I've had an astounding amount of work lately, hence my not posting much.

So, Mr. H told us last year about how colleges are really impressed when applicants have taken Greek. I thought to myself, "Hmm. I wonder if that's true... I guess if people told him that the colleges said so, it must be true. Still, I'm sure Greek isn't that hard." Foolish, foolish me. Greek is not an easy course. It is nothing like Latin. Okay, actually, it's a lot like Latin, except for all the words are different and it has a different alphabet and some different grammar rules.

But let me pick out the main important part of that sentence: "it has a different alphabet" I knew this going into the class, yet I hadn't suspected it'd give me such trouble. However, learning words that don't even look like words unless you think about them is rather difficult. I think that I can learn the shape of Latin words, like with English. As for Japanese, I'm very used to hearing it, and seeing it, and have gradually adjusted to it. Greek was a big academic slap in the face. It was like, "Hey Nina! You think you're good at language learning? THINK AGAIN." Alright, ancient Greek! I concede, you have one this round! That being said, please let me pass my test on Friday! I don't know how I'm going to learn the first declension seeing as it all looks rather similar!



So, learning three languages is exciting, because you get to say things like, "prope oikei est chiisai box desu." That's FOUR LANGUAGES in ONE SENTENCE! :D It means "Near the field is a small box." ... at least I think oikei is field. I'll go study my Greek now.

( ETA for the lulz )

I miss talking in English, which I don't do much on Lang-8. Learning Latin, ancient Greek, and Japanese all at once, all at different levels, is an interesting experience, though, let me tell you that.

So, I have some news. I am a published author! Maybe I should bold that. I am a published author! Now I feel like a braggart. xP As it happens, it's only six words published... and I only wrote five.

( the thrilling explanation of this enigmatic circumstance )

School has been going interestingly. I'm taking six academic classes in a schedule which only holds seven classes, one of which must always be kept free for gym. And since I didn't take gym freshman year, I'm taking it all year long (well, sorta — for the sake of avoiding taking gym all year long, I'm taking RAD half the year). And now, on the study which alternates with gym, I'm taking band. I have a very, very full schedule. It's rather exciting, in a way. It's also very busy, though. But, like a crazy person, I signed up for it, right?

I kind of miss my friends who graduated (not just the ones who graduated this year, but the ones who graduated in '08 too...). I dunno why, but all of a sudden, I miss them. So, maybe I'll write them all letters on adorable stationary. Who knows!

Recently in Latin, we learned about defixiones, or curse tablets. Apparently, people made a lot of them back in the day. Basically, you wrote down, in dedication to some god/goddess/evil spirit, what you wanted to happen to a person who you were angry at. This person could be anyone from a lover who jilted you, to an unknown thief who stole your precious cloak. (There was one defixio about a stolen cloak.) One angry defixio is crazily intense in its vengeance against some girl: May burning fever seize all her limbs, kill her soul and her heart. O Gods of the Underworld, break and smash her bones, choke her, let her body be twisted and shattered - phrix, phrox. The two words at the end are nonsense, "magic" words like "abracadabra" to give the defixio more evil magic power. o.o Other things that gave a defixio more power: writing it backwards; including an illustration; putting a nail through it, throwing it down a well, or both; starting at someone's head and describing all the bad things you want to happen to them, from there downwards.

Aaaaanyway, we have to make a defixio as an assignment in class, which feels sorta creepy in a "we're doing crazy Roman voodoo in Latin!" kind of way, but I guess it's fun. Unfortunately, our limited vocabulary, combined with the requirement that we include genitive phrases, gives us phrases such as "sim caput Vilbiae plenus murum," or, "may Vilbia's head fill with mice." ...yeah.

( if you'd prefer to skip the Latin info dump, the photos are below here )