Learnin' Latin With Chasing Distractions

blog -noun
[blŏg]
1. A weblog

I decided today that I would start up a new blog in hopes of helping me study. So if you are at all interested check out my new blog, Learnin' Latin.



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Sober Septembers

tee⋅to⋅tal⋅er –noun
[tee-toht-ler, tee-toht-]
1. a person who abstains totally from intoxicating drink
For the 4th (or maybe 5th) year running I am off the drink for the month of September. With only a week to go I have never felt better – well in actuality I feel no different at all. The only difference can be found on Saturday and Sunday mornings. As a typical social weekend drinker (i.e. binger), my day-to-day routine never included the drink, other than those odd days where a spontaneous social event happens on a school night.

Speaking of school night, tomorrow is my first quiz in the Latin, wish me luck or Bonam Fortunam!

Back to the drink, or lack there of. One thing I have noticed, which is a bit shocking, happened last Sunday afternoon. Typically I spend Sundays doing absolutely nothing. Just lounging around the house, watching movies, reading etcetera. Quite often on these lazy Sundays, or neked Sundays as I have dubbed them, I would come down with a case of the emotions. These random crying, laughing emotional outbursts usually brought on by commercials – yes for some reason commercials make me tear up. I contributed these uncharacteristic emotional responses to the hangover and a body that was chemically out of whack. However, the same emotional outburst happened last Sunday when not a drop of alcohol had been involved. Either my body is still cleansing the last of the toxins or I am slowly going crazy (one-two-three-for-five-six-switch-crazy-going-slowly-am-I-six-five-four-three-two-one-switch…).

Many have asked why I do this – why take 30 days off each year? ”Is it for Ramadan?” they ask. No it is not, as I am not Muslim. But hey, if you really need a reason, then ya sure, it’s for Ramadan.

In short Sober Septembers are great way to transition from a Soused Up Summer to an Alcoholic Autumn. So tell all your friends, maybe together we can make this a nonreligious/spiritual annual fast.

Only one week left. Man, am I ever thirsty.



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Me Talk Latin One Day – The Education

Lat⋅in –noun
[lat-n]
1. an Italic language spoken in ancient Rome, fixed in the 2nd or 1st century b.c., and established as the official language of the Roman Empire.
As mentioned in my review of David Sedaris's book of memoirs, Me Talk Pretty One Day, I feel inadequate about being a unilingual person in a bilingual city.

My hope was to brush up on my French skills, but I began to realize something - it’s difficult to understand verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections in another language when, quite frankly, you don’t really have a grasp of what they are all about in your own language.

So rather than go back to grade one and start English all over again, I decided I would take a different approach. I figured that since many languages have Latin roots, that maybe if I learned Latin first it would not only help me to understand English better, but any other Latin based language I choose to learn there after, such as French and Spanish.

That is the plan anyway.

Today was my first day at the local University learning Classical Latin basic grammar and vocabulary skills and I can already tell I am in for a rough ride.

Wish me luck – or as the Romans may have said ‘votum mihi fortuna’.



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