Witty Latin Title Goes Here

Yes, that's my Latin professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome: Fr. Reginald Foster, O.C.D.

Peter mentioned that I should try to blog every day, even if only for five minutes. That doesn't sound too hard! But it does presuppose that I have computer access every day, which is a bit more doubtful.

The reason? I'm no longer working at St. Augustine High School, as of last Friday--and hence I don't have regular internet access. It seems that another door has closed on me, for the present, so I will continue forward by looking for an open window somewhere.

I thought I had a "calling" to be a teacher, but it seems that a number of factors were against me--overwhelmed by a workload that literally kept piling higher and higher on my desk, struggling to relearn material I hadn't looked at in 14 years while desperately trying to be prepared enough for the next day's lesson, trying to perform a role in front of the class every day that just didn't fit my personality. And so on. I think you get the idea?

It was comforting to think that I was teaching at a school under the patronage of St. Augustine of Hippo--doctor of the Church, and one of my favorite saints. It was reading his The City of God during the summer of 1995 that inspired me to take up and study philosophy, imitating in a way that moment of Augustine's own conversion when, hearing a neighboring child cry out "Tolle, lege", that is "Take up and read," he opened the Bible to Romans 13 and found a message that spoke directly to his soul. That was the summer of 386. Now, many centuries later, I seem to have flunked out of Augustine's school--maybe because of my bent for St. Thomas Aquinas who is, after all, the patron saint of students. Not that there's any real conflict between Augustine and Aquinas...but maybe I ought to continue down the road that I started so many years ago, with Aquinas as my guide.

Who knows, maybe I will end up as a teacher again? If I have anything to do with it, though, I won't be teaching math, and I won't be teaching at the high school level!