73 posts tagged “classics”
I tend to do quite a bit of navel gazing during yoga classes, and by navel gazing I mean putting my introspective head on though I do literally spend time gazing at my actual navel as well. I find yoga quite mindless, especially when you filter out the mediation and the new age rhetoric, as all you are doing is breathing and following instructions for a series of poses. I like to think I do my best thinking on the mat, and today I was mulling over why I have been feeling so out of sorts. I managed to identify key ingredients that had been missing this week - escapism and thinking.
Escapism comes in many forms. My favs are studying ancient civilisations and watching genre tv shows based on cool futuristic stuff (hello science fiction and fantasy). I find that both of those things lead to thinking and that in turn leads to a happy me. Does this makes me an uber nerd? Because I really hope so. Last week was primarily about the day job, and in the evening I only had time to watch the Daily Show and Colbert. As much as I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert they are very much based in reality, and given that most of my favourite shows are on break for the summer there are slim pick-in's for programs that transport you to a galaxy far far away.
Is it odd that a lack of Fringe, Supernatural, Battlestar Galactica, Chuck and Doll House disrupt my reality so much? Not really when you think about the Obama-BSG article the Onion ran a few months back. Dude, I am totally on the same page as I have an entire summer to fill before school and the new tv seasons begin in earnest. What am I meant to do till then?
Next up will be my summer sci-fi survival guide.
If money didn't matter, what job would you most like to have?
Submitted by Rainbird.
I am pretty certain that Alex thinks that I am under the impression that money doesn't matter and that is why I am bent on studying classics and not law or accountancy. So to answer your question if money didn't matter I'd be in school full time rather than part-time, and would go on to get lots of masters.
If you could be an expert in any one field, which one would you choose?
Classics, baby, classics.
I am working on a ten year plan to become an expert, and I'm on year four. Six years to get my BA part-time, two years to get languages (two dead, two modern) via a post-Bac, grad school and then I will be an expert in something. At this point it could be the Greeks or just as easily the Romans, and then is it history or lit or art or a combo. Oh what exciting adventures await me (and by default Alex).
PR was a lot simpler in the days of Augustus. As emperor he had three basic images to project: votive, battle ready, and magistrative. He'd don the appropriate outfit, call forth his finest craftsmen to chisel something in marble, and then FedEx it off to provinces. What you saw was what he wanted to project. There was none of this trying to distance yourself from the image you are projecting whilst you are projecting it. This political race is becoming extensional. Next the candidates will have a ticker running at the bottom of the screen confirming that they don't really mean what they are saying. But, we only need to compare McCain 2000 to McCain 2008 to know that.
I had to throw together a dummy site to show off its functionality, and I got to get creative with my "users". I had a Helen Troy who had set up a fundraiser entitled 'Helen's Surf-a-thon' and whose profile picture was taken from a red figure vase. Then there was Mark Aurelius, and Ian Claudius - oh what stories those boys could tell.
I thought all of this was tres funny but the penny didn't seem to drop for the others in the meeting.
After months of wailing and gnashing of teeth it turns out that I did rather well in my exams. (Why do I bother beating myself up when I know I have the smarts?) I managed to get a first in Homer and a 2:1 in Greek History; the grades I got in these two course count towards my final degree so doing well in them is a big deal. Not only is it giant step closer to graduate school (now only 3 or 4 years away instead of 7 like at the beginning of the program) but a payoff for all the sacrifices that "we" make from October through May. I say "we" because it takes a village to get a second degree whilst working full-time in a somewhat demanding job. Alex and my Mum are pretty much prisoners in my ongoing pursuit for getting this bloody degree in Classical Studies. Vacations are centered around visiting sites of interest - archaeological, museum exhibitions or theatrical productions. Even when we go somewhere that the Greeks or Romans haven't been (e.g. Montreal, Boston, San
I am off to London later this week for work, and luckily the Powers That Be don't mind me flying in early so that I can spend more time with friends and family, and given that I am foregoing having a hotel I am a cost effective person to ship in. I am not really looking forward to having to commute to the office in Hammersmith next week but I am sure that I can handle trains and the tube since it is only for 4 days. Plus, it gives me plenty of points of comparison when anyone asks about differences of living in NYC and London. For instance NY and NJ transit aren't trying to bleed commuters dry with inflated transit costs or melt them in train carriages with no AC. Despite the general commuter woes I am planning on making the most of my free trip to the capital. On Friday I am going to the Hadrian exhibit, Saturday off to a Roman villa in Kent and Sunday it's the Roman baths in Bath. Seriously, I don't think I could fit any more Classics if I tried. The only pain in the ass is that when I get back on the 8th I have to head down to Baltimore the same day because Virgin Mobile Festival is that weekend, and I will be working. After having heat stroke and projectile vomiting last year I am going to be working hard to make sure that I don't work too hard, and that I spend enough time in the air conditioned building with real toilets.
Tomorrow is July, and at some point in the next thirty-one days I will get my exam results. Cut to me banging my head on a table, and screaming "The end if nigh, the end is NIGH - aarrggghhh". Over the last month I have managed to block out all the second guessing that went on after I sat them but now the doubts are starting to creep back. Was my hand writing legible, did my sentences make sense and will I manage to score at least a 2:1 in Homer and Greek History. I am less worried about my grade for Roman literature given that it wont count to my overall degree. I felt pretty good about Homer and Greek History, I mean I put enough work in but was I confident or deluded? I am shooting for a first but I would be happy with 2:1 grades given that I am holding down a full-time job, plus if I was able to get a 2:1 for Greek art last year when I blanked out over an essay on Archaic staues then I should have be able to pull it off this year. But, who knows until I rip open the envelope.
If you had to go on a two-week vacation with any celebrity, who would you pick as your traveling companion and where would you go?
Given the type of vacations that I inflict on my loved ones (the Greeks or Romans have to have colonized it or else I am not interested) my ideal traveling companion would have to be someone who appreciates the finer classical things in life. Without picking an outright academic (or Boris) I would have to go for an avid enthusiast so I think that Peter Weller would fill the bill. Yes, I know he was Robocop but he also has a MA in Roman and Renaissance art, and taught a class on 'Hollywood and the Roman Empire' at Syracuse University. I am sure that we would bond over ruins and gelato as mature students tend to be quite fanatical about their passions... Come on, we have to be otherwise why would we let it engulf every aspect of our lives and force our poor husbands to come to Athens with us in the fall.
I will be safely ensconced in my Mum's south London pad, my pied a terre. Once I have made all the right noises whilst looking at her new staircase and plastered walls/ceiling I will be furnished with a cup of tea. The impending doom of my EXAMS! finally hit last night (I think it was because the impending doom of having to fill out my annual review paper work had past so I was left with nothing to distract from the cold hard fact that I have two weeks to go). I am currently cocooned in the safety blanket that is the Spartans, but with only one question about them in the exam I shouldn't really dawdled over them too long. By the time I get to London there may be a new mayor, a working knowledge of Latin might be mandatory and hoodies will be reading Homer. Just a thought...
