A Nerd-tastic November

Last week I mentioned that I would post a personal update soon since November was so awesome. Well, here it is, as promised. Last month is a serious contender for “best month of my life” so far. I visited TEDS from the 9th-10th, and it was an incredible experience on two levels. On one level, it was amazing/surreal just because it’s TEDS. Because so many of my favorite scholars teach or have taught there, it’s always had a special place in my heart and a visit would have been immensely enjoyable even if I wasn’t planning on attending. And come on, it’s like the Hollywood of evangelical biblical/theological studies. Shortly before my visit I wrote (what I thought was) a funny Facebook post comparing the faculty lunch to the Red Carpet, channeling Joan Rivers. I was also kind of imitating Mike Bird’s pre-SBL posts, but no one thought it was funny (perhaps I shouldn’t attempt humor again and just settle with being a stereotypical boring academic?).

Anyway, on a second level, of course visiting the campus was extremely exciting because of the fact that I will be attending next fall. I arrived a bit early, so guess what I did? You probably guessed correctly. I checked out the library. Rolfing Library is a glorious place. Glorious. I can’t wait to hang out there during winter and summer breaks. Seriously, if you need to find me between mid-December 2015 and early January 2016, I’ll most likely be in the WUNT stacks.

In addition to the official program, I had the chance to meet up with a PhD student who I was connected to on social media, as well as Dr. Constantine Campbell. I was so unbelievably nervous meeting with Dr. Campbell and made a bit of a fool out of myself, so I just have to hope that either 1) he forgot about it/me, or 2) I impress him so much in class that it becomes irrelevant 😀

Moving on from my TEDS visit, the month just kept continuing in awesome-ness. First of all, when I got home from TEDS there was a package of review books waiting for me from IVP Academic. Picture below. I’ve already reviewed Paul & Judaism Revisited and Hidden But Now Revealed.

Not too long after, I got a shocking, delightful email from someone who was trimming down her library and offered for me to come take whatever I wanted. I truly cannot describe how I felt as I plundered her library and then incorporated the books into my own. You will understand when you see the loot below. Beyond the awesomeness of the books in and of themselves, there’s something else about this experience that I’m cherishing and it is that she said, “Consider this a further confirmation of the Lord’s calling!”

Ok, so with such a huge book acquisition, most people probably wouldn’t buy more books for a long, long, time, right? Well….ummmm….I don’t have a problem, I really don’t. I can stop any time I want. Ok, ok, here is why my purchase was justified. First of all, if you’re reading this and you were involved with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship as a student, did you know that there is an IVP Book Club just for you?? Yes, there is! And you get 50% off your first purchase and 40% off for life!! Needless to say, I had been working on my list for a long time for a first order. And I had to keep trimming it down to just what I thought would be the essentials. I had been thinking about getting the whole black dictionary set, so it was a huge blessing to only have to purchase two volumes to complete my collection because of my most providential good fortune earlier in the month. My purchase is below. And it’s truly not a lot at all, given what draft 1, 2, and 3 of my list looked like. The order arrived the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so I read Christ, our Righteousness and Paul and the Law over the long weekend.

 

And finally, with Amazon’s annual Black Friday extra 30% off coupon, I bought my first GNT, an NA28.

There it is, my lovely nerds! Hope you’ve enjoyed this summary of my nerd-tastic month. It goes down in my personal history as the best, nerdiest pre-seminary month of my life 🙂

 

Posted by Jennifer Guo on December 17, 2014

https://jenniferguo.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/a-nerd-tastic-november/