Cross-Eyed

That's what is happening to me right now, as I have spent roughly 6 of the last 10 hours I've been awake today READING.

4 chapters down today, and two more to go. I would estimate that, by bedtime today, I will have read close to 300 pages of text and notes, if not more. Fortunately, I have learned a lot, and have never gotten bored.

Among the things I have learned today:

1) The plurality of God in the book of Genesis is questioned in the very first verse. In the original Jewish text, instead of saying that ..."God created the heavens and earth," the word "Elohim" is used, instead of "God." The suffix "-im," in Hebrew, denotes plurality. I'm still chewing on that one, but found it interesting nevertheless.

2) In the Dark Ages, Christian converts were so preoccupied by the second coming of Christ that they celebrated Easter EVERY SUNDAY! It wasn't until they realized that there may be a slight delay in that second coming that church leaders (correction - the First Council of Nicaea) decided to sanction an official, annual holiday...and the date was chosen based on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox.

3) NEW VOCABULARY! "legerdemain" refers to skill or adroitness. It comes from the French "leger de main," or "sleight of hand."

4) The Mozart Effect is a hoax. Not exactly a hoax, because that makes it sound nefarious and misleading, but it has not been able to be replicated outside of it's first "observance," and therefore, can not be considered a theory which is true.

5) We have only a 1.7% variation in our DNA from that of a Bonobo, which is a type of pygmy primate. There are traditionally no Bonobos found in zoos because they are so sexually promiscuous!

That's all for now, I am afraid. There is laundry to be done, more reading to be had, and more retinas to be burned...but hopefully not my bad one.