First day of lectures!
I have no idea why I'm blogging about my lectures. I mean, I know I'm entertaining that notion of writing about university as a 3-year trilogy (which would make sense for me right now: first part naively awesome, second part where it gets all dark and angsty, third part where it finally becomes FULLY awesome) but meh. Procrastination strikes? Quite possibly.
But that's the strange thing. I'm actually really excited about my subjects this year. To the extent that I wasn't hating the world when I got up for my 9am lecture this morning.
Of course, the fact that the lecture was Love and Sex in Ancient Poetry might have had something to do with it...
Claire went with me - she's always up at 9am anyway, and Classics lecturers are just happy when ANYONE turns up that they don't care if some people aren't technically doing the course - and I have another two of my friends in the class, so this should be a fun one.
It was just an introductory lecture, explaining why love and sex are so important then and today (which, sorry lecturer, but we're students, you're preaching to the choir) and why certain poems - most noticeably the Ars Amatoria by Ovid, aka How To Pick Up Chicks (And Rape Them If You Must) - didn't make the cut. Basically, it was because she wanted first-person subjective poetry, which is still miles better than Georgics (FREAKIN' BEES) so I'm cool with it.
It also has awesome quotations like 'What a woman says to a lover struck with desire ought to be written on the wind and in moving water'. And some far, FAR dirtier ones that I won't be repeating here.
She asked us what we thought the word 'tortoise', which is the sole fragment remaining from one of Sappho's poems, had to do with love poetry. We got it in two turns - because the lyres were made from tortoise-shells - but probably only because I didn't pipe up with my suggestion of Matt/Turtle OTP.
So after that lecture, Claire and I and Sophie and Richard (aforementioned two friends) went off to get all our SexPoetry books, and then on to the wonder that is O'BRIENS for coffee and sandwiches, and ended up sitting there for over an hour chatting and somehow always ending up back at some sort of phallic imagery. I think the other patrons were getting slightly disturbed.
Then we went our separate ways, and I came home briefly before heading off to my second lecture of the day, Roman Religion. Which is taught by Ted Kaizer, who... I'm pretty sure he hates me. Students he likes are full of praise for him - sure, he sometimes gets a little crazy-eyed, and he banged on the podium VERY sharply and loudly to get everyone's attention at the start of the lecture, but he's certainly a good lecturer - but... yeah, I think he hates me.
See, I wasn't exactly organised last year, and it seems the worst of my organisational blunders seemed to happen involving him. It was his seminars I'd forget to go to, his reading I couldn't find and have to e-mail him about it just before the lecture itself, his essays that'd be a half-assed job and utter crap... not to mention his lectures were 5:15 on a Monday, when it's already dark for most of the year in Durham, so I'd hardly be a lively and active member of the class.
I was hoping I could make a difference to that this year, with my new enthusiastic and focussed attitude (I have so many planners!). But no, the first time he looks my way, I happen to be mid-yawn. My ONLY YAWN of the entire lecture. MARVELLOUS.
Roman Religion looks like it'll be pretty good too. As Kaizer insisted repeatedly throughout the lecture, it's not actually ABOUT Roman Religion, it's about Religion in the Roman World. Just like his lecture last year wasn't about Emperors & Dynasties, it was about Dynasties And the Emperors That Made Them Up. He could really work on his lecture titles. Just like last year, he had a lecture with 'Rape and Murder' in the title! That sounded like it could be EXCITING! But I dozed off in it, just like all the others. Honestly.
Another way I'm going to work harder this year - I bought Pro Plus. At last, the fact I don't like coffee will be a handicap no more!
So tomorrow I have both of my Latin modules - Odes and Cena Trimalchionis, the latter of which is the Rome you got to see in that HBO series. Sex, drugs, pimping out your boy toy to deflower the landlady's eight-year-old maid - all wacky hijinks. Fun fun!
PS LOL AMERICAN POLITICS. Seriously, it's so hilarious that Claire and I were discussing it on the way to a 9am lecture. AT 8:30AM, PEOPLE. HAVING BEEN AWAKE FOR ABOUT AN HOUR ALREADY. NO-ONE discusses politics that early except for newsreaders, and they're PAID to do it, and they're told what to say.
