This year just keeps getting better. Last night was a little hectic, what with the baking through dinner and being late to silkscreening... but it all turned out just fine, thanks to the cake-inverting and removing-baked-goods-from-ovens talents of Mick. ;) And my silkscreen design worked! It looks really neat as white on black... can't wait to print my shirt next time. UCC dessert night went well (my pumpkin cake with carmelized apples and midnight fudge brownies were pretty popular, as was Maryam's delicious German plum cake), and I even got to spend some time with Sam (who'd been working the entire previous day and had only gotten a couple hours sleep). All in all, I was very happy.

I'm really having fun with Latin - while working on it, I keep dredging up different things from memory. It's like Mr. Parsons giving a running commentary in my head... "Ok, here we have a cum clause, so --- takes the ablative, translate as 'with ---'"... "This is a perfect participle, so 'having been ---'"... " 'defecit' is the perfect form of 'deficio'"... It's even in his voice. He was a terrific Latin teacher, and it certainly shows now - Kat, please tell him he's awesome. (And do your Latin homework! ;)

I never realized how much I missed it. :( There's something about translation that interests me. It's easy to get terrible translations of passages in another language; just look up babelfish and fire away. But to get something that makes sense out of another language, that really conveys the meaning and sense/mood (and if you're translating poetry and you're *really* good, rhythm and meter) of the passage - that takes a really well-trained human who's sensitive to the phrasing and placement. For a great example, go read Allen Mandelbaum's translation of the Aeneid.

I'm not that good, but I'd like to be someday. And (amazingly) I can keep German and Latin straight - the last time I mixed things up was way back in first term sophomore year. Perhaps it's because I'm recording language instruction in their voices, so it's easy to differentiate between the two now. It's a curious thing.

Anyway, I'm happy. What a difference it makes, to be studying something I love. :)

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"You may be having difficulty in places, but you have the tools to translate this... It's really impressive that you remember so much."
-Prof Brown