On Work, Classes, and Books

Work: With Monday being President's Day, we have a holiday and the day off of work. So we have a three-day weekend this weekend. But can you really call it a long weekend when you bring work home with you. Yes, I brought a ton of work home with me. It's ironic, but I'm going to try to use the long weekend to catch up on a few things. Such is life. At least I know that my job is secure.

Classes: This week I had my second Italian class, and we started getting into declensions. We learned different endings for the singular and plural nouns of what I assume are the nominative case. A few of the people in the class were confused, and I think that everyone would have benefited if we did a little more practice with the noun endings. When you learn a new language, the best way to learn is by repetition, and we didn't do much of that in class. So I think that I'll have to set little homework assignments for myself to help me practice. It's time to start making flash cards and start drawing up charts with declensions and, eventually, conjugations. This is how I learn best. You should see my Greek and Latin charts! It's probably something that only I get excited about, but I'm proud of them.

Books: While I was out running errands today, I decided to make a stop at Borders to browse through the books. I stumbled across two great finds. One is Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin by Nicholas Ostler. It is essentially about the history (and future) of Latin, and it should be an interesting read. I also found The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories edited by Robert B. Strassler and translated by Andrea L. Purvis. For years Classicists have been reading The Landmark Thucydides, and I was happy to see that they finally created an edition for Herodotus. These are translations of Herodotus's Histories and Thucydides's Peloponnesian War. But they are more than translations. The biggest value in these books come from great introductions, great timelines, annotations and summaries of each event, valuable footnotes, and beautiful maps. These are the kinds of books that Classicists drool over. At least I drool over them. Again, probably one of the many things that only I get excited about or care about...

Current drink: Barq's root beer
Current music: TATU. Dangerous and Moving