sometimes i feel so sublime...

omega res novae

Greyor — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:38:05 +0000

    it’s that no-time again, the formless void known as spring break. after an eventful and nice trip to see my cousins down south, and returning Sunday night, here I am. the cusp of Tuesday … well, no.. over the threshold… and well into spring break.
    Sleep has been my best friend of late. brought grapefruits, collard greens, mustard greens, and a couple oranges back for Nicole from my cousins’ garden. beautiful stuff. she was thrilled. the drivers are insane in Florida, crazier even than California drivers. I was threading the needle the whole time on the freeway. Everyone averaged about 80-85, so I followed suit, and hauled ass in general both ways, there and back. but it was exhilarating and fun to take the trip, a nice change from everything around here. I love my car so much. I listened to music on my iPod speakers the whole way there and back, which kept me company.
    we’ve got everything in place here really. we just need to sort out our individual issues, and those we have with each other, which is at times no small task. but things are on the up and up overall in life. Nicole has a good job, and is getting good hours and such, so she’s pretty happy with that I think, and she’s liking living here more.
    this week I am studying for my Latin exam next month, writing a Plutarch paper, and thinking up ideas for my Lucan paper. amid that I’m getting some much-needed relaxation. Also continuing to proofread Latin letters. so far i’ve not done a whole lot, but i’ll change that of course.
    Xenosaga Episode III. awesome. play it. nuff said.
    sleep is threatening to take me, but I’ll fend it off for a little while longer. take care. more transmissions eventually.

no daylight

Greyor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:17:49 +0000

    busy week just begun. Just proctored a midterm today in the class for which I TA, and I’m giving my second Latin exam on Friday. been putting out fires already, meeting with students, etc. Last week of reading shitloads of pages for Lucan. Going to visit my cousins down south on the Gulf this weekend; spring break starts Friday and I can’t wait. Lots of work to do during the break, but it’ll be nice nonetheless. Latin PhD comp exam late April to study for. Papers to write. Other ephemera.
    Taking the car into the shop tomorrow afternoon. Hope there’s not too much to be fixed on it, and that it doesn’t cost too much. I really love having a car. Driving is divine, although other drivers make it a pain in the ass here and there. Sitting here taking a break from grading midterms, listening to the iPod as analgesic. Composed a beautiful Latin composition for tomorrow; it’s Woodrow Wilson’s inaugural speech, or a paragraph from it, spoken like Sallust. I’m very pleased with it.
    otherwise I’m just here. happy. had a good weekend. Nicole and I went to a lovely place on the Gulf coast called Cedar Key. It reminds me of Florence, or Monterey, or other coastal towns like that. Probably more like Florence; Nicole says it reminded her of Carmel. We had some delicious seafood on the water at the marina, and walked around for awhile. The rain earlier in the day ceded to brilliant sunlight. It only took us an hour to get there; I didn’t realise we were so close to the Gulf. We’ll have to go there more often, and to St. Augustine as well (~1.5hr NE from Gainesville). We also saw Shutter Island Friday night. Awesome movie.
    in any case, I’d better get back to grading and then sleep soon. class early as fuck tomorrow, and a busy day in general. take care.

