Western girl?

I don't think I ever did mention the fact that, when I was in London over March Break, I officially accepted UWO's offer. So, I'll be heading to Ontario in the fall. That's going to be an enormous change for me, considering I'm typing this in my bedroom, which has been "lady pink" since the last time it got painted, aka when I was seven years old.

Also, my friend Chelsey has been elected (aka cakewalked-into) the position of Classics Society president. She didn't have the competition that I did, but on the other hand, I think she'll make a better president than either I or the clown that beat me would have been/has been. Anyhow, we've been working on a website for the society. We just need to build again from scratch if we want it linked to on the departmental page. Sigh.

Oh well, back to studying for my 100% Greek exam I go!

Second admission letter

I got my admission email from UBC. Or at least, "Stanatia" did. I really don't see why I should consider any school that can't get my name right, and won't tell me how much funding they're willing to offer me. They can take that form email, and, well...email it to someone else!

My father finally figures it out

So I was working on the Cyclops, when my father came home. He's reading what I'm working on over my shoulder, and mutters, "You have to write down all those words?" (="Do you have to translate all of that?").

"Yeah Ba, all of them."

"Ohh, in Greece, that's called Katharevousa, and..."

"Well it's not Katharevousa, it's 5th century Attic Greek. It's by Euripides - you know, the guy who wrote "Medea"? And look how much I've done, I'm on line 510...*flips through the pages*"

"Wow, that's a lot of stuff!"

"I know...this is what I do all day! And this is just my Greek! Now do you understand why I don't have time to do everything else, like the dishes and the laundry? Although I did do those today..."

"Good, good, you should do them more often..."

So, he missed my point about constant schoolwork = no time to clean up after him, but at least now he seems to appreciate how much work I actually do. The only "Katharevousa" he knows is the word for horse - and I have to read Euripides. So the next time he calls me an idiot...maybe he'll stop to think about that for a minute...

My daily workload

It's funny, no matter how much Greek I get done, I never get ahead. With Prof. M, 20-30 lines is "enough", because we really don't have much further to go (eight more pages, I think? Less?) of ο Κύκλωψ, but if I do 40-50+ lines when I have the time so that I won't have to worry when I don't, he just lets me plow ahead. "Oh, you got to 510? Well, you might as well keep going, then". Latin isn't so bad, we have a higher daily line quota (around 40), so we should be going faster, but then Ovid's lines are a lot longer than Euripides'...

It's not that I'm not capable of doing more, I'd just like a little consistency...and to be able to work ahead. That's all.

So, for today:

- do about 40 lines of ο Κύκλωψ, if I can, or more. Do some practice scansion for it, and study for the midterm.
- do the Amores poems about maids - two or three of them, they're less than 30 lines each. Study for the midterm.
- write the last of my German compositions, the one on Dr. Scott's Vorlesung on "forgiveness" in the photography of some Canadian guy in post-war, pre-reconstruction Germany. (it's not that long, or hard...I just don't want to do it). Study vocab, do worksheet on the simple past passive. Test am Montag.
- Do primary sources research on the Floralia by Friday, in other words, go to the Harriet Irving Library, and photocopy everything I can find on it. Keep in mind that I can work on Flora the goddess, and not just the festival itself.
- email people to remind them to choose their Ancient Dinner recipes. In fact, do that now...

Renaissance

Well, I don't seem to be doing much with this blog. Since I use my Livejournal as a means of keeping my friends up-to-date with my life, and very few of the friends who do happen to be on there are colleagues, I think perhaps I'll turn this into my "academic" blog. I'll put up any interesting Classics stories I find as I trawl the web (including other blogs which have already done all my work for me...I'd sooner miss breakfast than David Meadow's rogueclassicist...), and discuss (=rant) about anything I'm working on, or just general life in my local Classics Society. I'm not abandoning posting Rome pictures, they'll just be highlights here and there...

In that new vein, I got accepted to the University of Western Ontario last night. It was seven o'clock, and I was watching "Νύφες" with my mom in her bed, and the phone rang. She answered it and passed it to me...and it was Bonnie MacLaughlin, the chair of graduate studies. Who offered me $14,000.00 to come to Western, you know, if I wanted to. Because she was sure I had lots of other offers to consider, but they'd really like it if I would come. So I told her that the only other place I'd applied to was UBC, that although their deadline had been 15 days before theirs, they still hadn't gotten back to me (she was calling me 48 hours after the deadline), and that Western had been my first choice all along. So I would be delighted to come to London. Why, as a matter of fact, I'd be there March 5th-9th to check out the campus! I think we were both elated with the outcome of that conversation!

They have a guy that specializes in Bronze Age archaeology. You know, Minoans? Like the people who lived on the island my dad is from? I don't know if that's what I want to do, per se, but it's something I haven't gotten to study in as much depth as I would like. I've always kind of drempt of being the person who cracks Linear A...

Still, I can't quite wrap my mind around it. I'm actually good enough. I don't suck. I'll finally be getting out of here...now, how I feel about that....that's a story for another day.

But, before I go: the spell-check on this site is just plain weird. It wanted me uncapitalize "March", and it suggested "bloc" as a replacement for "blog". One would think that on a site called Blogger, which is the backbone of the blogging revolution, they would have "blog" in the spell-check. Whatever...

Politics

Ok, just a little comment on the political situation in Canada...one of my friends, I forget who it was, summed things up pretty precisely: "at least Paul Martin's just going to take away my money, and not my human rights". The Conservatives would do better in the polls if they weren't quite so...conservative. Yeah, I know, that doesn't make any sense. But the key to governing in this country is to appear as centrist as possible. When one party's been in too long, the opposition whispers all these sweet nothings in your ear, you vote them into power, and then they don't change a single thing. The government stays the same, only the names are different. So why have we had a Liberal government since 1993? Because the Conservatives are too busy bible-thumping. They not only scare the left-wing people, they scare the centrists. The unholy union of the Alliance and the Conservatives really hasn't helped them get into office. Of course, the key is Quebec, but the Bloc Quebecois isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And if they were, they sure as hell wouldn't be reabsorbing themselves into the WASP-tastic Conservative party. Not that I really remember, having been a small child at the time, but...Mulroney's PCs weren't really perceived as being all that Jesus-loving, were they? The Conservatives split up into a western protest party and a French-speaking seperatist party, leaving an oily residue in its wake, a shell of its former self. I guess that party - which no one ever suspected would amount to anything in the near future - made a deal with the proverbial devil. Only, it was with the other side, so to speak...

I don't know if that made ANY sense, but what we have is: The corrupt Liberals, who only manage to stay in power because their opposition is:

- a regional seperatist party (BQ)
- a left-wing party that people like in theory, but people feel voting for them would be "throwing their vote away"(NDP). So people don't vote for them, and those who do don't make much of a difference. They're the angel on the shoulder of whatever government is in power (aka the Liberals).
- a party that could form a goverment, only not everyone agrees with their western Canadian/American "Republican" style. They persist on being right-wing, when if they softened up just a tich, they could carry the country...

Il Colisseo. I wish I was there right now...

From this spring. 

All the cool kids are doing it

Ok, well, what can I say, I <3 Livejournal. But, at the same time, there's just something a smidge classier about Blogger, what can I say?

I may very well decide this isn't worth maintaining. On the other hand, I may fall madly in love with it and abandon my LJ. Who knows?

Rick Mercer's blog is hilarious! You should all go and read it, pronto!

Never say "pronto" when you're on an ATAC bus in Rome. Because one of its many meanings is "I'm ready", and trust me, someone will try to take you up on that...