LJ Idol Exhibit A - Week Five - Your Brain on Latin
“Everybody grab your BAWLS!”
This is but one of the (possibly hundreds of) inside jokes that I have with myself. You might call it batty, I call it being my own best friend. You see, BAWLS is an energy drink that I usually consume bi-weekly at late hours in order to facilitate studying for my bi-weekly Latin exams.
“Latin exams? Oh, how nice it is to study a language that nobody speaks.”
- One of my distant German relatives, at a family reunion.
Right, the Bawls. I love Bawls. They taste like root beer and fuel my brain. Brain beer.
One night I’m walking home from a late-night convenience store run in order to acquire Bawls and I notice a car next to the curb filled with smoke. Shit, it’s on fire. Wait, not fire, it’s just two of my friends getting high. They welcome me into their blanket of smoke and fill my head and my lungs with blissful, stress-free release. I can study for a Latin test when I’m high, no problem.
Three hours later, I’m dancing around my room to Will Smith’s Wild Wild West and have yet to open my book. I am channeling Jim West’s cavalier attitude towards all facets of life. Nobody can bring me down, I’m a buffalo soldier. Buffalo soldiers don’t give a fig about declensions, not when Dr. Loveless is tearing up the west.
Three months later, there are sheets of enormous paper everywhere. Strewn on the floor, haphazardly taped to my wall, covering the stiff cue cards that I’ve spent months carefully colour-coding. Putabo, putabis, putabit… I can’t even remember what any of it means now. I hate final exams.
Electronic music is blasting through my headphones, I can almost feel my eardrums pulsing to the beat. My exam is at 7pm, four hours to go. Why any university would put a student through an entire day of anticipating this is beyond me, it’s torture. Someone has cruelly calculated this to extract maximum insanity.
UNUS NAUTA UNUS NAUTA UNUS NAUTA.
I’m out of Bawls. This is a disaster. How can I grab them when I don’t have any? Vince Vaccarro is in my house and he just broke my plastic sword. Bastard. Three hours to go. Mea gladius est carus. My sword is precious. Latin delenda est. Latin must be destroyed.
Latin and caffeine are a deadly combination. I ended our year-long abusive relationship that April.
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This has been my week 5 entry for therealljidol. This entry more or less sums up the disjointed, nonsensical way of thinking I experienced when I was studying for these exams after consuming too much caffeine and/or other substances.
This is but one of the (possibly hundreds of) inside jokes that I have with myself. You might call it batty, I call it being my own best friend. You see, BAWLS is an energy drink that I usually consume bi-weekly at late hours in order to facilitate studying for my bi-weekly Latin exams.
“Latin exams? Oh, how nice it is to study a language that nobody speaks.”
- One of my distant German relatives, at a family reunion.
Right, the Bawls. I love Bawls. They taste like root beer and fuel my brain. Brain beer.
One night I’m walking home from a late-night convenience store run in order to acquire Bawls and I notice a car next to the curb filled with smoke. Shit, it’s on fire. Wait, not fire, it’s just two of my friends getting high. They welcome me into their blanket of smoke and fill my head and my lungs with blissful, stress-free release. I can study for a Latin test when I’m high, no problem.
Three hours later, I’m dancing around my room to Will Smith’s Wild Wild West and have yet to open my book. I am channeling Jim West’s cavalier attitude towards all facets of life. Nobody can bring me down, I’m a buffalo soldier. Buffalo soldiers don’t give a fig about declensions, not when Dr. Loveless is tearing up the west.
Three months later, there are sheets of enormous paper everywhere. Strewn on the floor, haphazardly taped to my wall, covering the stiff cue cards that I’ve spent months carefully colour-coding. Putabo, putabis, putabit… I can’t even remember what any of it means now. I hate final exams.
Electronic music is blasting through my headphones, I can almost feel my eardrums pulsing to the beat. My exam is at 7pm, four hours to go. Why any university would put a student through an entire day of anticipating this is beyond me, it’s torture. Someone has cruelly calculated this to extract maximum insanity.
UNUS NAUTA UNUS NAUTA UNUS NAUTA.
I’m out of Bawls. This is a disaster. How can I grab them when I don’t have any? Vince Vaccarro is in my house and he just broke my plastic sword. Bastard. Three hours to go. Mea gladius est carus. My sword is precious. Latin delenda est. Latin must be destroyed.
Latin and caffeine are a deadly combination. I ended our year-long abusive relationship that April.
---
This has been my week 5 entry for therealljidol. This entry more or less sums up the disjointed, nonsensical way of thinking I experienced when I was studying for these exams after consuming too much caffeine and/or other substances.