really? only one more?

My first exam was almost 3 weeks ago. I have seen little but my 4 WHITE walls in the time since then. I have barely eaten, barely bathed... one day, I actually forgot to brush my teeth. Talk about extremes right? I read until 1, 2 in the morning. Wake up around 7:30 and keep reading. It has been exhausting. My whole body hurts... which seems so backwards for all this sitting. I miss my heating pad! [such a achy grandma I am]

Somehow, it has seemed achingly long. And short. And now, I've taken seven tests and have the mother of them all tomorrow. My brain was NOT designed by God to hold, synthesize and rehash ALL this information. Yet, where I am weak...

I hope and pray I am never again in a place where I am accountable for so much information in such a short span of time.

OK. So... tomorrow... Ontology - the study of being. Which, includes... everything there is. Ontology takes it upon itself to study everything that exists. And great great minds since the dawn of philosophy have wrestled with it. Now, thousands of years later, I get to read all those great minds and commentaries on them and notes about translations and translators and commentators on the translators and my professor's comments on the whole shebang. It just took me over an hour to read two articles of one question of St. Thomas Aquinas trying to show that "state" as used by Aristotle properly falls under the accident of quality and within quality, answer which of the four species of quality it can properly be attributed to.  Does that sentence make sense to you? It makes more sense to me than it would have 5 months ago... but considering it is one sentence of over 250 pages of original texts that are equally mysterious and dense... tomorrow feels a bit like a death sentence.

The best part is that my test consists of the following procedure:
1. I get a completely unidentified abstract (approx. 800 words) of one of the 50 or so texts we've "read" from any of 12 authors.
2. I read it, process it, identify (by magic surely) who wrote it (and the years they were born & died + any biographical info I can supply), it's title, subtitle, and chapter title. Then, prepare to do what is outlined below in #3, all in 10 minutes.
3. Then I explain the structure of the text, what it means, how it fits into the grand scope of philosophy as a whole and how it relates to other works by the same author and the other philosophers we've read
4. The self-titled "Examinator" will then question me regarding the text and any darn thing he feels like asking regarding the content of the course (for 10 more minutes)

In my Contemporary Phil exam with him on Wednesday, my abstract started mid-sentence and was pulled from A FOOTNOTE. So, I imagine, anything is fair-game. Yet, THESE texts have names like Metaphysics Delta 20. Or, since everyone is pretty much commenting on Aristotle, the titles of their works are things like, "On the Metaphysics V 25" which of course, are comments on Delta 20, but, do their #s have any apparent connection? No. why V 25 for Delta 20? Who knows. But metaphysics is in every title, for the most part, and things are only distinguished by Greek characters or roman numerals accompanied by a seemingly random #. Awesome. So, not only do I have to read and comprehend over 250 pages of this stuff (9 pt font btw), but I have to remember all the titles of the texts and which incomprehensible content belongs to which name and then understand how it relates to all the other people who talked about it and what those titles are and when they all lived and died. Oh, and aside from Aristotle and Aquinas, I have to remember names like this: Abu'l-Walid Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Rushd Averroes. Who was apparently also called Ibn Rushd. Obviously.

So, I read the following quote on my dear friend's facebook profile today: "The best way to eat an elephant, is one bite at a time."

Duly noted. I might not succeed. This might be more than I can actually accomplish. Or, maybe I'll read precisely the text that I will be handed tomorrow... maybe it will be one of a few I can actually understand. Maybe each question will be directed at knowledge I actually possess. And I'll pass... THAT is in the Lord's hands.

He reminded me today of something he said as I prepared to come here:
"And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any longer, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." (Isaiah 30:20-22)

He keeps reminding me that HE is my teacher. HE is my shepherd. HE leads into all knowledge. So... OK. Somehow, with this great beast before me, I am praying he shows me what bite to take... I don't have room for all of them.