eleutheria kinetike

Greyor — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:17:20 +0000

    what a long, strange week I’ve fought my way through. a few long, strange weeks. I passed my Latin Lit exam, but I may have already said that. I’m getting funding for next year, which means more teaching. Everything is looking up. Classes are going wonderfully. a lot of work, but very rewarding. I’m loving my class I’m teaching. my world has changed a lot in the last few weeks as well; finally getting money, as well as some other interesting developments.
    on Saturday Nicole and I went looking for cars. Saturday the 13th, that is, about a week ago. I didn’t seriously think we’d find anything, given my lack of money; I wanted to spend about $4k and that was it, and most cars were like $7k minimum. Somehow, thank the gods, we found a place with a car that would be right around $4500. It’s a 2001 Hyundai Sonata, and Nicole was looking at it and suggested we test drive it. It handles very nicely, gets good gas mileage (as far as I can tell, so far), and it’s all around solid. So we bought it that day, paying $4k up front, and I’m paying the rest off over the next few weeks. So far, so good.
    I ran into a couple of problems recently with the car, however. On Monday, the power steering randomly blew out, and I was barely able to turn the wheel, let alone drive. It took both hands to do anything, which is a disaster. I didn’t have time to take it in until Wednesday, and I took it back to the dealer and asked what was going on. The power steering belt was slipping when I bought the car, so they graciously fixed it for me — but apparently they had tightened it too much and it was just goddamn shredded as a result. Thankfully, they popped a new belt on, ensured it was alright, and did it for no charge (naturally, since it was their mistake). Otherwise the car has been lovely, although I think I fucked up the air control knob today by mistake when trying to install a stereo. I’ll get it fixed soon.
    So I’ve been driving around all week, and it feels wonderful. I got parking permits both for campus and for our apartment complex, so we’re all sorted on that end. It’s just been extremely liberating being able to drive here — this is not a pedestrian-friendly town. And the time it takes to get anywhere has been cut into a fraction of what the buses take — and I run it on my own schedule as well. After not having a car in about five years, this is amazing. I’m sure the novelty will wear off eventually, but it hasn’t yet. It makes me happy.
    so that’s been earth-shattering (in a good way, naturally). Nicole’s really happy about it, and she’ll be even happier when she can sort out a licence for herself; we’re working on that. otherwise, I’ve just been really busy with school, per the usual, and trying to keep my head above water. such is grad school.
    Friday night (last night), I hung out with Alexis, Dan, Jayne, Haley, and others at this bar downtown. We had a good time hanging out on the balcony there and talking and such. My friend Alexis is at law school in Miami, so I rarely get to see her, and it was really nice. We went to our friend Seth’s house afterwards and chilled out some more, and I didn’t get home until about 3am. I had hoped to see her tonight, but it didn’t really pan out, so we’ll see about meeting up for a meal or something tomorrow. I’ve really enjoyed this weekend so far though, and it’s nice to have a slight respite from the week.
    as it usually goes, I get so busy and so out of it that I don’t write much anymore. Days have been so long that by the time I get home and get my shit done, I’m out of it and just wanna chill. I’ve barely had any time to read my book (I’m reading The Silmarillion now), but that’s how things go I suppose. I need to be reading more Latin every day in order to get ready for the Latin translation exam, coming up quickly, on 23 April (!!). It’ll go fine though, I’m sure. I know my Latin really well, but I do need to study.
    in any case, it’s getting quite late. I’ll write more when I can. Take care.

