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.

Over and Done

It is an extreme relief to be finished with my 20-page literature review. It was due Monday, but the teacher decided to delay the deadline to Wednesday because so many people weren't done. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I turned it in. After all, it was finished. What was I going to do to it in two more days? Anyways, I can now chill. It will be nice to not have to know so much about teratomas. Ah. A few minutes ago Mom asked me if I had any thing I had to be working on. Besides for a Latin test tomorrow, a Grant Proposal due next Friday, a paper on the Use of Physics in Real Life due next Thursday, a Genetics worksheet due Thursday and a Genetics test on Tuesday, I have almost nothing to do. Ah, sweet blissful rest.

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...

Oughton...

...

My brain just exploded.

I've been searching for a translation of Triachasis Admiranda and this one name keeps cropping up: Chuck Oughton. First I found a series of lectures that mentioned Triachasis Admiranda. I thought I had lucked out. I even e-mailed the link to myself hoping to mine more information. Alas, it was only the teaser that was put online. Utah State, a series of graduate students sharing information with each other, History - Charles Oughton. Talking about his translation of Triachasis Admiranda. I was so jipped. Later, I was reading an article about two guys in Utah translating Triachasis Admiranda, one latin professor and one graduate student. When I got to the bottom and saw that the paper was published by a newspaper in Utah, I suddenly remembered the flyer that had tormented me with so little information. A-ha! This Oughton guy might be the key.

I googled him and you'd never believe what came up.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/368542/any-questions-on-rules

A how-to forum on how to play Killer Bunnies. This nice guy was explaining to everyone how to play Killer Bunnies (I mean... WHAT!?) and then finished by saying that anyone who got too upset was taking the game too seriously. It was trippy. Anyway, the guy on the forum is from Utah so I think he's the same guy. Other games he's rated include Bang, Powergrid, and Catan. He owns just about every extension of Killer Bunnies, Bang, and Catan I've never heard of. It is incredible.

So what is this super awesome Latin-translating history grad student who has all the answers to all the questions I have doing on some random geek gaming site which would be my guilty pleasure if I knew it existed!? AAAAH! Hey, let's see if we invite him to random fun he would let me have a gander at Triachasis Admiranda.

Back To School

Does anybody besides me have any problem with the first day of school being on a Wednesday? Being a rather compulsive person, I have this nagging buzz in my brain that says that this is not the way it should be. It has manifested in several ways including, but not limited to: Forgetting that today was Wednesday and thinking it was Monday, panicking and thinking that I've missed the first day of class, and wondering whether UTC Chemistry Labs policy is to skip the first Monday or to skip the first Week. This last one is a problem because I'm sure that if I don't show up to the Chemistry Labs on the right days, I'll be fired if I haven't already been fired and assuming that they hired me in the first place. (I'm not even sure that I have the job and I'm already worried about losing it.)

Not only that but I've only had two classes and I already have a load of homework: I have to find a scientific journal that uses academic language at a level that I can understand, create an index card outlining my writing strengths and weaknesses, and translate two pages of Latin. (I'll be done with all of this in about thirty minutes of actual work, but it never hurts to gripe!)

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."

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.