monday night

Last night, I attended a philosophy lecture at UK. The lecture was enjoyable, and in a way sort of validated my undergraduate education. The lecturer spent most of the time talking about philosophy as a performance, one that is carried on within one's own mind, and then at the end noted that there is also another way that philosophy is a performing art, that is, when there is a community of minds dialoguing about philosophy together. (yay St. John's.) He also discussed translation of philosophical works as something that should be more highly esteemed, and not seen as the work of the underlings. There was a balance, he said, in learning how to translate the spirit of the thought and not just the letter of the thought. This is one area in which I think my undergraduate education was lacking. I can't recall having any single significant classroom conversation in language tutorials where we discussed the importance of uncovering the spirit of the Meno, for example, when preparing a translation from the original Greek. All too often I remember having the difficulty of just parsing verbs that knowing how to convey the idea, or structure the sentence, became an afterthought. As you continue in translation work, I think you come to discover this balance between spirit and letter, but all the same, the topic is worth discussing, especially when the translations are a group activity, as it was at St. John's.

So I would say that skipping my weekly Monday night Bible study to attend the lecture was a good choice. (Besides, I wasn't the only one skipping Monday night Bible study for it... heh..."everyone's doing it!" HI Michael & Rebekah! :P) It has been too long since I've been in an academic setting such as that, and I welcomed it like a breath of fresh air.

However, when I left the university, I was not so enthused to discover that I was given a $25.00 parking citation fine, which I still do not understand, given the fact that the signs *seemed* to clearly indicate that parking permits were only required between the hours of 8:30am and 3:30pm... I also had my friend Lauren there as a witness... and seeing as how we were there at 7:30pm, I did not think there should have been any problem. Alas, I was wrong.
[sarcasm] This must be God's punishment on me for choosing pagan philosophy over His Word. [/sarcasm]

My written appeal that doesn't stand a chance here...

I received a parking citation for not having a permit on Monday night (3/6/06) at 8:29pm.
I was attending a lecture at the William T. Young library and had arrived at around 7:10pm.
When I arrived at the library, I read the sign outside the lot stating that the lot was Permits Only Mon-Fri from 8:30am-3:30pm. It was after the time of restricted permit only parking, so I went ahead and parked. The gate was open and there was no attendant at this location who I could have asked for possible clarification. I had a witness in the car with me who explicitly confirmed what the sign did say.
Thus, one of three possibilities has happened:
1. The sign was unclear, in which case my understanding of the sign was incorrect.
2. The sign was not correct and the times for being allowed to park in that particular lot had changed, although the sign had not.
3. I was mistakenly fined.

For any of the three above reasons, the fault is not entirely my own. It does not seem just that as an honest citizen who would not have knowingly parked in a lot that I was not allowed to park in would still have to pay the fine, or even the full amount of the fine. You will notice that I have never received any prior parking citations at the University of Kentucky, and my driving record is impeccable. If I wrongly parked in this particular lot, it was done so unknowingly. I would not have had a problem spending an extra 10-15 minutes finding a permitted public parking spot elsewhere.

Please take these following reasons and concerns into consideration for a refund, partial or total, of my parking fine.
Thank you.