Behind Infinity

I’m so glad it’s the weekend.

I had my first Greek test of the semester today. I spent most of Weds. and Thurs. night reviewing for it, and I was terribly surprised to find myself enjoying it. After three years of this stuff, I’m starting to actually recognize constructions…recall vocabulary…read. For real. It’s quite exciting. The final itself went quite well for me and apparently for the rest of the class too, seeing as every last one of us was finished within a half-hour. “This is not good,” said Pazdernik in a benign, absent way. “I shall have to be a bit meaner next time.”

Dr. Rayor turned my “Hermes and Apollo” paper back to me, with an A–hip hip hooray. I was pretty happy. This means I won’t have to spend time next week doing a re-write, as I had originally planned. My friend Kate got an A on hers as well. Upon talking about it, we were saying as how we felt somehow as if it was a cheap victory, after having to fight tooth and nail for every point with Anderson and Morison last year. I don’t feel like my paper deserved an A, and neither does Kate. Somehow…it’s less gratifying to get it the first time around. But all of this notwithstanding, I’m glad i don’t have to do a re-write next week.

Tonight Aaron came over and abused–erm, I mean, worked–my horse. We put on her double bridle for the first time. It looks pretty cute on her, I must say. But she doesn’t seem to like it much, and quite the battle of wills ensued. I thought it was kind of funny, seeing as I wasn’t the one riding. Sorry, Aaron. We were out at the barn until almost 8:30, which means I stood my friends up (again). Sorry guys…but seeing as you did it to me on Monday, now we’re even

Now it’s time to spend some quality time with Herodotus.

Latin 201 is quite possibly the most exquisite form of torture that the Classics Department at GV has to offer. It’s worse than Greek 201. I’d even wager it’s worse than the higher-level Latin courses. It’s just positively…torture.

Here’s a cute story about Dr. Anderson for the enjoyment of my fellow Andersonian pupils.
There’s a student who gets to Latin class early on Thursdays and uses his extra time to draw cartoons on the marker boards featuring Roman characters. Today his cartoon was about Cicero. (We’re reading Cicero right now.) The first frame had a bunch of happy students entering a room with a door labelled “Latina 201″. The next frame had the door closed and surrounded by lots of text like “Blam! Ohno! Ow! Eeek!” etc. Then the frame after that had Cicero, represented by a stick figure with a large mouth wearing a cape, opening the Latin classroom door and lots of red-marker blood flooding out. The last frame showed Cicero leaving the room dragging an obviously distressed or possibly dead student by the ankle. There were captions, but unfortunately I don’t remember them properly.

When Anderson walked in he surveyed the student’s handiwork with a smirk, then picked up a black marker. First he put macrons over a few letters in the Latin captions, with pointed glances at the student to make sure he was following. Then he drew little circles around Cicero’s eyes and mussed black hair on his head. “What are you doing? Cicero doesn’t wear glasses!” Said the student artist. “He’s a Roman!”

Anderson replied oh-so-smugly, “Why, that isn’t Cicero. That’s me, of course.”

Segment 7 of this week’s Car Talk made me laugh (click here)

This call to Click and Clack was a typical “we’re getting a new car and need to know which one of our old ones to junk” question, and the cars in question were a 1995 Saturn and a 1998 Beetle. Well that’s easy, right? Keep the Beetle, said Click and Clack. However, the caller went on to inform them that his wife has horses and she hauls feed, hay, and tack around in the car, so it’s absolutely trashed and smells like a barn. Furthermore, the exterior looks like someone has gone after it with a baseball bat, and the front bumper is held on with zip ties.

The various incarnations of Brittany’s BeetleTM have exhibited each of these characteristics, at one time or another right down to the zip-tie bumper. Right now my fog lights are both broken and the car hasn’t been washed in weeks. The inside is in need of a good vaccuming. And dusting. It’s just funny and somewhat comforting to know that I’m not the only person in the world who drives her Beetle like…well, like it’s something a lot beefier than a Beetle.

It would seem my blog and I haven’t spent very much quality time together lately. Poor blog.
It would also seem that with the exception of my Saturday night Bible study, my friends and I haven’t spent very much quality time together lately either. Poor friends.
Actually, the only things that have been getting quality time lately are school and the horse. And even school suffers sometimes.

I had a lot of stuff I was supposed to get done this past weekend, but I didn’t. Instead I visited the people at Byron Downs and showed off some photos and videos of Jezebelle. Everyone was quite impressed with her and what Aaron’s done…everyone except that old codger, Larry. “She should be a hunter.” he muttered. “You’ll never go class A saddleseat with that,”
“Oh, bite me.” I replied, rolling my eyes. Janet (my former instructor) laughed heartily and Larry gave me a look.

Then Rachel and I went trail riding through the woods (on the trails Stephenie and I discovered when we were exploring this past summer. Stephenie, I miss you) It was so much fun. The terrain back there is somewhat rough and includes a couple of fallen logs across the trail, so that you get the full wilderness experience. Jezebelle did extremely well and didn’t spook once. With Cinder the dog running in front of us and scaring up deer and other fauna from the underbrush, I felt very much as if I ought to have been wearing a red hunt coat and carrying a brass horn. However, rather than leaping the logs and careening through the wood, I was content with our flat-footed walk.

After riding, I made a chocolate cake. It struck me just now that the only kind of cake I ever make is chocolate. I suppose I ought to branch out, but really, what point is a cake if it’s not chocolate? All cakes should be involve chocolate in some form or another, and the heavier and richer they are, the better. That’s my opinion. Saturday’s cake was actually a chocolate orange cake with cream cheese frosting. It turned out quite nicely by all accounts, and of course I’ll make it again, but I’d prefer it a little more moist and rich.

In other news, I guess maybe I shouldn’t lie to small children. A few minutes ago my sisters and their friend Micah came in with a butterfly they found. “Look, one of its wings broke off,” they said. After they examined it and exclaimed over how pretty it was, Mom told them to put it on a flower so it could have some food. “Yes,” I said to them, “That would be a very good place for it, because once it gets some food it can regenerate the wing it lost.”
“Really?” they exclaimed, their eyes lighting up.
I ducked upstairs without giving an answer. I know it’s generally not considered kosher to mislead kids, but seriously. Butterflies without wings are really sad. If I can protect the kids from the harsh realities of life for a little while, I’m going to. Because everyone knows that if you pretend something is true, then it is for real.

Or something.