Almagest. I will soon move to a heliocentric system of astronomy,
> when I finish Ptolemy and begin studying Copernicus and Kepler. At the
> moment, though, I am an unabashed geocentrist (I understand that the
> physical objects in our solar system which we call planets orbit the sun,
> but I have a developing suspicion that this is irrelevant to Ptolemy's
> geocentric astronomy in some important way). The sophomore year suspends
> Lab for the study of music: I just finished an extended study of chant, and
> am just now getting into polyphony. In seminar, last year was almost
> exclusive to the Greeks; and this year I've gone through a good bit of the
> Old Testament, am currently spending time with some Romans, and will get to
> the New Testament and the "A" saints soon. I will have to write my first
> semester sophomore paper soon, and I think I will write it either on the
> significance of wandering in the Old Testament, or the development of
> society in the Old Testament and Livy (perhaps using Aristotle's Politics
> for support).
>
> I have a hard time saying Who I Am without talking about school. When I was
> in high school I wanted to eventually teach at my high school; now, in
> college, I want to eventually teach at my college. I think I might avoid
> repaying my student loans by remaining a student for the rest of my life.
>
> I've been hanging around the bananafish list for several years with several
> email addresses, but my contributions have tended to come in rather
> infrequent bursts. A long while ago, shortly before he left, I had an
> extended (and I think controversial on-list) discussion regarding religion
> and atheism with Jim. I believe this was the same Jim who just returned.
>
> Are you indeed the same Jim, Jim? If so, it's good to have you back. I'm
> sorry to hear that you have divorced and I hope all is well with you. It
> might interest you to know that some of my thoughts which were expressed all
> that time ago have changed and developed since then. I am still skeptical
> about personal gods and surviving physical death, but Aristotle (in this
> regard, particularly his Metaphysics) blew my mind and helped me develop my
> ideas. He doesn't seem to accept personal gods or surviving physical death
> either, but his Prime Mover is fascinating -- or really the path he followed
> to get to it is fascinating, and I still spend time with it and probably
> will for a long while.
>
> I am happy, too, to have Cecilia back. Welcome back, Cecilia.
>
> I am not inclined to continue writing. I've said a fair bit, it is getting
> late, and I trust there will be opportunities to write later. Let this be
> my reintroduction.
>
> -robbie
>
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