The final exam in Sallust was today. Cakewalk, if long. Barring catastrophe, I should get an A in the course. On to Ovid and Suetonius next term. However, I'm setting myself an informal goal: to read the whole of the Catiline and perhaps the Jugurtha in the original over the break. I have the friggin text with me. I might substitute a head-start on ( Read more... )

I handed my paper in today. It might seem brown-nosey, and perhaps its was, but I'd still be picking at it, when there's really little, if anything, left to change at this point. I feel relieved it's over and exhausted. Here's my final paragraph; for imperium read "command," for uirtus read some combination of "manliness," "personal ability," and " ( Read more... )

I have a conclusion to my term paper, and a draft that I would happily submit tomorrow if called to do so. There is one more footnote I'd like to add, if I can find the source to cite, and it can always use another revision. But it is finished in style and substance, it is done.

I felt pretty good when I left this evening, around 6:30. But sometime after 8:30, I was overcome with sadness when I realized that I was alone. I wanted some kind of conversation, contact beyond the forced pleasantries of the indifferent, hipster-set staff. But none of my standard cafe friends were there, and there was no luck when I tried calling ( Read more... )

The paper is going well now: I have in hand both sections that gave me trouble earlier. In fact, I'm rather pleased with them. I only now lack a discussion/conclusion, but I have a good idea how to approach that. The last obstacle, however, is that nearly impregnable fortress of lassitude, Earl's Political Thought of Sallust. Ugh. The hostilities ( Read more... )

I today acquired the Killers' new album, Day and Age, and am on my first spin through it. So far, I enjoy it, but I am not struck-though I felt initially that way about Sam's Town only to become enamored of it. Also like Sam's Town before it, this album represents an entirely different musical direction, but I am at a loss of how to describe it, ( Read more... )

My draft is due Wednesday at noon, and I mostly cannot move beyond the general outline. I have a decent introduction that does what I want considering the word-limit, but I fall to pieces when I move beyond that. What's really painful is that I think I've found a good and perhaps novel way of analyzing the problem I've selected-the role of the ( Read more... )

I decided that I didn't want to participate in this discussion-I'm well past internet debate-but I still wanted to write even a rough response ( Read more... )

I am still a curmudgeon, despite moments of open-mindedness, so I tend to dislike any kind of cutesy advertising, especially from governments: I gag every time Congress shoves another anacronymously named Act down the legislative pipeline or creates a new, upliftingly styled agency or program. But there is a venerable tradition of such things among ( Read more... )

In watching the older South Park seasons, it occurred to me that the most startling change was Cartman's from being a mal-adjusted, manipulative, nasty fat kid to an utter sociopath. Obviously, "Scott Tenorman Must Die" represents the debut of Cartman the sociopath, even if he didn't come into his own, probably, until "Fat Butt and Pancake Head." ( Read more... )