wall of static and distortion

Greyor — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:39:08 +0000

    I’ve been sick for the first time in months, with a cold that’s left me feeling tired-out and gloomy throughout most of the week. I won my way through to Friday, though, and I’ve been recuperating since then — I think it’s almost gone. It’s been a long week, even though we had Monday off — I know, it seems strange to say that. Ah, January, how I love and hate you.
    Nicole’s got me thinking about perhaps spinning this off into another blog — or rather, adding another blog in addition to the main adikos.org site (perhaps a subdomain). I don’t know exactly how that’d work with my current WordPress installation, but I’m sure I could figure out how to make two different installations play nicely together. I’ve heard there are plugins for multiple blogs on one installation, but I don’t know how well that works in reality. She was recommending I do something classics-related, something related to my future career, and I replied, “Hmm, so like something along the lines of Aulus Gellius?” She laughed and said “Sure, something like that if you like.” Basically, I think she has a good idea — write about quotidian things directly related to classics, perhaps even about my times in grad school (with a certain degree of respectful obfuscation, naturally). I think it’d be fun to do that, and I’ll have to take some time to sort that out in the near future. I’d like to make the most of the disk space and bandwidth I have here, and I think adding another blog would help with that. I’d like to find some way to integrate MP3s or some sort of media into it as well, if possible.
    So much going on this week. Two busy days of teaching and playing catch-up with my class. Loads of homework, and much stress on Thursday as a result. Loan money still hasn’t come in, although as of tonight, it’s posted to my school account statement, so we’ll see when it gets posted to my actual bank account. Hopefully tomorrow, and if not, Monday. I’ve been bugging the shit out of financial aid for weeks now, trying to figure out when my money will come in and why it’s taken so long to do so. I hope this shit doesn’t happen in the fall. That’s added to the stress (having $2 in the bank account is never fun), and so has being sick. But it will all pass.
    I’m presenting at our colloquium next weekend, which I’m a little nervous about, but I think it’ll be fun. I finished my handout sometime Wednesday and my paper is done — just have to present it now. It’ll be good practise for other conferences. I’d like to submit something ideally to the next CAMWS, perhaps something on Lucretius or Lucan.
    otherwise things are pretty normal in the neighbourhood. Life is life, and school has been really great overall. I went over to my friend Nick’s house to fix his computer today, brought out the big guns (System RescueCD) and wiped his desktop’s HDD. He was having trouble installing Win7 — it was asking him to run CHKDSK before installation, which was ridiculous, because he was installing it in the first place because XP had fucked up his computer. Why Win7’s installation couldn’t just run CHKDSK its goddamn self is beyond me. System RescueCD, after a few abortive attempts at starting X off of its portable Gentoo distro, finally came through, and I wiped the HDD and reformatted before successfully installing Win7 for him. The day was saved.
    Tonight Nicole and I got Cuban food and watched The Soup and last night’s Ghost Adventures, which was great. She went to sleep a little early, I think. Me? I’m just chilling out, listening to some strange new music and writing this in my room, with the reassuring noise of the dryer going on the other side of my door.
    I read some of the Cambridge History of Latin Literature tonight, and I’m going to hit that hard tomorrow as well, along with Lucan. And grading my quizzes from yesterday, and sorting out a lesson plan for Monday. The book isn’t all that bad — it’s rather interesting — and I got through close to 100 pages today. My exam is 08 Feb, so I’ve still got some time, but I’d like to get through this now rather than later on. Oh, and next week is full of lectures — we’ve got a guest speaker from the University of Athens staying all this week and giving talks, which should be very interesting.
    aside from all of that, not a whole lot going on. It’s been warmer lately, not in deep freeze as before, but still fairly pleasant. And I’ve been having lunch with Nicole fairly often after teaching these days, which has been nice to do. I love my schedule this semester, for sure. In any case, I’m going to just chill out the rest of the night tonight, maybe play some videogames or something of the like as well. Take care.

