Long time, no post --- Greetings new students!

Hey, guess who is not dead? This girl!

I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer. I have been reading the blog, but I have been super lazy when it comes to replying to anything or making any sort of a post. With today being the 4th of July, I don't have work or school, so I figured making a post would be a great reason to take a break from laundry.

The other night, like the loser I am, I decided to organize my things from past semesters. I save a lot of work from school and for the past two semesters, everything just sat in a dusty pile on top of a bookshelf. I have no idea what got me into the kick of going through it all, but I did. I saved all my tests from Latin 1 and 2, along with the textbooks and most of my notecards. Maybe when I get another kick into me, I'll go through the notecards to see how much vocabulary I've retained. :)

Dr. M., I can't imagine taking Latin 2 during a summer semester! To you brave souls who are taking on this challenge, I congratulate you! You all have chosen the best professor to endure such a quick semester. Along with Rachael, I agree that you should post on the blog. A few other helpful tips: Make friends in the class and have study groups, ask Dr. M. ANYTHING and she will help you without hesitation... and do your translations! They really are beneficial (especially come test time). And have fun! For those of us who took back to back semesters with Dr. M, we really had a good time because we made it fun for the class and for Dr. M.

Um, yeah, don't know what else to say. I'm still game for a reunion. Fridays and Sundays are the best days for me (no work or school on those days). I'll try to make myself more of a presense around here. And to you new students, feel free to ask questions. Hopefully some of us veterans can help you (if anything, it'll give us a good opportunity to see how much we remember).

Have a safe 4th of July everyone!

Olivia H.

welcome summer Latin

Dear all---


As promised in the syllabus, here is a place for you to jot down your thoughts and questions on Latin, and to take heart by reading what students before you have gone through! Use it also to catch up on homework if you are absent, to make announcements, or to share materials about Roman history/ civilization. Lastly, use it as an ongoing course evaluation---let me know if you have any suggestions to make our class better. I have enabled anonymous posting, so that you won't have to worry about 'payback!'. Looking forward to reading your thoughts,


EM.

Beginning Again

Carissimae Carissimique--

I don't know if anyone still reads this, but I thought I would drop this note as the proverbial message in the bottle (btw, I just saw an old movie titled exactly that-what a tearjecker!). Now that the dust has settled and I am back home (gasp! did I just say that?!!) I am hoping for our long awaited and long overdue reunion sometime in July. I am having the presemester jitters today, because tomorrow morning at 10 am I start teaching the summer Latin class and I got 35 kids there. Why does this happen every single time?! I must have taught this class a bazillion times and it's always new to me...But heaven forbid I ever get bored; then I will know it's time to retire and I ain't going anywhere for the next 30 years!

I was browsing the Times this morning and look what I found: they finally caught on the 'Are we Rome' book, news of which Rachael posted so intuitively a while ago! I do agree that Rome is everywhere in the modern imagination, but I don't think that the prez is Diocletian--more like a cross between Claudius and Galba (not one of the stars, but an interesting emperor in his own right...). I am posting below the link to the article --and stay tuned if you will for vacation pictures and the posts from the new generation of Latinists (they have no clue what they are in for...he he he!!)

Vestra, in aevum aevi-

EM.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/weekinreview/index.html?8dpc

Finals this week and then no more class until fall!! :P
Stacey


yay

Was watching The Colbet Report on Comedy Central. Stephen was interviewing a man named Cullen Murphy, the author of a book called Are We Rome?: The Fall of An Empire and the Fate of America. Thought others might be interested in seeing it too...



~Rachael

reunion?

Hey everyone!

I don't know how many people check the blog anymore other than Stacey, Prof. M and I, but over on Facebook we've got a group called "Latin Symposium - USF." I've asked about whether or not Bennigan's is good for everybody else, if lunch or dinner is better, and about possible reunion dates there and I'm trying to coordinate between here and there. Olivia says that Fridays are the best day of the week for her. In the last month, no one else has responded.

So I know my schedule for the first half of July now, and the only Friday that I'm not out of town or taking care of a family commitment through the 17th is Friday, July 13th. Does that work for anyone else? After the 17th, my schedule is up in the air right now.

~Rachael

checking in...

Hey all! Just checking in... been very busy this week getting to the late-spring cleaning. The house is very nearly spic and span. To anyone else, it would look mostly clean now, but I'm still finding cobwebs and dust bunnies that are hiding here and there... And my room, dusty as it is, is going to need to be dusted and vacuumed everyday for about another week before the haze goes away... Could this be why my allergies are so bad right now? I'm thinking - yes... Thank goodness for summer vacation or else I'd never get stuff like this done...

I was checking my e-mail a little while ago and I got the monthly Berroco Yarn newsletter (yeah... it's a knitting thing...) I don't generally like their yarn because it's expensive and very novelty, but occasionally they have interesting patterns. But this time I found this yarn. It's called "Boho"! ;D Thought people might enjoy that...

Love and hugs to everyone!
~Rachael