Some say that we shall never know and that to the gods we are like flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God. Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a novella by Thornton Wilder that opens with the bridge of San Luis Rey collapsing and sending five people to their deaths. The single witness to this event, Brother Juniper, decides at that moment to track down information on the lives of all of these people in order to prove scientif ..read more

Christ is risen! What a wonderful Pascha this has been! Lent was rough and Holy Week was (for me) horrible, but all that is washed away in the grace of the Resurrection. With Bright Week comes abundant energy as well as abundant work, as the end of my first semester in grad school is drawing nigh and all of my papers and projects are due in the next two weeks. But this too is a joy; with God’s grace life goes on. Now that the common Saviour of all has died on our behalf, we who believe in Christ no longer die, as men died aforetime, in fulfilment of the threat of the law. That condemnation ha ..read more

St. John Cassian (the Roman): feast day 29 February, transferred to today, 28 February February has been, of course, such a short month! Being in grad school means time flies by, moments skip on the surface of life, and Lent is somehow just around the corner again. I have been knitting a lot; I am coming close to finishing a shawl I have been working on for a really long time (it is the Find Your Fade pattern by Andrea Mowry; I love her patterns and eventually want to make them all). I am really excited to finish the shawl because for once I am actually excited to wear something that I’ve made ..read more

St. Birgitta stitch, part 1: in which I still have sanity St. Birgitta stitch, parts 2 & 3: in which I’ve totally lost it Visiting family in Albuquerque and taking the Sandia Tramway for the first time What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are. C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew This past year or so since I graduated with my BA in Classics has been very strange. Certainly covid contributed to its strangeness, but there were other things that compounded the strangeness. I had been planning to go straight ..read more

I feel it is fairly appropriate to have a screen capture of Over the Garden Wall at the beginning of this post, since I have been feeling just as lost as Wirt and Greg are throughout the show. I identify with Wirt; I want to be more like Greg. Many things have happened since I last wrote a post. I got a job as a pharmacy technician. I’m learning more about medications than I really ever wanted to know, and I honestly don’t find it terribly fulfilling work. However, I am helping people, so that is good. I haven’t read very much (as evidenced by a lack of book reviews posted here). I keep inten ..read more

Alcestis by Euripides is a story I have been somewhat obsessed with ever since I first heard about it during my Readings in Ancient Greek Drama class last fall. Should I have read it then? Yes. Was I also dealing with a great many things beyond my control? Also yes. So, here we are. The story of Euripides’ Alcestis essentially consists of a wife (Alcestis) agreeing to die in her husband’s place since his parents will not do it; after she has had two children, the god of Death comes to collect, and thus she must die. Then Herakles comes to visit her husband (Admetus); he provides a warm welcome ..read more

One of the blogs I follow, The Classics Club, is centered around the challenge of reading 50 classic books in 5 years. Now, given that I am a “classics” major, I need to specify that this means any book that is considered a “classic” rather than any book from the period of Classical Greece or Rome (although a couple of those certainly made my list). In order to participate (and I will be!), I have to put a list of the 50 books I want to read on my blog. So, here it is! For the sake of simplicity (as well as my own sanity), I have alphabetized it, and I will be updating this post as I read the ..read more

This month is a solidly summer month, filled with berries and scones and grilled meat (at least until the Apostles Fast starts). I have been steadily working on many things, such as sock patterns from 52 Weeks of Socks and also many books. The most exciting thing I have been working on is my Etsy shop! I am selling handmade wool prayer ropes. I have been wanting to do this for some time now, and I finally got around to it, now that I have enough inventory to actually fill some orders. 10% of all profits will go to support Orthodox Christian mission work in Albania. (If you want more informati ..read more

So far I have finished 10 books in May (strong emphasis on the finished). Still this is a rather ludicrous number of books to have finished in one month, especially considering that it is almost double the rest of the books that I have read this year.  So, I wanted to pause for a moment and reflect on at least a few of the books that I have finished, some good, some bad, and some ugly. To keep the ending vibes positive, we will work from the bad to the good.  First up are two books which I ultimately did not like: Rupi Kaur’s The Sun and Her Flowers and Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House. R ..read more

The ending of April and beginning of May have carried a huge amount of weight for me in such a good way! I finished my thesis, did my last week of classes for my undergraduate degree, and took my last finals, and now I am approaching my first summer as a college graduate! (I suppose I should mention that I do have to take one more class for my science credit over the summer, but this should be fun and I’m not counting it because I’m taking it online at a local community college anyway…) My graduation present to myself also came, which is Laine’s beautiful 52 Weeks of Socks book (which I guara ..read more