doing Classics and I'm still alive, brief bulleted version
-So, there's school, which is swallowing up my time during the week like it does. Classes are: Vergil's Aeneid, which is basically all about how I'm not sure where Vergil has been all of my life and I want his brain and my brain and Ovid's to have a brainthreesome (haters of the Aeneid: WE CAN STILL BE FRIENDS, I'll just judge you--kidding, of course), Greek Tragedy, which will be better once we actually start actually discussing stuff, and Archaic Latin, which is taught by my psychotic adviser, 'nuff said. Well--not 'nuff said. We're reading Cato the Elder right now, who was so misogynistic that he turned most of his political stuff into rants about how women are causing the downfall of society, and who made his wife nurse his slaves' kids. Yeah. Way to make the average Roman man look like a sensitive New Age feminist, Cato.
-My Latin seems to have made leaps and bounds as a result of Latin Camp. I used to stumble my way through a text, but now I am actually reading more than one word at a time. It's still slow-going, yes, but I'm reading Latin finally and that makes me happy. Now if only I could de-suckify my Greek...
-Archaic Latin Class tonight involved going to the library to learn how to research. The first part was business as usual--dear University, you do know I use phrases like "ILL that shit!" regularly, don't you?--but I did find out some new stuff. Like about the MLA International Bibliography database, which is all languages and literature and therefore sunshine and rainbows for me. It seems like it'll be great for comparative stuff. The other thing I found out was that the Pauly, which is like the Oxford Classical Dictionary on German steroids, is now being translated into English and thus will be there for me to interrogate. I think I came a little bit at the news, to be honest.
-While research was explained to me, I plugged "The Kalevala" and "Ovid" into the MLA database and got 1960 results. Conclusions: Erika is not as clever or as original as she thinks she is in choosing stuff to compare. However, this does mean I have some exciting reading for myself in the future. Also, darnit, I am still learning Finnish someday. Told this to Classics Gandalf via e-mail, and he sounded enthused at the idea but warned me it'd be out of my usual PIE* comfort zone. Which admittedly only made it sound more like an exciting quest. This = why Classics Gandalf is awesome.
-In an utterly sincere bullet point: I have fabulous and amazing friends in all sorts of circles, and I love each and every one of them. Thanks for being there, guys. I mean it.
-In an utterly random bullet point: Have started to purchase adorable little cartons of soy milk on a basis that can roughly be described as "habitual." Am curious as to where this will go.
EDITED TO ADD: Am now officially registered for the Graduate Record Exam. Sweet Athena, please smile down on my test-taking endeavors.
-My Latin seems to have made leaps and bounds as a result of Latin Camp. I used to stumble my way through a text, but now I am actually reading more than one word at a time. It's still slow-going, yes, but I'm reading Latin finally and that makes me happy. Now if only I could de-suckify my Greek...
-Archaic Latin Class tonight involved going to the library to learn how to research. The first part was business as usual--dear University, you do know I use phrases like "ILL that shit!" regularly, don't you?--but I did find out some new stuff. Like about the MLA International Bibliography database, which is all languages and literature and therefore sunshine and rainbows for me. It seems like it'll be great for comparative stuff. The other thing I found out was that the Pauly, which is like the Oxford Classical Dictionary on German steroids, is now being translated into English and thus will be there for me to interrogate. I think I came a little bit at the news, to be honest.
-While research was explained to me, I plugged "The Kalevala" and "Ovid" into the MLA database and got 1960 results. Conclusions: Erika is not as clever or as original as she thinks she is in choosing stuff to compare. However, this does mean I have some exciting reading for myself in the future. Also, darnit, I am still learning Finnish someday. Told this to Classics Gandalf via e-mail, and he sounded enthused at the idea but warned me it'd be out of my usual PIE* comfort zone. Which admittedly only made it sound more like an exciting quest. This = why Classics Gandalf is awesome.
-In an utterly sincere bullet point: I have fabulous and amazing friends in all sorts of circles, and I love each and every one of them. Thanks for being there, guys. I mean it.
-In an utterly random bullet point: Have started to purchase adorable little cartons of soy milk on a basis that can roughly be described as "habitual." Am curious as to where this will go.
EDITED TO ADD: Am now officially registered for the Graduate Record Exam. Sweet Athena, please smile down on my test-taking endeavors.