civilia bella

Greyor — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:32:15 +0000

    welcome to 2010. I’m not going to call it Twenty-Ten or Two Thousand and Ten, but the way I’ve always pronounced it, Two Thousand Ten (like the movie 2010), so let’s get that out of the way right now. None of the other pronunciations, while perhaps more correct (at least Two Thousand and Ten) sound appealing to my ears. I’ll be 26 this year. This happens to be my eight hundredth entry, as well, a landmark that I told myself I’d celebrate in some small way. This is also going to be the seventh year I’ve been writing all of this. It’s been more sporadic of late, I know, but that’s because things have been rather busy, as they are always wont to become.
    Nicole and I celebrated New Year’s Eve sitting on the couch, drinking beers and eating Chinese food, and watching Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on CNN. Oh, and don’t forget about the champagne and other munchies. It was a nice time, to be sure, and I stayed up quite late that night; my median bedtime over the past month has been about 3am each night. last year about this time — or well, at the end of 2008 — I wrote about the ‘much-deserved death of 2008.’ I feel the same about 2009, as it’s been a turbulent year for myself, Nicole, as well as most other people, but I think 2010 will be better all around.
    I’ve a rather full load this semester, which is a change from last semester. Three three-hour seminars, as usual, with one on Tuesday: Latin prose composition (which I haven’t taken since an undergrad!), and two on Thursday: Lucan’s Bellum Civile and a class on the Greek general Themistokles, mostly accessed through the Greek biographer Plutarch. And of course I’m teaching MWF. I’m teaching Latin 1, so I’m molding my “baby” students one day at time, three days a week. I’m also TAing for another professor after I teach, helping out with slides and grading and such, which is cool. It’s really nice to have people actually paying me to go to school now.
    In the last week I’ve had to shuffle my typically-nocturnal schedule, because my classes are mostly early in the morning. I teach at 10.40, but I said I’ll hold office hours before class from 09.35 to 10.25, so I’ve got to be on campus by then. That necessitates leaving the house around 8 to make sure I’ve enough time to get there, which necessitates waking up around 7. Tuesday mornings are going to be rough, with class at 08.00, but afterwards I’ve the whole day free, thank the gods. Thursdays start a little later, around 11.45, so I can sleep in a bit. I just realised that this reckoning may seem a bit tedious or drawn out, but I hope it’s not to a ridiculous extent. It’s just a full week every week, basically, and for this weekend now I’m extremely thankful.
    I’m waiting for my loans to come in, too, so I can plan on going about getting a car, and I need to check on their status on Monday; I don’t know why it’s taken financial aid so goddamn long, but oh well. I get my first teaching paycheck next week, actually, which will be helpful in any case, especially until the loans come in. This year has gone pretty well thus far though; I’ve been pleased with how it’s turned out. I especially like teaching — it’s been a great week and I think it’ll only get better. The students seem eager to learn and capable, so we’ll tackle any challenges necessary.
    I think we’re going to go to a movie shortly tonight with my friend Andrew, who invited us to go along to Daybreakers, which actually looks fairly promising as a horror flick. No Twilight-ass vampires there, and Sam Neill as an added bonus is always awesome. Take care, and I’m sure I’ll be back soon.

