Second-Day Update!

This is the Second Day of Classes, and I'm already excited for the semester. I'm only doing one major-relevant class, so this semester is for my minors (and also Archaeology as a lab science, but that's sort of relevant to Classics).
First, I'm doing British Literature II, which covers the late 18th century to the beginning of the 20th. I'm mostly excited for this because the professor seems really cool. I'm mostly taking this because it's one of the required classes for an English major - this is not necessarily my area of interest. (Part I of British Literature covers approximately from Beowulf to Milton, and that was more my area of interest). Nonetheless, it'll be interesting to do a survey course again after taking several 300-level and honors English classes - I haven't done a proper survey course since freshman year.
I'm also taking Greek New Testament, which is exactly what it sounds like. I am EXTREMELY excited for this class; this is the reason I kept up with Greek for so long. (Well, I did also keep up with it so I could do the Classics minor, but I'M REALLY EXCITED FOR GREEK NEW TESTAMENT.) We're mostly doing Luke's writings - the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. One of the major assignments in this class is to do an exegesis - a focused study on one passage from the Greek New Testament of our choosing. This includes translating the passage, comparing the major Bible editions (King James, Living Bible, etc) to find out which is the most literal translator and which best gets at the idea of the passage. We also have to pick one "very interesting word" to analyze - this could be "hamartia," for "sin" or "mistake" for example - and figure out how it is used and how other people used it. It's really exciting.
I'm also taking Archaeological Methods, which is essentially The Indiana Jones Correction Class. (not really.) We're studying the actual processes of archaeology: yes, killing scorpions is part of the job, but most of it involves digging and carefully cleaning and documenting everything and also trying to avoid bee stings and skin cancer. I'm really excited for this course.
I haven't actually had a class for Advanced News Writing yet, because it meets on Wednesdays, but I'm really excited for it as well. Hopefully, this semester we'll actually do some writing.

Things I Learned This Semester

So today was the last day of classes before the end of the semester, so it's time for the Semester Roundup, where I write about what I learned this semester and stuff.

ACADEMICS

1. In Shakespeare class, I learned that there are a bunch of different ways to insult people. One of those ways is to address someone as "thou," as opposed to "you." (I already knew this, but it's worth repeating). I also learned my new favorite oath: "OUT, VILE JELLY!" (from King Lear. Someone's eyes got poked out).
2. In Greek Historiography, I learned that Herodotus is allegedly the Father of History, but he was far more mythologically inclined than Thucydides. Thucydides is far more fact-based and wrote history in a manner that is closer to what we see today. Also, Xenophon wrote the Anabasis, or the March Up Country, which is about Cyrus trying to do some conquering, but gets killed 1/3 of the way through. The rest of it is about how people try and not get killed by residents of places where the army doesn't reside. Also, that Shakespeare drew some inspiration from Plutarch.
3. In Uses of the Bible in Literature, I learned that pretty much everything is a reference to either the Bible or Shakespeare. And sometimes Shakespeare alludes to the Bible. Also, Satan was never explicitly stated as being the Fallen Angel Who Was Mean To Everyone. He was referred to as The Accuser in the book of Job. He took over Judas's brain in the book of Luke and John. He is never described in detail, however, so the whole "Satan is Evil McEvil, the fallen red demon with a pointy tail and horns" description isn't entirely Biblical.
4. In Journalism, I learned how a proper news story (PUT HUMAN ELEMENTS FIRST), and how to write a personality profile. I learned that, as a blogger, my professor thinks I am narcissistic. I learned that there are two kinds of ledes (the lede is the opening paragraph or so): the hard ledes get the WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY out of the way immediately; the soft ledes tell a bit of a story about a person affected by the thing before you get to the news about the thing.

OTHER THINGS

1. It's possible for a college student to write a novel in 30 days.
2. That student may or may not doom themselves to carpal tunnel syndrome later in life.
3. back up your files. You never know when your computer is going to crash on you.
4. Sometimes, it's important to take a break and play with puppies.
5. It's hard to let people go - from relationships, from organizations, from life. That doesn't mean you can't talk to them again. That doesn't mean you have to be on horrendous terms with them. You still need to be civil, and it is possible to be so.
6. It's important to have someone to talk to, but it's also important to act. If you need to go on a tangent, do it. But when the tangent is over and your friend offers a solution, do your best to take it.
7. Talking to authorities can be intimidating. What could wind up being more intimidating is the consequences - is it worth freaking out now to have a terrible resume/ GPA/ whatever later?
8. Losing someone in a romantic capacity could lead to the romantic partner you never realized you liked.
9. DILIGENCE, PEOPLE.

