orichalcum

So, one of the disadvantages of living in a college town is that you run into your students a lot. But Orichalcum,you're thinking, isn't that wonderful? The intellectual community and chances to bond with students and all that? Well, yes, that's great and all, but it's a little embarassing when you're at the pharmacy to get a refill on birth control and the person in line turns around and says, "Hi, Professor Orichalcum!" Luckily, I helped her with her crossword puzzle (though neither of us had any clue who the Fonz's gf on Happy Days was; Will Shortz is totally dating himself) and thus bonded with her that way, and she didn't hear my prescription. Apparently she's already written up a 14-page study guide for my midterm on Thursday.

And on the other side of things, there are my colleagues. On the main Classics mailing list, someone posted a memorial poem for the victims of VT. Very nice sentiment, but it was in unglossed Russian. When someone pointed this out, the professor responded:

"As I have argued in the now rather distant past, when this list had some
life and spunk in it, any good Classicist should know (besides Greek and
Latin) German, Italian, French, Russian and at least one Asian
language. This is hardly an insuperable accomplishment. Those who work
in Byzantine studies have an even greater set of languages to master."

I'm really tempted to write something back like, "Yes, and using words like "insuperable" shows that you clearly don't care about easy comprehension in the English language either."


Had a good if tiring weekend. Have almost beaten Zelda. Currently, Mac is rolling his giant stuffed D20 around the floor and I shout out what number it is whenever it stops rolling. Oops, he's going for Hornblower DVDs again - must avert!