PPS And except for politicians, I guess. When they don't have lie-ins. But I'm pretty sure around that time, they're still talking about whatever they had for breakfast.
But that's the strange thing. I'm actually really excited about my subjects this year. To the extent that I wasn't hating the world when I got up for my 9am lecture this morning.
Of course, the fact that the lecture was Love and Sex in Ancient Poetry might have had something to do with it...
Claire went with me - she's always up at 9am anyway, and Classics lecturers are just happy when ANYONE turns up that they don't care if some people aren't technically doing the course - and I have another two of my friends in the class, so this should be a fun one.
It was just an introductory lecture, explaining why love and sex are so important then and today (which, sorry lecturer, but we're students, you're preaching to the choir) and why certain poems - most noticeably the Ars Amatoria by Ovid, aka How To Pick Up Chicks (And Rape Them If You Must) - didn't make the cut. Basically, it was because she wanted first-person subjective poetry, which is still miles better than Georgics (FREAKIN' BEES) so I'm cool with it.
It also has awesome quotations like 'What a woman says to a lover struck with desire ought to be written on the wind and in moving water'. And some far, FAR dirtier ones that I won't be repeating here.
She asked us what we thought the word 'tortoise', which is the sole fragment remaining from one of Sappho's poems, had to do with love poetry. We got it in two turns - because the lyres were made from tortoise-shells - but probably only because I didn't pipe up with my suggestion of Matt/Turtle OTP.
So after that lecture, Claire and I and Sophie and Richard (aforementioned two friends) went off to get all our SexPoetry books, and then on to the wonder that is O'BRIENS for coffee and sandwiches, and ended up sitting there for over an hour chatting and somehow always ending up back at some sort of phallic imagery. I think the other patrons were getting slightly disturbed.
Then we went our separate ways, and I came home briefly before heading off to my second lecture of the day, Roman Religion. Which is taught by Ted Kaizer, who... I'm pretty sure he hates me. Students he likes are full of praise for him - sure, he sometimes gets a little crazy-eyed, and he banged on the podium VERY sharply and loudly to get everyone's attention at the start of the lecture, but he's certainly a good lecturer - but... yeah, I think he hates me.
See, I wasn't exactly organised last year, and it seems the worst of my organisational blunders seemed to happen involving him. It was his seminars I'd forget to go to, his reading I couldn't find and have to e-mail him about it just before the lecture itself, his essays that'd be a half-assed job and utter crap... not to mention his lectures were 5:15 on a Monday, when it's already dark for most of the year in Durham, so I'd hardly be a lively and active member of the class.
I was hoping I could make a difference to that this year, with my new enthusiastic and focussed attitude (I have so many planners!). But no, the first time he looks my way, I happen to be mid-yawn. My ONLY YAWN of the entire lecture. MARVELLOUS.
Roman Religion looks like it'll be pretty good too. As Kaizer insisted repeatedly throughout the lecture, it's not actually ABOUT Roman Religion, it's about Religion in the Roman World. Just like his lecture last year wasn't about Emperors & Dynasties, it was about Dynasties And the Emperors That Made Them Up. He could really work on his lecture titles. Just like last year, he had a lecture with 'Rape and Murder' in the title! That sounded like it could be EXCITING! But I dozed off in it, just like all the others. Honestly.
Another way I'm going to work harder this year - I bought Pro Plus. At last, the fact I don't like coffee will be a handicap no more!
So tomorrow I have both of my Latin modules - Odes and Cena Trimalchionis, the latter of which is the Rome you got to see in that HBO series. Sex, drugs, pimping out your boy toy to deflower the landlady's eight-year-old maid - all wacky hijinks. Fun fun!
PS LOL AMERICAN POLITICS. Seriously, it's so hilarious that Claire and I were discussing it on the way to a 9am lecture. AT 8:30AM, PEOPLE. HAVING BEEN AWAKE FOR ABOUT AN HOUR ALREADY. NO-ONE discusses politics that early except for newsreaders, and they're PAID to do it, and they're told what to say.
PPS And except for politicians, I guess. When they don't have lie-ins. But I'm pretty sure around that time, they're still talking about whatever they had for breakfast.