SUPER LATE IN THE WEEK POST

My apologies for not posting at all this week. I've just been lazy. Also, finals are this week, so this is the time when I say WHAT I LEARNED THIS TERM.

ACADEMIC
1. Show up to class on time.
2. Second-person pronouns are fascinating. Especially in Middle English.
3. The debate about stuff that is condonable by Christianity has been going on forever. In Old English, the debate was whether it was religiously acceptable to translate the Bible into English from Latin. On the plus side, you could reach a lot more people with scripture. On the down side, THE LATIN TEXT IS SACRED, DAMMIT. (Ignoring, of course, that the text under debate was originally in Hebrew and Greek, not Latin).
4. The environment is messed up.
5. Humans most likely caused the environment to be messed up.
6. There's a thing called the Precautionary Principle. It basically states that the lack of scientific certainty that something is messed up should not be an excuse to do absolutely nothing about a possible issue. Alternatively, this means that if there is a possible issue about conservation, opt on the side of caution and do the conserving. It can't really hurt you.
7. People in government should probably take the precautionary principle when thinking about environmental policy.
8. We're all going to die.
9. Linguistics is cool.

Lessons from Finals Week

I have learned the following from my fourth finals week:

1. Do your research before you do your essays.
2. Do your research well before you do your essays.
3. Like, have your quotes and everything done way before.
4. Don't write a 20-page paper in a day. It will be a festival of quotes and footnotes.
5. Presentations before papers are your friends, because you can have a lot of materials before your essay is actually written.
6. If you're going to write a paper, pick a topic you really like.
7. I don't like long papers.
8. Sleep is important.

Spring Semester

Today is our first day of spring semester, and it has been interesting.  I've only had two classes today, which is nice, but I'm not looking forward to having an 8:00 AM class every single day.  Well, I might.  My history professor seems cool enough, so I might be looking forward to his class.  The other class I had today was the Greek Epic - in other words, Homer.  This is going to be a challenge and a half.

I'm definitely not looking forward to his 18-page final paper, though.  The last time I had a long paper, it was 10-15 pages for an honors class last semester, and I had 12 pages counting the bibliography (with a large-ish 12-point font... IT'S IN THE PAGE RANGE, OKAY).  This, on the other hand, is a History 101 course.  I understand that the 101 portion is designed to help the students with their writing, but I'm not sure if I can come up with 18 pages about the sexual revolution and/ or the LGBTQ+ movement in the 1960s.  Those are topics I like, but still - Masau'u and other factors of Puebloan death mythology and their influence on Blood Meridian and its character of the Judge was also an interesting topic for me, but I could still only come up with eleven double-spaced pages on the topic.  To be fair, there is probably more up-to-date literature about the sexual revolution and/ or the LGBTQ+ movement in the 1960s... and I can probably read it all the way through... (I didn't even finish Blood Meridian. Does that make me a bad Honors student?)

Anyhow, the other class I had today was The Greek Epic - we're translating The Odyssey from its original Greek.  Greek is my fun-challenge course (except for the verbs), but apparently Homer is one of the more difficult writers to translate, especially coming from intermediate Greek that focused mainly on the Attic dialect. The reason for this will take a bit of explaining.
So, basically, there are a few major dialects of Greek - Ionic and Aeolic are two of them.  I'm not sure where Ionic was dominantly spoken - I assume that it was more on the mainland of what we now call Greece, because Attic (from Athens) is a sub-dialect of that.  Aeolic is more from the coast of what we call Turkey; it is, strictly speaking, the same language, but there are several differences in the rules for syntax and verbs.  In The Odyssey, the Ionic and Aeolic styles are all jumbled up into lines that fit the meter.  Since we're not actually sure who wrote the work down, it's easy to think that certain books of The Odyssey could be more dominantly Ionic and others could tend towards Aeolic - but it's not like that at all.  Ionic rules and Aeolic rules are mish-mashed together into something that fits the meter.  That's going to be a royal pain in the butt for me, because I've only recently gotten the hang of all the Attic verb indicators - the letters that indicate that a verb is imperfect or perfect or aorist - and now I'm reading Homer, who doesn't actually use any of those.  Well, maybe I shouldn't throw away my Greek notes and textbooks yet - I might need them.

Tomorrow I have two honors classes (one involves yarn and one involves King Arthur, so that should be fun) and Journalism, which should not be fun because its textbook is expensive.

Anyway, I'll write again on Friday.