I really should be studying for tomorrow's Greek exam right now, but I'm feeling the need for quick blog break. It's the little breaks that are keeping me going through Friday -- the impromptu let-off-some-steam run, the trip downstairs every few hours to refresh the caffeine supply and maybe chat with a housemate, a few snatched pages from The Best American Essays of the Century while I'm waiting for my food to cook. I've got to get some more exciting vices.
The pressure is on with my Friday Late Antiquity essay deadline looming, but the research has been great fun. And I've reached a milestone in my academic career: the point where reading Latin has actually made my life easier. I wasn't sure I'd ever see the day. It happened this weekend when I dug up some of Augustine's sermons delivered on the feast days of various martyrs, English translations of which are hard to find and aren't available in the Arts and Social Sciences (ASS) Library (shocker). I was expecting to have to fight through the Latin, but it turned out to be easy (he's trying to reach the average Roman North African Joe, after all), and more to the point, beautiful -- I felt like I was in Augustine's congregation, laughing at his jokes and getting all fired up with the Holy Spirit along with everyone. I think this Latin stuff is starting to pay off.
Even though there's not much time to socialize at the moment, it's great to have almost everyone back in the house. We got some of the last few back yesterday, and you can really feel the difference in the house. We had our first dinner together tonight (Michelle was kind enough to trade cooking shifts with me so I could spend the whole afternoon studying), and we had a good laugh as we tried to decide who would be the tastiest human, if what you eat determines your flavor. Mark Mangino came up as a possible strong contender, and then we got to thinking about how big an oven you would need to --
But it's time to get back to work. I'll leave you to work out the rest of that problem yourselves.
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