Miscellaneous Rambling
I sigh relief. I think the season of busy-ness is over. Although office life promises to stay ramped at difficult levels, the graduation season is over. Michael's graduation party went well, and I survived the hangover, even getting to confession the next afternoon to "clear the decks" after a very difficult six-week period.
Who knows, the quality of blogging at TDE might even improve.
My focus is increasingly shifting to my Catholic history lectures that I'm starting in September. I've come to realize that I'm "strong" on the first 700 years, but after that, my strengths are "episodic": the thirteenth century, focusing on Aquinas; parts of the Reformation; the Church and the French Revolution; etc. I have quite a few "holes" (okay, glaring tears in the fabric of knowledge) that I need to address.
Fortunately, I think I can fill them quickly because I've always tried to improve my historical sense. When I hear a reference to the terrible pope century (the 900s), I know we're also talking Vikings and Magyars, immediately before Hastings, the darkest period before the light of the Middle Age dawn and its improvement of life. So even though I don't know a lot about, say, the assassination of Pope John VIII, I have a broad framework in which to place it, which I think helps me fill the gaps relatively quickly.
