Sententiae Draconis

Just went to see 300 and it was SO VERY AWESOME. The epitome of the Greek Heroic Code.

And now I must finish reading the Bacchae and write a response for my Greek Tragedies course. I think I may be feeling bloody-minded enough for the task at hand. :)

Okay so I'm procrastinating from doing Research for my Russian paper and what better way to procrastinate than to try and figure out what class to take next semester. Four of my classes are full year, and I'm actually happy with that even though I'm frustrated by how slowly the German is moving along (we only know nominative and accusative! It's crazy!), but taking Imperial Russia (italized because it can't be said in a normal voice) this semester has made me realise that I'm not interested in more modern history anymore. Maybe it's because the lecturer wasn't very good (she wasn't bad, just hard to take notes from and she just can't seem to make me enthusiastic enough about the subject matter to actually do the readings.), or maybe it's just me, but I figured out that the European History class that I signed up for was not going to make me happy.

So I went looking through the class schedule. The cool looking Roman History class that is set around the time that the whole thing is falling to pieces is at the same time as my Latin class (which you couldn't make me drop if you started jabbing me with hot pokers ... well maybe then) so I can't take that but there is a class on Greek Tragedy that meshes with my schedule which could be really exciting. And there's also a class in Contemporary Studies called "Reflections on Death" that I'm intregued by, even though it's in Contemporary Studies.

I know that the Reflections on Death class with probably be harder (and not only because it's much earlier in the morning) but that's one of the reasons I kinda want to do it. I haven't had nearly as much Philosophy this year as last year (surprise, surprise) and it's not exactly one of my favourite disciplines because I have a hate/love relationship with most philosophers that extends to most philosophy students and professors as well. But I feel like for the sake of my mind I really should do some more philosophy. (A scary enough thought in itself from someone who would rather sit around reading stories in Latin than having to deal with some thinkers who thought that they were so right that they had to share with the world.)

On the other hand (men ... de ... Sorry, Greek reference. If only I could use the actual Greek letters this explanation would be superfluous!) the course on the Tragedies might have exactly the right kind of Philosophy for me and will probably appeal greatly to my inner, slightly abused English Student. Also it's taught by the same Prof who's teaching me Ancient Greek right now and I like her a whole bunch even when she takes extra time to explain participles and I was okay with it on the first go through. (She has awesome hair). Also also the Tragedies class would give me another credit towards my Classics degree, which is always good.

Ga! I think I'll talk to my Greek Prof and see what she thinks (did I mention that she's also the Classics Department's Undergraduate Advisor?) and in the mean time get back to that work thing.

Just under two weeks of classes left, which means I'll be free of Imperial Russia soon (yeay!).

(But then I'll have to make a descision!)

Life seems to be settling into a kind of a routine. Everyday I go to class, and I've even figured out where they all are now (woo!) and then I have Rugby practice (although not everyday, thank Marduk), which is getting to be more and more fun as time goes on and we actualy start playing the game. I'm kinda sorry for innundating you with Rugby posts, but since Saturday I've only had two days without rugby practice, so I haven't had much of anything else to talk about.

Anyway so it turns out that I'm a Prop! Which makes me SOOOO happy. For those of you who know nothing about the sport their are two Props (usually the size of oxes) who are in the front line of the Scrum on either side of the hooker. When you see the two piles of rugby players pushing against each other in large groups the Props are shoulder to shoulder with the other team. If you've ever heard the phrase "built like a Prop Foreward" this is the position that they're talking about. And now it also refers to me! (unless something realy bizarre happens, the situation is currently slightly fluid while we see how people do in the different positions and play together and all that wonderfulness.

In other news I'm loving my classes so far. I had an honest-to-Gods squee over Latin grammer this morning because it was all coming back to me and I was so happy. We're going over Gerunds and Gerundives (I didn't know that Gerundives were actually the future passive participle and that was really kinda nice to find out) and little memory things are so useful. The tunes to go with laudo, laudas, laudat ... and -i, -isti, -it... make me so happy and grateful towards my old Magistra. I can't wait until we get to this point in Greek! We've just been learning the alphabet so far lthough last class she introduced us to the conjugation of luo (lambda, upsilon, omega, I don't know how to write in the Greek letters on the computer. Yet.) in the present active indicative. And it's in that new language glow stage.

As for German... Ich heisse Aderam. Ich komme aus Canada. Wie geht es dir? My Prof is from Belaruse and is just recently off the plane from Germany, so she doesn't speak much English, but that's okay, because it's actualy not that hard to figure out what she's saying in German most of the time, although I'm sure that some of my classmates would disagree.

Also I love the word for telephone. It's so much fun to say: Telefonnummer

My other classes, Imperial Russian History and Classical Mythology are also neat, but I'm in a happy language spot at the moment so I'll leave you with Telefonnummer and this Latin epigram, which is actually my favourite piece of poetry that I have written myself. Kind of sadly nerdy I know, but I've been resigned to this fact for a long time.

dicis, mi Luci, "in vino veritas."
dico, "te amo," sedne sum ebrius?