shortest day, longest night

Greyor — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:49:51 +0000

    and we’ve passed through to the winter solstice, and nearly beyond. the week has started out without much fanfare. Two packages arrived from my family, one at least from my sister, and I hear there are more arriving later this week. I didn’t peek, surprisingly; Nicole assured me that both were presents. a long, aimless, lazy day today. somewhat cold but not too cold. I need to go to campus tomorrow and take care of a $5 library fine, unfortunately, as well as mail some packages at the post office — I think I may ride my bike to get some goddamn exercise.
    sleep comes and goes, like everything else that is good. strange dreams last night, can’t remember them exactly. I went to sleep too late, that much I know for sure. oh, and Nicole and I are for sure getting a car sometime *early* in January. I’m not going to have her taking 2hrs to get home on the fucking bus (she left about 15.30 and seriously got home at 17.30 or so) any more than I have to. It’s driving me crazy too having no transportation aside from the bus, which, while useful for campus is absolutely useless for anything else. we’ll sort that out when I find out how much money I’m getting.
    december and the year are both winding to a close. this is that time where I have free time and yet I want to do absolutely nothing, even though I know I’ve commitments, such as my colloquium paper, which are due shortly (the paper needs to be finished by 06 Jan). I also need to read 1000 lines of Lucan before classes start. My paper as it is now, as a thesis chapter, is about 40pg, but I’m pretty sure I can condense it down to 8 or 9; it’s 40ish pages with a 2″ left margin, so if I shrink the margins to the standard 1″ it should cut some off of that even. now the handout, that’s another story; it might end up being 3 or 4pg if I quote a lot.
    it’s odd being away from Oregon for Christmas for the first time in 25 years. I’ve always been back there, whether I was living there or coming from California, and it’s definitely a change. we’ll have a fun time here, though. These things change, just as a part of life, and it’s something, as always, to get used to.
    Since I rejoined Facebook last year sometime (I think about August? Can’t remember), it’s been a useful, intriguing font of amusement and entertainment. It’s nice having all my friends from UF on there, as well as SFSU and other friends I’ve made along the way. I find it’s a much better way to keep up with people than Myspace; it’s funny that Myspace is trying to be as Facebooklike as possible these days, stealing features wholesale even. It’s like the hamster wheel of the internet, something to constantly keep up with, simultaneously rewarding and destroying your brain at the same time. Oh well, if I put a Latin status or two on there, I’ll be happy.
    Speaking of that sort of thing, I’ll have to put a new picture up of myself on here soonish. I’ve not really had many pictures taken these days, but I think I could sort something out. I like the picture of Nicole and I on here (from July or so this year when we visited her mom), but we’ll see if I change it up. Also, I’ve mentioned to Nicole that if and when she starts recording her own podcast (which I hope she does!), she’s more than welcome to use some of my webspace — there’s plenty here and the bandwidth won’t be a problem at all. I don’t really know anyone who deserves more to have their own podcast. We’d sort that when we came to it though of course.
    December, and this semester, have been an amalgamation of love, hardships, friendship, triumph and despair, with a backdrop of shiningly beautiful and bizarre music. I suppose that’s my life a lot of the time these days, although things are looking better and better. I still can’t get enough of the music, and even though I’m pretty picky, I still have a frighteningly large amount of it. At least I’m not filling terabyte drives with it like some of my friends used to do — they’d just load whatever music on, stuff they probably never even listen to. I don’t like the whole packrat thing, even though I do have some packrat tendencies that I’m often trying to dispel. I’m really quite pleased with how things have turned out overall this semester, and looking forward to another great one, especially with all my new friends.
    well, it’s only the start of the week. we’ll see how the rest of it goes. I’m looking forward to Christmas on Friday, where my friends Haley and Alexis are coming over, and perhaps others; I don’t really know who all is going to be in town. Until then, though, we’ll just be enjoying our time together, my time off, all of that. December is oblivion.

wealth is of no use to the dead

Greyor — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:34:20 +0000

    and hello there. the end of a very long but fulfilling (and dare I say it, generally fun) semester. I finished everything up yesterday after taking my last final. things are looking up, we’re gonna make it after all, all of that stuff.
    my week has been full of music. my friend Jayne recommended this band called ‘of Montreal’ to me and they’re pretty awesome. reminiscent of the Beatles, with a psychedelic rock vibe to them, along with some synths thrown in for good measure. I’m happy. Nicole and I have just been chilling out; she’s been working and I’ve been working on finishing the semester up solidly. January’s right around the corner, somehow; Christmas is a week away from now! a brief break, brief respite from the storm, then back into the tempest.
    we’re having our Saturnalia party tomorrow and I’m hoping that everyone I’ve invited will come. I’ve gotten word from a couple people tonight that they’re most likely coming, and the ones who were planning to come all along will definitely be there. It’s exciting, and kinda fun to have little functions like this. I’ve never really done the party thing before so I’m kinda new at it (aside from Thanksgiving, which went very well, mostly thanks to Nicole!).
    my mom bought me the Lucan Teubner (De bello civili) which I will need for my Latin class next semester, which is one less thing I have to buy textbookwise, and very kind of her to get for me for Christmas. The amount of money she and my grandma dropped on me for clothes when they visited, not to mention food and such, was astounding, and I am also very grateful for that. We’ve reached a new understanding, I think, and I think we’re all on good terms again, even Nicole and her got along really well and I was happy. I may have mentioned this before though. Some other Christmas presents are arriving in the mail next week as well, so I hear, hopefully just in time for Christmas. And our rent will get paid on time sometime early next week, if all goes well. Wonderful.
    life’s a strange but wonderful thing. I’m happy things have gone so well here so far, especially with me making lots of new friends and getting adjusted to living all the way across the country from everything and everyone I’ve ever known. Having Nicole here has been great, we always have each other and we’re always here for each other, which is very comforting.
    my mind can’t help it, nor can it stray from dark thoughts, though. we watched Ghost Adventures tonight as we do every Friday — I fucking love that show. I don’t think I’ll ever get over my love of the paranormal, chthonic, strange and occult, and I don’t want to. Years ago, when I was just starting college, I remember that I was all about embracing death, thinking of it as an old friend rather than something scary. I still feel that way, although hopefully not in an emo-goth-douchebag sort of way. Half the time dark ambient is on my iPod, but I realised recently that I can’t hear half of it when I’m on the bus (some of it is very purposefully quiet), so perhaps that’s a foolish thing to listen to en route somewhere amid the noises of life.
    Although this may be common knowledge, I find it entirely too amusing that VLC’s command-menu icon has a little Santa hat on since it’s nearly Christmas time. I remember hearing about that awhile back but haven’t seen it in action until now.
    tonight I don’t know what all I’ll do, except it’ll involve music in some respect, and perhaps some watching of The Wonder Years. I realised that Kevin Arnold is a real fucking dick 90% of the time now that I’ve been watching the episodes in order. Anna and I used to laugh our asses off at the show on Nick at Nite, since there are some especially good one-liners here and there, and it’s just generally pretty ridiculous. Ah, childhood…
    this post is brought to you by the new WordPress as well as the shade of Dareios.

