It has begun

I'm at home in Oshawa right now and I'm awaiting my marks.
Professor #2 sent a message to our class to let us know that the grades have been posted outside his office. Too bad I can't go to his office and check. Ugh. So I have to wait for the university to post them on the web. I guess I'll just be anxious until then. Better to get it over with though.

Unrelated to studying/school: being at home is good and bad in equal parts. I'll keep anything further to myself.

Latin and the never-ending butt-kicking

While I was doing the dishes tonight it occurred to me that I've let myself fall right back into my habits with Latin. As in, I'm going in defeated, which is not going to help matters in any way. I didn't go back to school to take on a defeatist attitude and let this language walk all over me. As my dad would say, "Get your head outta your butt." Not exactly eloquent, but spot on in this matter. I'm giving up and I haven't even really tried. That's no good and it has to stop. Disappointingly enough, I feel this might not be the first pep talk I have to give myself on this topic.

Greek, on the other hand, is still going well. Accents were puzzling me but the information we covered today may actually help take care of that. This weekend will be key in making sure I'm on solid footing in both of these courses. I'm about to become Little Miss No Fun. Our Greek Facebook group, however, is not going very well. Less than half the class is signed up for it and no one is participating. Professor #2 and I are the only ones discussing things on the message board. I'm frustrated so I can only imagine how he's feeling. Although, he may not care...I mean, if they don't want to benefit from the added resource, what does it matter to him?

In personal news (that affects scholastic news), my headaches persist. I'm not a happy camper.

p.s. thank you to everyone who participated in my poll. If anything, it means that some people came by at one time to read this!

dull pain

This week (ok, so I've only had two days) has been total hell from a personal perspective. I haven't had a break from these headaches, but I'm hoping with recent rain things might start to look up. As a result, however, I've had little energy to do much else than sit on the couch or lie on the bed. I don't even feel hungry. My senstivity to light is pretty high right now too, so all in all, not a great deal of progress around here.

I did, however, get my Greek homework done and had the drills completed (last week!) in advance of class today. I walked in to class while professor #2 was discussing me: our class has a Facebook group and he was mentioning that I'd posted a picture and had started the discussion board. Not exactly a great day to be even a tad late...oh well. He seemed happy I'd gotten things rolling online.

Latin is alright. I still think I'm making it harder for myself than it has to be. When I look at Wheelock, I become confused and muddled. But when I read a full piece of text, like from the 38 Latin Stories, I am able to do far better. Context is key for me it would seem. I feel bad for professor #7. I don't think the class is cutting her much slack and I really thought that as this is Latin III they would be far more interested. They're just not. I suppose I might not have been at their stage of the game either, but then, I didn't take Latin III. I kind of want to shake them and show them what bad things can happen if they don't make the effort now! (enter ghost of undergraduate past!!)

Now I think I'm going to grab a cupcake and resume moping around complaining inwardly about this headache (yes Dad, I did take something for it).

Homework, episode 1

Alright, so after our first Greek class we were given homework that we'd be discussing in class. Knowing professor #2 and the law that stipulates you will always be asked to answer the question you don't have an answer to, I did hours of Greek last night. I'm talking hours. I was so paranoid that I'd make a bad showing in our first in-class drills that I did all of part 1. I began to fret that we'd do part 2 and 3 in class as well, but I was zonked, I had to sleep. More on this in the next entry.

I'm glad that I don't share an apartment or house with other people. Just James. James knows me well and ignores my quirks. This proved handy while doing my homework - I talked to myself the whole night. I'm trying to get to the point very early on where I can look at words and read out the Greek letters as quickly as I can our alphabet (I wish I could slip in a clever joke about alpha beta, but I've only had one week, give me a break). So all night it was omega, kappa, epsilon, alpha, etc. Isn't muttering to yourself a sign of genius? Anyway...

My study area needs some improvements. I'll work away on them this weekend. First of all, bad all purpose lighting has prompted me to use the overhead light, a stand up lamp and a spot lamp. Oh, and I was burning an aromatherapy candle in hopes of making positive connections between language study a pleasant mood. All this lightbulb burning, despite using compact fluorescent in the lamps, made the room hot. Options for the overhead light are being explored. The desk chair is a bad size. Now I'm carting my office desk chair into my study to work. Tedious, but I'm not dropping cash on another chair, that's just wasteful. The issue of time has also popped up - I have no idea what time it is when I'm in the study, away from the computer's clock. Granted, it might be nice not to know the time while studying. I suppose related, but not related to my study is my bag for going to and from school. I still don't have a clear front-runner in this area. I don't like backpacks, but I may have to break down - Fridays are heavy book days and if I add some gym gear too, well, that's just begging for sore muscles on my left side. Suggestions regarding uberhip and stylish yet practical bags welcome.

The one thing I've noticed is that I really, really enjoy doing homework on my new whiteboard. I'm so visual when I learn that it makes my life a helluva lot easier to be able to put everything up, deconstruct and make oodles of mistakes that wipe away. I think my love of the whiteboard is the reason I already adore Greek. Here's hoping I continue to adore Greek and that I feel as warmly toward Latin when I use the whiteboard.

Nothing further to report it would seem, unless you care about what I'm learning. So far just the alphabet, how to write the characters, accents, breathings, pronunciation etc.

Here's me and my beloved whiteboard:

Day One, Greek

I had my first class today. This semester I will be taking both Latin and Greek. Greek is new to me.

Let's just say, I'm glad I had a grip on the alphabet before I showed up to class (thank you professor #5). That made me feel far more relaxed. While it was nice that I felt relaxed, it wasn't so nice that I felt old. It skipped my mind that in going back to school I'd also be in contact with the questionable-hygiene-far-too-young student body. That said, I'm sure my fellow classmates will have time to shower before the lunch-hour class. I hope.

As is the case with most Classics courses, our classroom was in a science building far from anything we know and love (the Arts buildings). This particular class will be held in the basement of a hallway that connects two buildings. No distracting windows with their natural sunlight here! No sir-ee. Poor professor #2 prepared a makeshift desk out of an overhead projector stand.

Classroom ambiance aside, the first class was as expected: intro, expectations, alphabet basics and so on. I must say, I'm pleasantly pleased by the marking breakdown - makes me feel like I have a fighting chance, you know, when I don't see a lot of 60%'s in any one category. Professor #2 and I had a quick chat after class. He remembers me - I told him not to remember too hard, I'd rather he not recall our first encounter. He was encouraging all the same, which was very sweet of him.

The text book was at my favourite book store - they had a fire this summer, I was worried they wouldn't be operating anymore. But they were. The smell was alarming (think beautiful musty book smell with notes of burnt wood and fresh paint). Thankfully this book is intended for three courses...what a monster in size!

That said, we have been assigned readings and drills to prepare for tomorrow on the alphabet and pronunciation. I also have my first Latin class tomorrow. Fridays, it turns out, will be my busiest day with not one, but two! two whole classes! Now I feel like having a fudgsicle....