It ain't all satin / And silk, this Latin

It's hard to know what to even write about anymore, because a lot is going on. I'm a college student now. Navigating a campus, lugging my books from building to building, taking a million notes, the works.

I'm also a commuter, and thank goodness for that. I'm simply not a dorm-dweller by nature. I need to recharge. I've decided that a shift in scenery is the secret to stimulation. (Also, I have this new college laptop, and if, after my studying, I couldn't use it to watch cartoons with Clair, I'd cry.)

But yes. Latin is a tricky business. I'm only just starting it, and I've been made aware that what I've signed up for is essentially a slow broiling in conjugations. I must prepare myself either to become gradually stronger or to experience a premature decline. (Decline! "A, ae, ae, am, a, ae, arum, is, as, is!")

In one of my crazier moments I developed a theory about British accents. In every English book you read, the characters are just about drowning in caffeine. They think it's perfectly reasonable and normal to have tea in bed, then go downstairs and have breakfast with a pitcher of coffee. Imagine drinking one type of caffeine to work your way up to drinking another type. (That's not even mentioning all the stress-induced whiskey-mixing that goes on in Jeeves and Wooster. No wonder this is the civilization that came up with Alice in Wonderland; their solution for everything is to find the right thing to drink.)

Thus I conclude that a British accent is like an app on a phone. Its constant use drains battery life faster, and the only cure is near-constant caffeine.

Taking this as a hypothesis and following it to its logical conclusion, no wonder these books always depict the Romans looking all bulky and muscular. Merely speaking their own language was the world's most efficient workout.

And, just as the bird too weak to crack the egg would surely perish outside the shell, those who can't lift their copy of Wheelock's Latin have no hope whatsoever of surviving the course it suggests.

[By the way, I'd just like my readers to appreciate the fact that I wrote this entire post without once using that cliché old joke about "it killed the Ancient Romans and now it's killing me." I bet it occurred to you, though.]