oarage of wings

Greyor — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 05:59:03 +0000

    I’ve felt kind of under the weather this week. Not sick, but just out of it, tired, fed up with this year. The semester’s almost over; I’ll have everything finished by Thursday, most likely. I need to take a big exam by Tuesday, and another by Friday.
    On the plus side, the weather’s been cold lately, but I hear that it’ll be warming up in the next couple of days — perhaps into the 80s. That’s not very heartening, but oh well. I hope the wintry weather comes back somehow.
    My mom and grandma were in town visiting from last Thursday until this Thursday, which was really fun. I hadn’t seen either of them since August, so it was nice to see both of them again. We hung out, got some meals together, and I also showed them around campus a bit — at least the Classics department building and such. They went and saw some things, like the museums on campus (the art and natural history museums), and I think they had a good time here.
    We also went to St. Augustine on Sunday this week — it was awesome! The oldest (Euroamerican) city in America, so I hear — founded by the Spanish in 1565. We visited this old fort on the beachfront called Castillo de San Marcos, also built by the Spanish. It was especially cool because we’d seen the place on Ghost Adventures and it was supposed to be very haunted. Nothing felt haunted there, really, except for the prison cell in one part of the fort. The viewport into the cell was made of chicken-wire or something similar, and when I looked through, it was half-lit but very shadowy inside. The strangest thing is that heat was radiating out of that viewport, almost like hot breath, and was steadily coming out.
    Nicole and I took some pictures around the fort and such, and my mom and my grandma explored the place too. That was one of the coolest things there for sure. We also walked around in the old downtown and looked at the shops there; Nicole and I bought some delicious cashew brittle and pralines there. I’m surprised any of the brittle is left. We also went to a museum there which had a lot of old art and random things, and it was in this decadent old hotel. Nicole said at one point that the museum was slightly “schizophrenic” in terms of the collection, which I’d agree with, but I thought most of it was pretty cool.
    That was the first time either of us had been out of town since I picked her up from the airport in Orlando. I guess I didn’t go out of town much in San Francisco, except to neighboring places, but here it feels different. I think not having a car, and not having really reliable public transportation contributes to the general feeling of isolation here, as well as the fact that there’s not a whole lot to do here aside from school. There will be more to do once we have a car, but not yet — hopefully by sometime in January. I need to get my licence too.
    I’ve had a general sense of ennui over the past couple of weeks. I think the end of the semester, a very long semester, and one without a whole lot of money — all of it has worn on me as well as Nicole. January will be a better time in general, especially since I’ll have my teaching position and more loans — hopefully the loans can help me buy a car. My mom said she and my dad might be able to help me buy a car near the end of January, so we’ll see how that pans out. If not, I’ll sort it out myself.
    Strangely, I’ve not gotten sick or anything since I’ve been here — or at least since what happened in August. I’ve thought I was a few times, but it was either excessive tiredness or just something that cleared up as the day went on. May Asklepios keep it that way, too.
    what a long year, a long semester, but a fun one at the same time. I’m quite happy, just tired out, and wanting to win through to the new year. Sleep soon will be nice as well.

