trope class

I fear I could become the "student the other students hate" in the trope class. Everyone knew that I was coming in with some background, but it's not like I know all the material already. If I did I wouldn't be taking the class; I'm too busy to screw around with stuff like that. :-)

Last week we finished the first run through all the common tropes and he gave us all tapes and a homework assignment (daily practice, essentially). This week, he distributed a passage and asked us to chant, just using the names of the tropes (i.e. not reading the Hebrew on the fly as well).

No one volunteered. He pointed to me and told me to go first. So I did. There were a couple tropes I couldn't remember the melodies for (gershayim is my nemsesis; dunno why...), so it's not like I particularly shone here.

Only after that happened did it become apparent that my classmates were still at the "learning the names" stage and were, for the most part, not comfortable with the melodies.

Oops. Next week maybe the teacher will call on me last. That would be better. I think I'll suggest it.

short takes

You know it's a bad snow-driving night when you get off the highway and increase your speed. Yup, very cautious people on the parkway tonight. Somewhat cautious people on the local streets.

Silly cats (very funny!) from ian_gunn.

Overheard in the office: "The solar system consists of the sun, Jupiter, and assorted debris".

I finally watched last week's Enterprise tonight. Are we about to get an explanation for the change in Klingon appearance between the original series and the modern shows? Sure looks that way. I also noticed the background music in several places, which I rarely do with this show, and it was effective. Nicely done. I wonder what changed.