You may notice the word “Koinonia” in the blogroll box on the right side of the screen. koinonia is the Greek word for fellowship. It is one of my favorite words, despite the fact that my School of Theology feels it needs to foster this amongst its students. Now, at first you might think this is a good thing—bringing people with similar interests, similar strong faiths, together in one, loving community.
You would be wrong.
Okay, maybe that is too harsh. There seem to be people who enjoy each other’s company. However, whenever one of my colleagues feel they need to create koinonia with me, I generally dive behind the nearest bookshelf, garbage can, parked car, etc. It isn’t that I actively dislike these people. Rather, they constantly want to talk about things that matter. Politics matter. The state of my immortal soul matters. What Paul Tillich thinks about existential estrangement matters (well, to some people anyway).
I find other topics far more interesting. For instance, today at work, we were engaged in a hot debate over a timely issue and I didn’t end up wanting to poke my eyes out with the nearest sharp object. For nearly an hour we engaged the perennial question, “Do ducks have teeth?” Does this matter on a large scale? Unless you are in fact a waterfowl, I would guess not. However, it filled up many a fun moment and the question lingers still. I called my brilliant husband at his lab (because people who work in labs know these kinds of things), but alas he was not there. (He is often not there. Sometimes I think he is actually some sort of spy, and he is off saving the world whilst I sit in class. He really does have skills like a
certain TV personality and would make quite a good spy. But I digress.) Sources on the Internet didn’t provide the definitive proof we needed. I swore that I once heard that ducks don’t have teeth per se, but they sort of have one large tooth like thing near the front of their bills. You know, they need it to spear fish, open beer cans, etc.
I was mocked for this. No, “mocked” implies past tense. I am (even though I am not at work) probably still being mocked for this. And they can scoff all they like, I rather like the nick name “
Duck Tooth,” though I prefer “DT” for short.
Well, I’m off to my first session of the class that shall remain nameless #1 (CTSRN1). I am taking this class because both of my advisors abandoned me this semester (something about them having their own lives, * sigh *) and they were the only people who taught me in the past. Perhaps I’ll ask my classmates about the duck teeth question. That’s a sure way to break the ice and a good first step in creating koinonia.
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