fall cedes to winter

Greyor — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:28:47 +0000

    it’s almost the end of the semester. I’ve got one more paper to write — rather, to finish, thankfully. It’s almost there. then an exam in my Roman Tradition class, to which I’m not really looking forward. perhaps an exam in Tragedy, but I’m not really quite sure what that will entail. Nicole and I are having a Thanksgiving get-together tomorrow, which will be awesome. I’m really looking forward to it, especially since neither of us can go home, and we were cool with providing a place for others similarly stranded for the holiday.
    what a week, and it’s only been half of one. I wrote my last Roman Tradition paper, finishing it in record time (~14.30 or so Monday, instead of early morning as I ought to have done), and I was a zombie all goddamn day afterwards. getting pizza with my friends helped; Dan, Jayne, Shawn, Jeff and I went over to get some pizza across from campus. commiseration, camaraderie, what beautiful things. on the way home, I threw on the catalogue of The Smiths, and I was so tired I nearly fell asleep to the music on the way home.
    somehow I gave my presentation without a hitch on Tuesday night. no trivia; I just came home. we paid our rent today, thanks in large part to my cashing out of my retirement. oh well, I wasn’t going to use it for anything else anyways. not yet. the rain came back in the last few days, and the soil eagerly drank it up. last night I fell asleep to the drumming of the rain, almost loud enough to be heard over the ceiling fan. the lovely grey skies the last couple of days have been welcome to my soul.
    my mom and grandma are coming in town next week, which should be cool. haven’t seen either of them in about 4 months. hope we’ll have a good time, with no sanguine strife.
    I learned more about Ovid’s Heroides for the last paper than I ever really wanted to learn. In a different context though, I’d appreciate the information more. Same with all the other papers I’ve written in there. I need to finish my Lucretius paper, though, but I love writing about Lucretius; it’ll be all good.
    this will be my first christmas away from home, though. but it’ll be nice since I have Nicole here, and who knows, maybe others will be staying here as well. if not, though, we’ll sort out our own fun. I’m looking forward to January, for sure, and to teaching!
    I’ve just been a bit muddled with school winding up and such lately, so I’ve not had a whole lot of time to write, nor have I been in the right frame of mind to do so either. writing has been confined to either papers, or short notes on Facebook. you’d think that if I like Facebook status messages, etc., I’d like Twitter. but no, not for this fellow here. Not gonna happen. famous last words? I think not.

limina leti

Greyor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:41:40 +0000

    school is winding down. less than a month left. I’ve done pretty well I think throughout, and I’m really excited to have a teaching position next semester. That’s definitely going to be great. I’ve not written mostly because I’ve been busy writing papers and up all night studying and such. I’ve been pretty out of it these days, just listening to a lot of music and podcasts lately. hanging out with friends. kicking Lucretius’ ass. writing papers, and more papers. trying to stay afloat in a sea of not-money.
    This weekend we’re hosting a lecture series here. Dr. Gregory Nagy is one of the speakers, which is pretty awesome, and I’m really looking forward to hearing his paper. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I saw the announcement. Nicole’s pretty excited too about it — it’ll be a fun time.
    I don’t have a whole lot more to say right now, my brain’s kinda scrambled. Just listening to some music and winding down before bed. Take care.