09 June 2010

update

Last week's garage sale: fun and successful

We had several items that didn't sell (not surprisingly), but after the sale ended we dropped off the leftovers at goodwill. In a nutshell, I made some money and got rid of a lot of junk; I'd call that a win-win situation!

I took an Intro to Linguistics course my junior year of college. While all the English majors were dozing off in that class, I sat right in the front row and soaked in every word my instructor, Dr. Maylath, said. Linguistics to me was so intriguing and I had been craving more education in that field ever since. Finally, my craving is satisfied!

My first day of classes at the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) was today. But ever since orientation at 8:30 am yesterday, I've been feeling quite frustrated and overwhelmed with different things: new environment, new people, new social protocol, new professors, etc. Yesterday, even though it only consisted of orientation, registration and a child safety meeting, definitely was a step outside my comfort zone.

{Click below to read more after the jump!}



During SIL registration yesterday a fellow student approached me, and with a chuckle asked, "Are you feeling trepidated?" (I found this question to be quite random and I would like to note that trepidated is not the correct adjectival form of trepidation; it's trepidatious.) Anyway, at that time I didn't know what he meant by trepidated (nor did I know what trepidatious meant), so when I got home I looked it up in the dictionary. Skimming over the different forms and definitions of trepidation, I saw nervous, fearful, and SEE TIMOROUS. As I turned the pages back toward timorous, I saw Timothy, followed by an explanation of yes, Paul's Timothy, timid Timothy from the New Testament.

Timorous: showing or suffering from fear, lack of confidence.


How funny is it that the word timorous, synonymous with trepidatious (or as my friend says, trepidated) looks very similar to Timothy? Could it be that Timothy, who struggled with fear and timidity just as I do, is a variant of timorous? I don't know where the English translations of Biblical names come from, but I find this quite interesting. And yes, all day yesterday and for most of today I was feeling trepidatious or timorous.

I don't think trepidation, fear or lack of confidence is pleasing to God. He says in James 1 to have faith and not doubt. I have been fearing and doubting so much these last two days about silly, tiny, minute details which I do not need to worry about at all! So, here I go out from the boat, to walk on the water, and walk by faith and not by sight. Trust and obey.

No comments: