Huh, I won

If it seems that I don't post for two days and then all of a sudden I make two posts, you are right. That's just how it is. When I say something, I usually think up a couple more topics I wanted to mention. Anyway, I know you will all be thrilled but I won the 7 extra credit points (that I probably didn't need) in Latin class for my Latin skit. It was dreadfully dull and totally lackluster as a performance, but apparently Dr. Davies liked it. It must have been because we made so few grammatical errors. :)

Now I am probably certainly most definitely going to get an A in this class

Deadlines

This semester I have had the most fluid deadlines I have ever had. It is probably because of the two snow days earlier this year, though. Both my Tuesday/Thursday classes have been moving their tests, quizzes, and homework deadlines around like a game of whack-a-mole. My Scientific Writing class also has extremely loose deadlines, although I think that is the teacher's nature instead of extenuating circumstances. Dr. Davies seems to be the most stable, since his tests are always when he announces them to be, although he only announces them a week in advance.

Petitions

Hey, if any of you haven't heard, I recently bothered Dr. Davies into accepting a petition for Scientific Terminology. It was tough and it was deferred nearly a dozen times. Anyways, today he popped out a petition and said it was for "Classical Mythology." When I was giving my petition, he said there was simply not enough staff to offer the class. However, when a student asked him if he would offer it, he replied, "No not personally, but I'm sure we can find someone to offer it." Blargh! You two-faced little Latin professor! Here's an indirect statement for you: Puto te mendacem esse!

Latin Midterm

Today we had the first Latin Midterm. There will be a second, but it will be 3/4 of the way through the course. I know. I know. It shouldn't be called a midterm if it isn't at midterms, but that is what it is called on the syllabus. Anyways, I can't really blame Dr. Davies for not giving us our midterm before midterm grades were due last Friday since he was dying of consumption all last week. Sick Semper Tyrannis, and all that jazz. I think I did very well on this final. I'm sure I made at least one careless mistake, but I'm fairly sure that I didn't make two.

Squeaking By

I have all the midterm grades that I'm going to get back. It is scary: all my grades are right on the knife's edge. My Physics Test was offset by my homework and quizzes so I have an A. My Physics Lab reports have been for the most part too short so I have approximately 91 there. My Genetics Homework assignments have been high B's and low A's. My Genetics Test was a 92, so I have an A in that class too. Both the papers I've written for English class were B+, but because of all the extra credit I've done I have an A-. Right now I'm walking along the face of a very scary black precipice that is called 3.999 GPA.

P.S. Latin is a breeze. Hooray! Oh, but Dr. Davies cancelled today again. What the heck.

Oh oh oh

The last time I saw Dr. Davies in class, which was almost a week ago, he brought in a song in Latin "in honor of Valentine's day." It was just about the weirdest thing I ever heard. Dr. Davies apparently loves it. He played it three times in class and according to Alexie, he has done the same thing for every class he's ever had. It goes something like... Oh Oh Oh! Totus Floreo! Iam amore virginali totus ardeo! Novus novus novus amor est quo pereo! QUO PEREO! It only gets weirder if you try to translate it.

Latin Cancellation

This is the second class period in a row that Latin has been cancelled. I mean, it made sense two days ago when the entire campus shut down. Now, however, Dr. Davies is out with a cold or out fighting giant robots or something. Who knows what he does in his spare time? Anyway, I've had the same homework assignment for almost a week now and I finished it on Saturday. On his door, he left a note that said: Latin 102 cancelled. Study for mid-term! So I guess that's what I will be doing. Oh yeah, and finding seven more sources for my paper before Friday. Sigh...

Penmanship

Today I was sitting in Latin class when Dr. Davies entered the room. He always picks about half a dozen students to write the answers up on the whiteboard. I wrote 1-3. After all the answers were written down. Dr. Davies was surveying them.

"Sam!" Dr. Davies exclaimed. "This is incredible penmanship! The best in class!"

Sam tried to look like she didn't exist, or at least that Dr. Davies must have been talking to some other Sam. Then Dr. Davies thoughtfully observed the board some more.

"Duncan!" Dr. Davies exclaimed again. "Are you going to be a doctor?"

The moment he said it I realized why he was asking.

"Yes," I said, "I have awful penmanship."

Dr. Davies nodded sagely, "My dad was a doctor and I couldn't ever read anything he wrote."

Of course, people usually figure out my major based on the fact that I'm an insufferable know-it-all and am at the top of all my classes. Hm. Weird.

Alexie

Alexie said I should make a blog post about how awesome she is. She followed it up by advising that I don't actually do so because every time I mention her online, you lovely blog readers start talking to her about stuff you read on the blog while she tries to figure out how you know these things. Well, now you can creep her out some more with some random trivia that may or may not be true.

1) Last semester she gave her teacher, Dr. Covino a piece of yummy yellow cake that was left over from Classics Club. This might or might not be the only reason she got an 'A' in this class.

2) A few days ago she tried to get a picture of Dr. Davies on her phone. He got mad and rebuked her. Anyway, she now has a picture of Dr. Davies on her phone, but you can't see his face because he put his hand up to block it.

3) She decided that someday in her future she will become a teacher and include in her syllabus "Cake... 3%" She will remind her students not to put this off to the last second, because if she gets a rush of cake in the last week of the semester she might not be able to eat it all immediately and the students won't get their grade.

I know two of these fun trivia facts are about cake, but that was what we were talking about on the way home, so tough.

Lazy

AAAAAAAAAH!!! He did it again! That Dr. Davies slipped another obscure adjective onto his test! This time it was the word for "lazy." Considering that over the entire course we have only covered three adjectives, happy, angry, and miraculous, I would think that the adjectives on the test would be slightly more predictable! The last one was "clever." We hadn't even used clever yet! It turned up in the next chapter! Of course, we had already done lazy by the time of the final, but I don't think it turned up in more than one chapter.

Perhaps if I hadn't been so ignavus, I would have studied more adjectives. Although I would have to be pretty callidus to figure out which obscure adjective he was going to put on the test.

Latin Skits

For the past few weeks we've been performing Latin Skits that we wrote ourselves. Dr. Davies is holding out on giving us our tests back because the best skit will receive extra test credit. My group wrote a skit entitled "Sweenus Toddus, Daemon Tonsor Viae Fleetae." Ha ha! It's better than "Scoobus Doobus" anyway. He he. Anyways Dr. Davies came in to class yesterday and said "Hey everyone, apparently this Sweeney Todd guy is famous! I was explaining your skit to the other class and they said 'Hey! That sounds like Sweeney Todd!' Isn't that amazing?" We all laughed at his expense. Ha ha!

Why do we need to experience writing Roman Comedy when Latin class is so hilarious?

Stern Letter

Alright, this is the last straw. When I asked Lexie what she was doing what she was doing with the Latin people before lunch she answered, "Oh, we were preparing our skit for Latin." Hey! I don't do skits in Latin class! I feel ripped off! I have sent Dr. Davies a VERY STERN LETTER politely asking him why our class doesn't do any of the fun things Lexie's class is doing. We'll see what comes of this...

Corpora

Today I had a Latin quiz. Dr. Davies told us about it via email last night, so it wasn't a pop quiz, though I had no idea it was coming. Anyway, I got all the answers right except one: What is the accusative plural of the latin word for "body." Since it was third declension I ran through it in my mind and got "Corpores," but that isn't right because it's a neuter word and therefore its nominative and accusative plural are "Corpora." Got that? Good. Anyways, it means I no longer have an 100% in Latin. Boo boo schmoo boo.

Roman Slavery

Today I learned about the Romans and how they treat their slaves in two different classes, Latin and Economics.

First, Dr. Davies explained to us how humane the Romans were to their slaves. That slaves were often considered part of the family. That Romans often freed their slaves in their wills. The slaves weren't just forced to do hard labor like in America. Slaves filled all economic positions. And that the reason that slaves were called "servus" which is similar to the verb "servare" to save is that the Romans thought that they saved the people they enslaved because otherwise the Romans would have killed them. Thank you for small favors.

Next hour, Dr. Giffin explained to us how in the Roman Empire the slaves were brutally forced to do all the work, that economics hardly existed at all because the empire was too wrapped up in war to think of trade, that slaves weren't given any rights at all and that you could kill them if you felt like it. Slaves filled all economic positions. (Which you'll notice Dr. Davies also said last paragraph, but Dr. Davies made it sound like the Romans were doing them a favor.)

Therefore you can see that everything you learn on campus is highly skeptical and shouldn't be taken on face value. Or as Dr. Giffin himself says, "Just because it is a fact, doesn't mean it is necessarily true."

Fighting the Establishment

Speaking of classes, Organic Chemistry met its death at 7:00 this morning. There were two reasons for this:

1) All the classes filled up.
2) Organic Chemistry can only be taken in your third year.

None of these seemed to bother Mom at all. She said all I had to do was go down to the UC, pick up Form 104EDC740-cX so that I could "force-ed" my way into a filled class and Form 3912fTToadsOP-Xt6 to "force-ed" my way into a class above my grade level. To fill these forms you'll need signatures from you, your guardian, the teacher whose class you are forcing your way into, the president of the united states, etc. I decided to put my foot down.

The reason being that last semester Dr. Davies inserted a shameless plug into his Latin class for a Classics class that was a 300 level course. (Dr. Davies is like the brand names that advertise their soaps and deoderants on their shampoo bottles.) Alexie, of course, decided to take it. She had to fill out both these forms, while battling Dr. Davies' evil non-red-headed secretary of DOOOM, and somehow getting Dr. Davies to sign them without his secretary noticing. Dr. Davies suggested that Alexie change her motto from "Hard work and guts" to "Paperwork and guts."

Dr. Davies secretary used to be a nice red-headed lady according to Heather, but she was hired by someone with more money and pizzazz than Dr. Davies and was thus stolen from him, leaving him broken and depressed enough to hire an evil secretary. (At least she won't be stolen from him, right?)

Anyways, to cut a long tragic epic battle short, Alexie died tragically. She didn't get into the class. I decided not to even bother. Funny thing is that I was only going to take Organic Chemistry to test my limits. Apparently, I come up rather short if I don't even have enough awesomeness to even get into the class.

SUCH fun

Today, I have a lot of things that happened so I might make multiple blog posts. Oh well. Anyway the first thing that happened to me was Signing Up for Classes Hell, which when abbreviated makes the word "SUCH" for no reason.

Anyways, I was awake at 5:30 so that I could get Mom to turn off Covenant Eyes. Covenant Eyes is our filter which does not allow internet activity between 10:00 and 7:00 which is usually fine because that is usually when my parents are asleep. However, I needed that computer at 6:00 to sign up for classes. Anyways, that was turned off and so I waited stealthily for 6:00 to strike. When 6:00 did strike, guess what? The registry page was counted by Mom's pop-up blocker as a pop-up. Had to switch computers. It was SUCH a pain.

Turns out that most of my classes were full by the time I was able to log on. (7:00, I could have totally slept in) I signed up for Timothy Parker's English Class (ENGL 122 007), Dr. Davies' Latin Class (LAT 101 001), and Phillip Giffin's Economics Class (ECON 102 004/005) for anyone who is interested in knowing such random unimportant information. I also need three more credit hours if any of my friends know a class that they will also be in that counts for some Gen Ed requirement that I haven't yet met. Not that any of this is important.

P.S. Phillip Giffin is supposedly a strong Republican with an oddly spelled name and dozens of open spaces in his class. I'd advise anyone who happens to be at UTC next semester to take him. Not that I'm insinuating anything.

Pudding

Mmmm. Lexie's pudding is so good. Today the classics club is having a bake sale at UTC. Yeah, I know what you are all thinking: Classics club? That sounds like a club for super nerdy people! Yeah, well my sister is in there. She really likes her Latin professor, Dr. Davies, so when he put a shameless plug for the classics club into his lesson, Lexie actually decided to attend. (Most professors at UTC also are the advisers for clubs and insert shameless plugs into their lessons. Example: I have been invited to join the Chemistry club by four different professors.)

Anyways, Dr. Davies decided to take the club to the parthenon in Nashville so they're holding a bake sale to raise money. Dr. Davies made some cookies that look like garbage so I didn't buy them. Lots of people made cookies. Lexie however made chocolate pudding with whipped cream and oreo crumbs. I've so far bought two and if there are any left when I show up to beg Lexie to take me home, I'll buy those too. They're so good.