(no subject)

[icarus]

I owe responses to comments on my random Buddhist rant, but you guys are too deep for me on a Friday night.

Good news though. The financial aid fiasco is (knock wood) over. Done. Finito.

I called the school and they were mystified, two people said there was no record of a problem (yes, I've learned to call and get confirmation from at least two separate voices). They researched it, and said, "It must be someone goofed and then fixed whatever they did in the system."

*kisses entire financial aid department* Thank goodness. You know, I've really grown to like these guys?

This coming Wednesday I'll be sitting in a chair, scribbling notes and studying Sanskrit at 9:30am. As I quietly hyperventilated over what a difficult language I was about to tackle (harder than Latin, easier than Chinese) someone told me, "Yeah. But the nice thing about dead languages is you don't have to learn how to speak it."

Of course, the speaking is usually the easy part, because spoken language is like music. Imitate it like a child learning Do Re Mi and you'll pick it up very quickly.

Memorizing zillions of declensions-? I think I'm in trouble. *starts doing Manjusri mantras as my only hope*

Comments

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Let's put it this way: when the oldest scrap of Buddhist text yet discovered was unearthed in 1997, the professor of Sanskrit at the UW was one of the people they called. And my professor this fall is an Abhidharma scholar and protege of his. When the plug was pulled on the Tibetan program, the Sanskrit remained for the sheer scholarly "sexiness" of the staff they'd managed to hook.

If someone's teaching Sanskrit in the U.S. at all, it's so specialized, they're likely way up there in the hierarchy of scholars in the field. Otherwise there's no budget for them.

I understand it's different in India, where Sanskrit is pushed as part of a political agenda so you find it everywhere, but there are some pretty shaky professors in the smaller schools.

Icarus