Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist

A few days ago I was finally able to reveal three of the four postulatory poultry I was previously unable to prematurely tabulate in their prenatal condition. I was able to confirm that the fourth had indeed hatched, but, while perhaps broadly and obviously hinting at its nature, I did not elaborate.

I will do so now.

In case you hadn’t figured it out, hatched chicken #4 takes the form of me being the recipient of a summer FLAS fellowship in addition to the academic year FLAS (hatched chicken #3). This means I will be spending seven weeks at The Athens Centre in, well, Athens (Greece, not Ohio) doing four hours a day, Monday through Friday, of immersion-level Modern Greek. With a few days on either side of it to make sure I’m not trying to study through jet lag, I’ll be there about eight weeks, leaving the United States probably around 10 June and returning around 5 August or so.

I have a number of hopes regarding this trip. One, of course, is that my wife will have a chance to come for a visit. Another is that I might be able to study Byzantine chant a bit while I’m there with somebody who knows what they’re doing. I have a note out to people who hopefully would know who I might be able to contact, but in case anybody else has any suggestions, let me know. I also hope to get to Thessaloniki, as well as Meteora and perhaps make a sidetrip to Turkey.

I have been hearing rumblings about this since the second half of February; I was officially told on Monday, but I haven’t known for certain it was for public consumption until today. I will need to book a plane ticket soon, as well as renew my passport.

So, there we are. Four eggs, four hatched chickens. Ricardus est insufficiens petitor neque enim, Deo gratias.