Re: Zeta Setback

March 20, 2012: forgot to add picture:I will admit that my one hour per day Greek time was...I have not been doing it since last week because of this letter: Zeta. such a difficult letter and SO hard to write, the lowercase! made me almost cry and get so frustrated! I made myself spend time on it today, and will continue to do so, as I said for an hour each day. Zeta is such a difficult and frustrating letter!

Zeta Setback

I will admit that my one hour per day Greek time was...I have not been doing it since last week because of this letter: Zeta. such a difficult letter and SO hard to write, the lowercase! made me almost cry and get so frustrated! I made myself spend time on it today, and will continue to do so, as I said for an hour each day. Zeta is such a difficult and frustrating letter!

ZETA

One sentence post: Zeta (lowercase)is THE hardest letter in the Greek alphabet to learn!

Taking Your Time

I just finished working on the first 5 letters of the Greek Alphabet, and I am so excited and proud of myself! yet, a small part of me, does feel a little silly because I am taking weeks and months to teach myself something that bible majors learn by the second day of Greek, their first year of Greek. but one thing that I am learning from teaching myself Greek is that...it's okay to take your time. we live in a society, and American society in general, where everything is so rushed and busy and in a hurry. people want to get through college as quickly as they can, hence the 18 hours of classes schedules or all the AP credit, or summer classes, or CLEP tests, etc. people no longer just go for a drive, they have to be going somewhere. it's almost to the point where we almost feel guilty when we are not doing something "productive" in our spare time. but learning Greek, teaching it to myself, going at my own pace, etc, is making me see that it is okay to go slowly, or even super slowly. it's okay to not want to get through something as quickly as possible. it's okay to spend 6 months learning the Greek alphabet. I'm doing this on my own, on my own terms, my own way. and life is a little bit like that. I am coming to see that I want to live my life like that. I do not want to rush through things, I do not want to "get through it quickly" or "get there sooner rather than later." not that i want to be lazy or go so slow i don't move forward or anything like that. I want to take my time in Grad school and not just try to get through it in as few time as possible. I want to get my Doctorate, even if that is another 7 years. why not? it's what I want, and there is no law that says you have to start a "real job" by the time you are X years old.  i know I might not be making much sense, but I suppose I am saying that life may be a highway, but we don't have to go on the fast lane. the slow lane is okay too. to quote one of my favorite songs, "I'm gonna take time my time."

Alpha to Epsilon

I was going to put in the Greek letters in the subject line, but the Teknia Greek only seems to work on the Mirosoft Word document. oh well. I have gotten through the first "chunk" of the Greek Alphabet. in other words, I know the first 5 letters. I can write them, regognize them, I know their names, and I have a good idea as to how they are pronounced. As I was doing my Greek Study time today, I felt so proud of myself when I started working on my Alpha to Epsilon practice page(where I write all 5 of them). i felt proud because I have taught this to myself. with help from a dvd lecture and my friend Brent, but I can say that I have and am teaching this to myself. I feel really and truly proud of that. It might be vain or selfish, but I am proud of myself for doing this on my own, and for someone like me, who has to work at keeping my self-confidence up, it feels good to be proud of myself. and it makes me have even more confidence in myself and also for this Greek Journey, it continues my motivation. I know that learning the alphabet is really easy, and when I get to the hard stuff later, it will be more difficult, but I think that if I start off with confidence and pride and motivation, and keep them up along the way, even for tiny little things, it will go a long way when the hard parts come later. I know it's a little silly to be proud of myself for having learned the first 5 letters of the Greek alphabet, especially when it has taken me a few months to do so because I really space out my learning, and take my time, but I am proud of myself. and yeah, some of my friends are taking Greek in grad school right now, while Millie is learning the alphabet, but you know what? that's okay. I smile when I think of that actually. and im sure they smile when they see me excited that I know can write the first 5 letters, while they learned that the first day of their first Greek class. and that's okay. what also feels good is knowing that I am doing this for me, just me, 100% for me. not to impress some guy or for a degree or for my future job or whatever. just...because. and maybe My Father has a plan for this, and He will use this in some crazy way someday, but that's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it...for no real reason at all. and that is one of the best feelings I've ever had in my life.

  above are pictures of me, taken by myself with my laptop webcam, studying Greek. or practicing my Greek letters to be more exact. don't i look like a college professor?or at least someone who wants to  be one?lol.

Gamma to Delta!

I have graduated from Gamma to Delta!!!! i know, very dorky and silly, but i am proud that i am now practicing the 4th letter of the Greek Alphabet. Gamma was such a hard letter to learn to write! delta was a little tricky at first, it felt wrong to start at the circle part and not at the top, but from the half page ive done, it's slowly feeling more comfortable. makes me think that the more I study Greek and the more I learn, the more comfortable it will feel. right now, I'm totally in love with it! it's so...graceful, and beautiful, and femine, at least the writing part. it's seriously like i imagine having a boyfriend  would feel in the first few weeks. i'm always looking forward to working on it, and even though it's hard to get used to the hour a day and the last few days ive worked on it, but not on my scheduled time and not for a full hour, but it's coming together and getting to be a part of my daily life, and i carry my notebook everywhere to practice writing when i can, and i love the textbook...on the geek-o-meter, im about 100 miles off it! lol.

Consistent Daily Time, Not Scheduled Time

yesterday, I missed my schedule 5-6pm Greek time. And I felt really..sad about it. I was angry at myself because I got distracted and forgot my 5-6pm, Greek time.I really do want to be consistent and make studying Greek a part of my daily life, even if it's for only an hour a day. and I know that if I miss a day, then it could lead to missing another day, and thus start a pattern of never studying Greek. so, today, I studied Greek for two hours. granted, I started at around 5:30pm, but I practiced writing Gamma until around 7pm, so that is about  1.5 hours. and I was actually sad that I had to stop because I was hungry and therefore had to go get dinner from the cafeteria and eat it. I am upset a little at myself for forgetting yesterday, but I am proud of myself for not forgetting today, and though I started late, I still did my Greek time, over my Greek time actually. and tomorrow, I am going to lunch with my friends Lina and Gina, and we're meeting at 1pm, and saturday and sunday, 1-2pm is my Greek time, but I will get up at 9am and from 9-10am, I will do my hour of Greek Time. I am coming to see that studying Greek at the times I've made for myself won't be as important as making sure that every day, I study and/or work on it for at least an hour.

    So far, I am working on learning to write Gamma, the third letter of the Alphabet. Brent says that in Ancient Greek, it is more about the translation from Greek to English, so the writing is not as important. however, I happen to not agree. My bachelor's is in International Studies, and in my classes and in my experience with language, I have learned that speaking, writing, reading, and listening are all important, and I cannot learn one without learning the others. so, I am focusing on writing Greek as much as reading, or speaking, or translating it. that's one of the positives of teaching myself Greek: I can do it my own way, and not depend on a professor's way you know?

   I am still in awe of how truly exited I am to study Greek, and work on it and build on it each day, even if it's just letter writing at this point. I am being SUCH a geek right now, but I do not care. someday, I will be able to read the NT in its original language, and THAT day, will make ALL of this time invested a SMALL price to pay.