Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Monday, November 29, 2010

Academic masochism ahead

The next couple of weeks will likely be accompanied by a multitude of tears, panic attacks, sleepless nights, pages and pages read, and pages and pages written. But despite my complete abject terror, I'm excited, giddy almost. My fingers are itching to churn out pages of thoughts and analyses. I've rediscovered how much I love listening to classical music whilst I work. I can practically feel my heart in my throat - nervous anticipation. My side of the library desk looks as if it has been ravaged by a particularly harsh hurricane. Jesse has colonized Francis' half of the desk, relentlessly working on her thesis edits and formatting so that she can turn it into the registrar and finally get those shiny plastic golden laurels. Bring it on, Reed College! We can do this! (or at least, I hope we can...)

Sunday, November 28, 2010

I feel like Athena is about to burst out of my skull

What did my hungover self just waste an hour doing? Not watching TV, or sleeping, or puking my guts out. Instead, I was voting on my preferred translations in the Latin version of Facebook.


This makes the fact that I, currently fuzzy-brained, cannot get myself to do any substantial work a little more bearable.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Paper topics

Am debating whether I should write my final research paper for Ellen/Roman History on coinage in the Social War (potentially awesome conclusions could be made - not a widely studied subject) in the context of how it helps establish an independent identity for the rebelling allies, or focus on early Imperial portrait coinage and its role in solidifying Augustus' claims to power. 


Or do I not write about coinage at all? Mostly I just would not know what else to do. Clodia/Lesbia? Only that would be a bit of a cop-out considering we spent an entire conference on her portrayal in Catullus and Cicero. I certainly will never write another paper on Sallust (too many painful memories from last year's stolen computer/backpack incident when I had to recreate 15 pages of lost essay, rewrite all of my research notes, and buy Columbia University's library very expensive replacement books). I've already done work this semester on Cato and the Gracchi.


We have an annotated bibliography due on Friday. I have a thesis and bibliography for the Augustan topic already, but if I want to write on something else, ideally I should decide by tomorrow so I have enough time to do the annotations. Bleargh.


In an attempt to find a GIF of crazy-eyes!Octavian from the tv series "Rome" to demonstrate my current mood, I inadvertently discovered a livejournal community with Vergil/Horace slash fanfiction. Internet, you are one weird world.

This is kind of a silly thing to get excited about but...

The Classics department holiday party planning is in the works!!! Sonia wants all of us third-year Greek students to memorize one of the epigrams we worked on for our anthology projects, and recite it, in Greek (in meter!), and then in our own English translation. The likelihood that I will forget something and embarrass myself a tad is moderately high, but regardless, it's going to be lots of fun. Lindsay and I proposed to Sonia our collective thoughts on how we could FOR SURE incorporate modern reality television in a classical context (Growing Up Gracchi, Pimp My Chariot, Are You Smarter Than A Barbarian, etc etc). We're dorks, plain and simple.


Greek today involved me enthusiastically defending the LSJ entries for several translations that were up in the air. Was teased a fair amount for that, but I retain my stance! μά is not always used with negative assertions! A fairly long digression also ensued over the technicality of the word πέλεκυς, which, on a basic level, means "axe", though the term can be applied to both sacrificial and battle axes (wherein lies the problem - what kind of axe would have been used in this specific context?). Fun times to be had in academia.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Scheduling snore snore (this is extremely boring)

Had a meeting with Sonia this morning, who, in addition to being my professor, happens to be my academic adviser within the Classics department. Our goal: to determine my course schedule for the upcoming semester, which could play a large role in deciding what subject will be the focus of my senior thesis.


As it stands, it seems like I will be taking Greek with Wally (on Aristotle's Poetics), Latin with Nigel (Martial, mainly), Art History, and a Special Topics in Ancient History with Ellen (Barbarians in the Ancient World). I'm still waiting to hear from the Anthropology department as to whether or not they are giving me credit for my archaeological coursework from over the summer. If they do, it means that next semester I will definitely be writing my junior qual (which, for Classics majors, is essentially a mini-thesis), and thus have to decide now first off what class I want to be qualling in, and in addition, whether I should do an independent study of Homer in the spring as well, if I want to work on either the Iliad or the Odyssey for my thesis. STRESSFUL TIMES.


On the non-stressful side, coinage presentation on Wednesday last went swimmingly. Even though I ended up speaking for over 40 minutes (whereas everyone previously had presented for only 10-20), it seemed at least like everyone enjoyed learning a bit about numismatics, which is an extremely small and little-examined field for undergraduates.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Bookshelf love

It's nerdy and more than a little depressing, but one of my favorite things at Reed is my study desk in the library. It's in the basement (sometimes lovingly referred to as a circle of hell or the abyss), but it's cozy, warm and well-lit, which I appreciate more and more as the days grow darker and the outside world increasingly tends towards the cold and rainy. Francis is my desk partner, though he is often not here, so I am left with this huge space upon which I can spread out all of my notes and coffee cups and heavily annotated articles. The best part of my desk, however, is the bookshelf. Classics books upon classics books upon classics books: lexicons and Loebs, Cambridge commentaries and Cicero. It's lovely. Perched in a corner of the shelf is my "Love Reed" squishy owl (excellent for the occasional stress-relieving squeeze) and my coffee mug, which, rather appropriately I think, reads "No Sleep Till Hades". Post-it notes (some, to-do lists; others, notes from Francis which always cheer me up) cling haphazardly to its corners. I love being down here, strange as that might sound - it's an academic cocoon away from the occasionally harsh realities of my real life. And it makes me proud to be a classicist and student here at Reed.


This is more of a musing rather than anything of substance (which I heartily apologize for), but I thought I'd write it here anyway.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

COINZ

It is 6:40 in the morning. I have at last finished reading through and annotating the fifth and final book for my presentation on Ptolemaic numismatics. I CANNOT THINK ANYMORE! Attic standard weights being reduced by tenths of a gram somehow indicate complete social change by appealing to the Egyptian peasantry outside of urban centers. Also, ELEPHANT'S SCALP = IMPERIAL SUPREMACY. Maybe I'm just stir-crazy because I've been slaving away in the 24-hour ETC computer labs that are eerily empty and sterile and my cigarette breaks (which in an ideal world would be relaxing) have turned into a raging battle between me, my nicotine, and the cold rain. Also could use some sleep. But that's not going to happen!


Now I really want an elephant scalp. Or at least an imitation of one. Or maybe just a coin with one on it.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

What Aristotle really wanted to know

We're translating some of Theocritus's Idylls in Greek class over the next couple of weeks, and bucolic poetry is great fun, I must say.


Idyll 11, our assignment for today, is all about the love Polyphemus (if you remember, the cyclops from the Odyssey) has for Galatea, a sea nymph. Which of course led to superprof!Sonia introducing us to a question raised by Aristotle himself: since Poseidon (his father) had two eyes and Thoosa (his sea nymph mother) had two eyes, how did Polyphemus end up with only one eye?!?! We came to the conclusion that maybe Aristotle should have had a good long chat with Gregor Mendel.


It almost sounds like a bad (or awesome?) joke: Aristotle and Mendel walk into a bar....