Thursday, January 22, 2009

Chamesh, pente, quinque, fimf, penkwe etc.

BJ Epstein tagged me with the following internet meme; I don't do them often, so it might be a fun excercise. The basic idea is to write five answers to every question. Here I go.

What were you doing five years ago (December 2003)?

1) I was a student at that time - I suppose I was doing some Hebrew course or other. And assorted other academic stuff.
2 I was working on my Enuma Elish-translation and chiseling out the structure of my book Dead Languages' Society, which was eventually published in 2006.
3) I was writing an (unpublished) fantasy novel together with a friend.
4) I think I had just moved into my first honest-to-God apartment at that point, but I'm not 100% sure about the timing...
5) I had just come into contact with one of my childhood idols, Swedish role-playing-writer-turned-novelist Erik Granström.

What were five things on your list for today?

1. Giving a lecture to my Biblical Hebrew class (on nominal phrases, to be specific).
2. Trying to get rid of this awful flu which has crippled me for the last week.
3. Helping my girlfriend - who is currently stricken by pneumonia (!) - with a number of chores.
4. Printing out materials for my seminar on monday (three pieces from the dissertation, to be exact), and getting them to a colleague and friend of mine.
5. Answer a number of e-mails and other net-related stuff (like this one!)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

1. Light chocolate.
2. German Strudel (can you believe it?).
3. Bananas, in near-suicidal quantities.
4. Vegetarian futomaki-rolls.
5. Clementines - even more of those than of bananas. And cold, almost freezing. Yessss...

What are five things you'd do if you were a billionaire?

1. Donating to certain political causes I find important.
2. Giving to some more general "charity"-type causes, duly considering their political slant.
3. Making sure the people close to me could live comfortable lives and pursue their ambitions.
3. Possibly buying a nice, semi-large apartment with lots of library space.
4. Buying enormous amounts of books and video games.
5. Instituting some kind of prize fund for classical humanities research.

What are five jobs you've had?

1. Writer.
2. Translator from various ancient languages (not permanently hired as such, but still - doing the work and getting paid for it).
3. Doctoral candidate in Old Testament Studies, including teaching of Biblical Hebrew.
(numbers 1-3 are still operational, by the way, and those, I'm afraid, are the lot. Not even a summer temp job to show.)

Who are five people you want to tag?
DameBoudicca
Venanzio
Dysorderly


Three will have to do ;-)