Tuesday, January 17, 2012

I'm back!

Sneaks in and hopes no one notices the long absence

So this past semester was insane. And amazing. And totally murderous. I survived, with fantastic grades (four As and a B!) but it was insane.

As a recap, I had Arthurian Lit. Senior Seminar, Chaucer, Carolingian History, Latin Epistolography and Old Norse as well as World Music Ensemble and Chorale. Not to mention Christian Fellowship and Archery. I have no idea how I managed all of it.

Sem. was amazing, I read so much and enjoyed most of it, I wrote a nearly twenty page paper on Sir Gawain (which involved reading SO much extra material.  I had an entire SHELF of reading I did for that paper. But it was very well researched, and I knew what I was doing when I wrote it, which meant that I actually KNEW what I was talking about. (There were fifteen books in my bibliography, and I read more books than I included in my paper. What can I say. I was pretty thorough.)
We read SO much for that class. HUNDREDS of pages of homework every week. We read, among other things, Le Mort d'Arthur, Idylls of the King, The Once and Future King, The Lays of Marie d'France, Chretien d Troyes' Arthurian Romances and The Mists of Avalon. Honestly, I didn't enjoy the last one very much, but the others were excellent.

Chaucer was great, I can now read Chaucer's Middle English fairly comfortably and quickly (now to try reading the ME of the Pearl poet...) and the class was really lively and interesting.

Old Norse was really great, VERY time consuming but very cool. I mean, how often do you run into translations that read "Now you shall drink the blood of the beast?"

Latin was its usual difficult self, though I feel as though I'm starting to get the hang of it, FINALY. It took long enough... and though I'm disappointed that I only got a B in the class, I'm glad it wasn't worse!  We had a new professor this year, and while he certainly knew what he was doing and was a good teacher, I missed Professor Schell.

Carolingian History was excellent, as anticipated, and I learned a lot about the Carolingians (also as anticipated).

Over all, this semester was a lot better than last, emotionally. There were still some things I could have done without, but I can't complain. Much.

My break has been really quite but lots of fun (but quiet, and the kind of quiet that isn't particularly interesting to hear about). And with that unsatisfactory comment, I shall include some hopefully more satisfying photos. :)




The more or less usual state of my desk.

Old Norse and Chaucer reading. All in a night's work.






count the languages!


All of my school friends gave me TARDIS related stuff for my birthday :)

I'll be going back to school on Monday, and am having mixed feelings about it. I'm excited for the new classes. I'm excited to see my friends. But I'm not so excited about the amount of work... or Chase food...

An another note, AAAAAAHHHHH SHERLOCK *sob* I have yet to work up the courage to watch the most recent episode... I'm worried. There had better be a season 3...

Hopefully next post will be more interesting. This was mostly to get the blogging juices flowing again.

6 comments:

  1. I don't want you to goooo...But i like your room (=

    ReplyDelete
  2. The dry erase board amuses me so.

    AND YOU MUST VISIT ME THIS YEAR. What is this going-back-to-school-but-failing-to-visit-me-during-break nonsense? Podge may have gone, but now there is Dirty Dan. ;) You know, come to think of it, I do believe you would be the oddest couple I've ever seen.

    -Pen

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. oh Pen, you crack me up.

      THOUGH I AGREE. WHAT IS THIS GOING BACK TO SCHOOL WITHOUT SEEING YOU. NOT COOL.

      Delete
    2. Villainous French Vikings with Hair...who will likely play NHL. Come on...what's not to love?

      Delete
    3. And don't even start with me about Normans...

      Delete